It is always better for governments and politicians to tackle problems they can do something about. Turning themselves into bad historians to posture about long past evils is pointless.
We can all condemn the eighteenth century slave trades. If we do it helps to remember not just the European slave traders that profited from evil, but also the African leaders who sold people to them. The Barbary pirates raided English towns and attacked English ships to enslave English people. We also need to remember the crucial role played in the nineteenth century by the U.K. Ā in abolishing much of the trade. The Royal Navy enforced new laws against it.
The problem with the past is it teems with slavery. The Romans relied on slaves Ā and enforced their imperial government on subject peoples like the English with a brutal army. The Normans killed our King and imposed serfdom on many English people, stealing the lands from their English owners. No one suggests these wrongs can or should be tackled by compensation or apologies.
The past is a foreign land no one can revisit. We can study it, learn from it and seek to understand it. We can also all agree slavery is wrong. That should lead us to tackle it now in our world.
October 24, 2024
Good morning.
Quite right, Sir John.
But alas we have a Foreign Secretary that is either poorly educated or, willfully ignorant of the facts. Facts that, rather his ancestors and fellow Africans were practicing slavery BEFORE Europeans arrived, he would rather push the narrative that slavery was a White man’s game and they, the Africans, were all victims.
It is also a nice little earner for former failed colonies who, since independence, have basically ruined their country. You don’t hear Singapore demand reparations. They have too much pride and a strong work ethic, making them far wealthier.
Like the climate scam or the BLM this is just another grift that will see money syphoned off into the hands of a few with the majority seeing nothing.
October 24, 2024
Mark, failed economies since independece perhaps. However Caribbean countries that had British rule show higher GDP per capita than other Caribbean countries and than the African countries that people were taken from. There is a case for saying historic slavery has left the current generation wealthier.
October 24, 2024
Quite, Intellectual property shared has never been paid for. Maybe we can start that discussion. I am sure the bill is huge.
October 24, 2024
Indeed perhaps and payments should be in the other direction.
October 24, 2024
@PeteB – difference is they were given British lands for free, bought out of slavery all paid for by the British Citizens taxes that never at any time profited from the activities
October 24, 2024
Just like the stupidity with regards the Chagos Islands. The Chagos Islands have not been returned to the Chagos people, the Chagos People will not be allowed to return. The Chagos Islands have been handed to a Country that has never owned the Islands, at best it was classed as a pseudo collective by foreign powers at one time or another. So someone has made an assumption without consultation of the people and if you can call it that the real inhabitants can not have a say.
It helped Mauritius to use a good buddy and former colleague of TTK to negotiate the give away
October 24, 2024
Yes, Pete, that case should be made.
October 24, 2024
Having a British hating government, an equally ignorant Foreign Secretary cheered on by the useless Archbishop of Canterbury what’s the betting we end up paying.
We’ve already given the Chagos to China via Mauritius a total act of self harm. No doubt we’ll be ceding the Channel islands together with the fishing grounds over to France.
There’s no end to what this mendacious government will do to burnish its international credentials at the expense of the UK taxpayer.
Will the Home secretary be held responsible for Peter Lynch’s death in custody after the kangaroo court of free beer kier.
October 24, 2024
But Yvette Cooper-Balls assures us that the police, DPP and the legal system have operational independence – surely she would not lie to us would she? Must just have been a coincidence with Starmer’s demands for long sentences rapidly delivered that led to the absurdly long sentencing for relatively trivial first offences and Peter Lynches sad death as a political prisoner.
October 24, 2024
Talking of political victims the Police Officer was surely absurdly charged with murder (something he was clearly never going to be found guilty of unless he got some absurdly rogue jury) was surely another political victim. He was white and had rightly shot a black man in self defence. The powers that be Kahn, Lammy, Sultana types wanted to show they were doing something. So in an attempt to appease they picked on him (despite surely know he was not guilty even of any offence) tet alone Murder!
Then they even released his name to put him and his family further in danger. What has Yvette go to say on this?
October 24, 2024
OK, his name shouldn’t have been released, but it was released under the Tory government in March this year.
According to the BBC, independent judge Mark Lucraft decided he could be named even though he knew threats were made against him. Media organisations, including the BBC, challenged the legal application to protect his identity. Mr Justice Lucraft concluded: “In my judgment, the naming of the defendant, or the giving of his date of birth, does not give rise to a real and immediate risk to his life.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-68502539
October 24, 2024
Victimhood is one of the great rackets of our time. The race hustlers who promote the slavery reparations are much, much louder than those who point out the flaws in their case.
Victimhood is also a great racket for the hardline elements in the state of Israel. It provides another excuse for its excesses. This probably wonāt get published as the Israel lobby ensures that there are consequences for those who question their approach.
October 24, 2024
Quite so, in your last para. This is all about the claimants wishing to prop-up their corrupt administrations in the hope of clinging onto office for a year or two more. However, given the desire of our government to splash cash we don’t have around, to those who don’t earn it, no doubt he’ll agree its a worthy cause.
October 24, 2024
@Mark B.
In just one 7 year period in the 17th Century his African forefathers captured and enslaved the crews of 466 vessels of the South West of England
October 24, 2024
What a refreshing idea! Letās contemplate what we are ourselves responsible for, and apologise for our own mistakes and claim credit for our own good work.
Nobody can apologise on behalf of anyone else just as we cannot take the glory won by anyone else.
Accepting that premise Reeves should apologise for misusing her business credit card, which was removed from her for that reason. She should apologise for plagiarism in her book, she should apologise for (some of?)expense claims to Parliamentary Authorities.
Then she and we should consider where she is a fit person to deal with the nationās money.
October 24, 2024
Politicians love to say sorry for things they never caused, but so very rarely for things they did. Blair/Major say sorry for the potato famine but Major does not for his predictable ERM fiasco or many other abject failures. Nor Blair for his counterproductive losing wars on a lie. Sunak and Boris have still not said sorry for his lockdown lunacy, gross economic incompetency as chancellor or the net harm Covid āvaccineā. When will anyone say sorry for the climate alarmist net zero lunacy.
Cameron has not said sorry for his to the tens of thousands lie or his cast iron one.
October 24, 2024
When did we have a fit person to deal with the nations money in Number 11? Certainly not John ERM Major, Brown, Darling, Osborne, Hammond, Javid, Sunak, Hunt, Reevesā¦
So now Reeves wants to further mug private pensions and further protect state gold plated ones. Two tier pensions, two tier justice, two tier policeā¦
So will the Judge and Kier Starmer ever say sorry for the sad death of Peter Lynch.
October 24, 2024
Making an already grossly unfair system even more so.
October 24, 2024
Or indeed a competent health secretary (or NHS CEO) who knew anything much about healthcare, running large organisations or the logic of āfree at the point of delay, rationing and huge waiting listsā. Or an energy secretary who know anything about energy engineering, physics, entropy, electricity grids, the consequences of absurdly rigged marketsā¦
October 24, 2024
Absolutely correct in every word. Unfortunatly in the current world of international politics there are those, driven by the chance of a free handout, and the gullible prepared to consider it. It is a form of bribery.
That it still exists in other cultures is no doubt true. Where identified it should be condemned and sanctioned. If it encroaches on our shores, grooming gangs, FGM, and teenage arranged marriage being symptoms of it, it should be prosecuted fearlessly.
October 24, 2024
No way. Diversity and inclusion remember.
October 24, 2024
Slavery now exists in the UK. Itās acknowledged as āmodern slaveryā. What is modern about it? Donāt they mean contemporary?
October 24, 2024
ā It is always better for governments and politicians to tackle problems they can do something about.ā
Indeed. But from the point of view of the state sector and many politicians the reverse is usually the case. Something like climate alarmism and the war on the gas of life – plant, tree and crop food is ideal. If you can con people into blind faith in this deluded religion – it is a perfect excuse for ever more taxation, more state power, more state controlā¦plus, as it is a non problem it āsolvesā itself anyway.
So bonkers is this religion that even if you swallow the devil gas fiery hell on earth agenda the things they push – wind, solar, public transport, walking, cycling, EVs, exporting whole industries like steel do not even save any or any significant CO2.
October 24, 2024
agreed!
October 24, 2024
The Commonwealth should become a hub for free trade. Forget any guilt from actions past and promote Trade as better than Aid. I can accept food miles when the origen is the Commonwealth. We have a common language and legal system. So where goods can be bought and sold, facilitate it, for the good of all members.
October 24, 2024
Good Lord! Where did you get all that nonsense from?
October 24, 2024
I think agricola may be under the impression that Palmerston is still prime minister!
October 24, 2024
South Africa has used Roman Dutch Law since the Dutch East India Company – there was no consistency even in the Dominions even in Palmerstonās time.
I donāt believe English is even an official language in Mozambique.
If you look at the voting record in the UN, of commonwealth countries, you will see that they are misaligned on many, many issues.
In fact all they ever have been interested in is turning our treasure into common wealth!
PS I see there are discussions by proposed EU members regarding replacing the EU with BRICS. I suggest replacing the Commonwealth with BRICS too. If we join BRICS, letās not let France or Germany in!
October 24, 2024
That would compensate them for being shut out of the EU market.
October 24, 2024
There are at least two books that all MPs and Lords should read: ‘The English & Their History’ by Robert Tombs and ‘Colonialism – A Moral Reckoning’ by Nigel Biggar. I’d like to suggest none should be allowed to take office in government without passing a test of their knowledge of history, economics, international affairs and defence (Nigel Biggar’s ‘In Defence of War’ and ME Sarotte’s ‘Not One Inch’ should also be mandated).
Essentially our politicians are still for the most part gifted amateurs with very little relevant knowledge. I understand the Right wing Anti-Lockdown and Anti-Vax brigades oppose any experts ever being allowed near decision making but expertise is nevertheless required for competent government.
October 24, 2024
PS. I omitted to mention that the problem with a test is that we couldn’t trust the testers – just look at the state of education, the root cause of much of what is wrong in and with UK today. So, Houston mission control, we have a problem and there is nobody here to fix it.
October 24, 2024
How true, Peter, and how true also of the PCR test, not to mention the lateral flow tests, those unreliable but highly profitable boondoggles OK’ed by the ‘experts’ you seem to worship. The country is owed two years of its life, that frightened politicians, venal experts and bought-and-paid-for media personalities took away from us.
October 24, 2024
PG : āSo, Houston mission control, we have a problem and there is nobody here to fix it.ā
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The only way to āfix itā is to allow freedom of speech, only then can the truth finally emerge.
The Far Left UN/WEF/Government CAGW/Net Zero scam would have been ended by now if we had freedom of speech on the issue rather than, as we see at the BBC, a complete clampdown on any discussion of the subject. No examination of the false radiative theory of CAGW even when ridiculous statements are made such as :
āWater vapour does act as a greenhouse gas [it is the biggest] , however it is not considered a driver of
climate change.ā
But anthropogenic emissions of CO2 from the West (but not from China) are!
Richard Feynman, an American physicist famous for his work on quantum electrodynamics said :
āReligion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.ā
To āfix itā we need experts to be uncensored.
October 24, 2024
Thank you.
October 24, 2024
Lockdown for Covid did huge net harm and cost a fortune it delays millions of early natural and effective vaccinations and at best delayed a few deaths by a few weeks. Huge net harm all obvious at the time.
As to vaccines, some do net good others did/do huge net harm like the new tech ineffective Covid ones. I am for the net good ones and against the net harm ones. Is this not the rational position? No one under about 55 and healthy or who had had Covid needed a covid vaccine even had they been safe and effective – they were neither it seems.
October 24, 2024
There are no net good ones.
You remind me of Tom Learerās ā60 song:
We all hate poverty, war and injusticeā¦.unlike the rest of you squares.
October 24, 2024
I think quite a few vaccines do do more good than harm but we certainly cannot trust big pharma or the compromised vaccine regulators (they fund) or the trials they run.
October 24, 2024
PG : āI understand the Right wing Anti-Lockdown and Anti-Vax brigades oppose any experts ever being allowed near decision making but expertise is nevertheless required for competent government.ā
Yes, we need āexperts for competent governmentā. But more importantly no āexpertsā should ever be cancelled/censored/silenced if they do not agree with the government as weāve seen with Covid-19 and CAGW/Net Zero.
That is the big mistake.
October 24, 2024
PG : āI understand the Right wing Anti-Lockdown and Anti-Vax brigades oppose any experts ever being allowed near decision making but expertise is nevertheless required for competent government.ā
Quite so. So why has the Government just appointed a humanities graduate as the CEO of the Climate Change Committee, replacing a graduate of finance and law? Why are the CCC, DESNZ (previously BEIS), Ofgem, NESO etc. populated by arts, languages (modern and ancient), history (modern and ancient), PPE, finance and law graduates instead of engineers and physicists?
Why is our energy policy decided by tax-payer funded arts and law populated ācharitiesā and judges who admit they know nothing about energy?
Itās obvious why.
October 24, 2024
There is a difference between being knowledgable, I.e educated, and being āan expertā, my definition of an āex spertā has long been āa drip under pressureā
Of course we assumed that all who are proposed for elected office are educated. Mistake obviously in this century.
October 24, 2024
TTK does not read books.
October 25, 2024
Most of our politicians are amateurs – but very few of them are gifted. Ironically its those who are “professional politicians” clutching their PPE degrees who came up through the SpAd route who are the least gifted of all.
We need our politicians to protect us from “expert fools” like Whitty and Vallance who destroyed the economy over a virus they knew was no risk to 99% of the population. And the expert fools who think wrecking our manufacturing base and energy security in order to eliminate our 1% of CO2 emissions is desirable. It isn’t.
October 24, 2024
The compensation that the Caribbean people are demanding has already been paid. They now own their islands, very valuable real estate. When those island nations became independent they took control and ownership of the islands, worth trillions in today’s money.
October 24, 2024
And therein lies the problem, once youāve received compensation/free-hand-out, you believe that youāre entitled to it for the rest of your life ā¦.just look at the UN relief agencies
October 24, 2024
And of course General Motors bought that vast swathe of land named āLiberiaā for freed slaves who wanted to return home to Africa.
Those who did not go have no complaint.
Indeed, Africa is almost Caucasian free, including the areas where there were no blacks when the Caucasians settled it. Iām talking of the area between the Cape of good Hope to the Fish River.
October 24, 2024
Exactly, Robert, a point well made.
October 24, 2024
The slavery issue doing the rounds…..again.
How much more can be milked out of us over this, financially, culturally and politically.
I’d like a particular page from Cobbett’s ‘Rural Rides’ to land on certain people’s desks.
A journey through parts of England leading him to contrast what he sees there with what he saw while touring the Southern States of USA.
He remarks that those liberals in the House are at it again, (that being an earlier version of virtue signalling) while ignoring what is happening closer to home.
With Labour in power and Lammy given a big role to play, I expected this.
What sickens me is that many in politics and the public will all go along with it.
I’ve no doubt teachers, many now raised on the one-sided left wing version of everything, will have all the children bowing their heads.
There will be more calls for all minority ethnic groups to be put in charge of everything and anything as part of the reparations.
Who is going to stop all this?
October 24, 2024
I very much agree we should be tackling modern slavery today and moving on from historical grievances which cannot be undone but unfortunately there are people today who privately understand that but are out for reparations too and that needs to be confronted and corrected.
All countries, tribes and religious sects have behaved terribly towards each other, at one time or another, since the inception of man. Many still do today. Slavery is just one part of that tapestry of wrongdoing.
On the subject of slavery specifically though, Britain is no more responsible for past slavery than any other group who engaged in it and Britain therefore should not be singled out for reparations when, in the unlikely event there is a case for them, it is the rest of the world who is even more liable given it was Britain who ended slavery and committed the Royal Navy to patrol the seas to enforce it!
Of equal relevance to the subject of reparations, it is necessary to note Britain invested GBP trillions (in today’s monetary values) and developed these countries from often barren, uncultivated and undeveloped lands (sometimes accompanied by savage behaviour) into cutting-edge economies. Upon independence all of these colonies had been the beneficiary of unprecedented capital investment which led to their exponential advancement and growth which they all got for free!
No-one gave Britain such an advantage but Britain gave the world that advantage. Britain’s gift to the world via the British Empire was civilisation and prosperity and history proves it easily.
We also saved the colonies from Germany annexing them in WW1 and WW2 and enslaving these people. That too cost us everything we had. We were bankrupted after WW2 and we lost the Empire as a result. The colonies were the beneficiaries of that human and financial sacrifice too.
The GBP trillions of capital investment and the human and financial sacrifice Britain made for their survival in the 20th century means these claimants owe us far more than we owe them. Therefore we do not owe them a penny in reparations.
If we were to be uncharacteristically mean about it we are actually owed a rebate for that gargantuan capital investment which I guarantee dwarfs any of their reparations claims but of course we are not money grabbing opportunists so we won’t do that.
But in any discussion of historical grievances that gargantuan capital investment cannot be ignored and neither can WW1 and WW2.
October 24, 2024
Well said!
October 24, 2024
If reparations are justified, it should come from the West and Central African nations whose ancestors enslaved other tribes and spld them to the Arabs and Europeans, initially the Portuguese. They could offer to pay for repatriation from the Carribean to Africa and compensation with an African basic income for an African lifespan. Perhaps a job in a lithium mine or security protection for Christians being attacked by jihardis. This would be very popular with West Indians living in tourist resorts.
The UK must be owed billions in today’s money for the Royal Navy expenses in policing the Atlantic after banning the slave trade. The Commonwealth African nations should cough up or lose aid and trade.
October 24, 2024
This is a really excellent summary on the history of slavery.
For those who may wish to read just a little more I would recommend this piece by
Jamaican historian Martin Henry. See here: http://www.rhodesia.me.uk/africas-role-in-slavery/
October 24, 2024
Mali (West Africa) only legally abolished slavery in 1960
ISIS (Middle East) continued slavery throughout its territory 2014-2019
China + other countries continue with political & worker slavery
October 24, 2024
Than you Sir John, all sensible stuff as usual.
When I remind people slavery was covered in the Bible as a normal part of society, long before Britain was a thing, they try to dismiss that as ancient history, whereas 18th century world activities is somehow modern and relevant to current affairs.
I then advise them when Britain outlawed slavery worldwide, we were the first and only World power ever to do so.
I also remind them the world population back then was a mere tenth of what it is today. Whale oil was the main source of light after dark, horses were the only form of travel from one town to the next and life expectancy was sub 40 years for the average man and woman in Britain. Back then peasants and the bulk of society was riddled with poverty and disease. For many, living in total squalor, life and existence as a slave would have been a social uplift from their tenement based unwashed hungry survival in places like Glasgow, Liverpool and London.
October 24, 2024
Yes, Rod.
If the people currently running the UK put this on the agenda, what can we do about it?
October 24, 2024
‘Mark B’ nailed it above. “nice little earner”
October 24, 2024
Compensation now for the victims and wrongs of people who have been dead for over 200 years.
The World has gone absolutely mad !
The problem is, we actually may have some people in Parliament who may think it is a good idea.
October 24, 2024
BA
Why stop at two hundred years?
I want women to pay compensation for getting us kicked out of the Garden of Eden.
October 24, 2024
And God for stealing a rib! š
October 24, 2024
LA, Thatās a good one.
October 24, 2024
”The UK currently has 6 bilateral ODA programmes in the Caribbean. One of them, the UK Caribbean Infrastructure Fund, is our flagship initiative comprising approximately Ā£350 million (80% of our bilateral portfolio)”
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-caribbean-region-development-partnership-summary/a8ac4844-d44c-48c5-ad40-ec308ef5d54f
We’re already paying them, and probably 600 MPs and 1000 Peers agree
October 24, 2024
Not the world Alan, Starmers Britain, we are being laughed at. Starmer is seen as weak because he and his team are photographed on their knees, giving in, backing down.
October 24, 2024
Well as with the first abolition there must be financial considerations.
Imagine cheap labour that is actually free!
And then you have the tedious business of who quits first giving rivals the financial/profit edge.
But the hypocrisy is mind blowing.
October 24, 2024
Excellent common sense comments.
<B<How much more are we going to spend to heal the conscience of the liberal left who most likely benefitted from historic slavery as much as anyone?
It is an aberration to imagine that money can put right issues from the past. Should we be suing the descendants of those historic leaders from the last century who started world wars and killed so many?
No, that makes no sense, but that is how the ignorant liberal mind works.
There is another element to this seeming self flagellation. Just like those who get upset for others over a perceived injustice or insult, it gives them power. Power to stand up and be important for 5 minutes.
We should dismiss all of this nonsense, but other weak minds will push these irresponsible things onward, especially when they have gained power so easily. Their attention needs to be re-directed towards present time abuses that they prefer to ignore; child slavery and abductions, forced marriages, etc. There are plenty of examples where some human lives are worth less than animals in today’s world.
October 24, 2024
I reckon that the English have a pretty good case against the Romans and William the Conqueror.
Not to mention the dispossession, death, maiming, starvation and deracination of the Industrial Revolution.
Now who benefitted from that? š¤
October 24, 2024
It is now no longer possible to move on from past slavery, it has to dealt with and the arguments mercilessly killed off , no prevarication or worrying about hurt feelings should be allowed , which is difficult for it is such part of the feeble British establishment’s make up , for the reason we have this situation is because the British establishment have allowed totally spurious claims to take hold without bothering to rubbish them. They have been lazy and incompetent and unfortunately I doubt they have it in them to fight our corner.
October 24, 2024
Located at Liverpoolās Pier Head is the āInternational Slavery Museumā, Iāve visited and today looked at their website ā¦.Slavery appears to have started with Englandās transportation to the Americaās ā¦almost entirely our fault ..Its not education its indoctrination
https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/collections/international-slavery-museum/international-slavery-museum-collections
October 24, 2024
But who in the establishment will stridently object to those who are weak or deliberately active in having our country demoralised. And where are they?
Having a debate is not enough, part of the weak refusal to take and promote our moral side.
October 24, 2024
An ideological weapon to destabilise the West.
And because of the idiocy/greed/cowardice of our āleadersā it will prove far more effective than probably even a nuclear war.
October 24, 2024
+1
October 24, 2024
Totally agree the world needs to move on.
October 24, 2024
Excellent post, very well put, I agree 100%. This is where we need an effective opposition, the subject of yesterday’s post.
If the leadership (in-waiting or otherwise) of both opposition Parties could mount a full-scale airing of the points you make, it might swing public opinion enough to make “reparations” too politically costly.
As it is, I come across many people who soak up the MSM narrative who have been conditioned to think there is some justice in “reparations”. Unless this is countered, we are stuffed.
October 24, 2024
Then by today’s prices how much did it cost the British Citizen to buy the ‘freedom’ of the Slaves? How much did cost the British Citizen to fund a Navy just to stop the Slave Trade. How much was the territory handed over to those that were slaves worth? It wasn’t their land, most of it wasn’t any ones land until the explorers of the time found it and made it British.
It was African Tribes, Nations that enslaved the Africans, by war or because or their crimes for their own profit. It was enslavement or death. How many of those making these claims are descendants from the murderers or thieves seized/arrested by their communities? Just as it was Africans that raided the British coast capturing and enslaving British Citizens taking no fewer than 466 vessels and their crews in just one 7 year period in the 17th Century, and that was just a small moment in time.
There is an assumption that Mr & Mrs Average British Citizen profited personally from the Slave Trade while they were still surfs(surf was used instead of slave as it was deemed a softer word) of those Normans that took their lands. The over arching reality is that it is possible to extrapolate those that stole the land and enslaved the British Citizen were the descendants of those involved in the Slave Trade.
October 24, 2024
If by Africans you mean the Barbary pirates,you will find that many of the leading pirates so designated were actually redundant sailors of English or Dutch origin operating freelance out of north African ports.They frequently adopted muslim names(some even converted) and shared the sale proceeds of their activities with the local Ottoman authorities.
“Pirates of Barbary: Corsairs,Conquests and Captivity in the 17th century Mediterranean” by Adrian Tinniswood gives a good account of their activities.
October 24, 2024
@Mitchel – and those captured from English shores, devastating many small communities were if not ransomed sold into slavery, in Africa. As is I assume Sir Johns point is that trying to foist what happened by peoples ancestors onto their descendants is stretching the realities of the age they then lived in. Are you saying the whole African Continent was absolved from their centuries old practice because some of them had specific tribal names/gangs? It was Africans that captured Africans through War, tribal conflict and to simply rid themselves of their what we call now murderers and criminals, that sold their own people as Slaves not the English that at the time the majority were still slaves themselves. In all probability those that bought the slaves in Africa were themselves descendants of the Normans that enslaved the English
The English taxpayer that paid to have slaves freed, that paid to have its Navy stop the trade they were not the profiteers as those seeking victimhood imagine, they are the reason they have a life.
October 25, 2024
No,I’m referring to your specific comment that Africans raided England.
October 24, 2024
This is a very succinct summary of the issue, as good as any I have read. Well done!
But i would amend your opening sentence to ‘ It is always easier for Governments and Politicians to attempt to tackle problems that they can do nothing about’.
October 24, 2024
With black lives matters, black history month, taking the knee and a single view taught in schools, I believe that our own government(s) have been complicit in fostering a campaign which encourages financial compensation, apology and the rewriting of history ā¦.make it law that the people & government of the UK canāt be held responsible for events beyond five generations
October 24, 2024
Also councils, universities and government departments allowing the removal or resighting of historic statues & paintings ā¦its all a direction of travel ..WOKE
October 24, 2024
Also our King. As he is so contrite why does he not hand over the assets in the commonwealth and the USA that he owns to Africa?
In reparation to the descendants of British slaves he should hand over all assets held in Britain.
October 24, 2024
As usual, Sir J. – quite so.
If you were to go back in time and alter the past, then nobody who is actually alive now would be alive under those altered conditions. So those complaining of slavery would, amongst others, disappear in a puff of time-evolution logic.
October 24, 2024
292 criminals arrived in the UK yesterday from the safe country of France ā¦with zero returns
October 24, 2024
Cheers.
Perhaps once they claim and gain asylum they will be able to return to collect their families ? You know, the wo en and children they left behind š
October 24, 2024
Right to a family life …..ECHRs , as is the right to return to the country you’ve fled, for a short holiday !
October 24, 2024
Large parliamentary delegation returning to this country?
October 24, 2024
Trying to address tiny shards of history ā and ignoring the rest, is abstract and quite absurd.
As with global warming and many other issues, it is hijacked by politics.
A waste of everyoneās time. As always, the vast majority of the population are not interested in these student politics issues.
October 24, 2024
Such is our country’s global poor standing in 2024. Even the Commonwealth of Nations is capitalising on the world’s ‘softest touch’.
No matter it was this country which introduced laws to stop the slave trade. No matter when those laws were passed, early in the 19th century, African Kings complained that they would no longer have access to slaves for their realms. No matter slavery still exists in other parts of the world with futile attempts to stop it.
What does matter is that our country is now viewed as a bottomless purse to anyone who makes a claim against it. And all because we’ve signalled the message that our main ambition and purpose now is to save the world, regardless of the enormous cost to the citizens who have to live here.
Government warning for 2029! Socialism will damage the economy. Badly.
October 24, 2024
Real economic historians will tell you that when the original British plantation owners went to the coast of West Africa to find labour, they were not looking for slaves. Why would they be? Slavery was alien to their culture. They were looking for indentured labour as they had used before from elsewhere, but the African chiefs said that is not how we do things round here: you will have to buy them.
For an example of how different morality was in the past, think of how women condemned to death were never executed if they were expecting. The unborn child had rights then it does not have now.
Mrs Badenoch has the best line on this preposterous development in the Commonwealth: “It is a scam. Don’t fall for it.”
October 24, 2024
Just got back from the Greek Isles. Visited many historical sites. All built by slaves according to all local guides. Why no protests in Greece. Why no slavery reparations demanded?
October 24, 2024
And in the cradle of ‘democracy’ too!
October 24, 2024
They have no money !
October 24, 2024
The Caribbean and African countries have already learned that Starmer is weak and Lammy an idiot. That is why they will keep pressing for compensation for what they choose to see as past wrongs. The Chagos Islands’ decision told them they were dealing with a weak, Ineffective PM who would bend if enough pressure was applied.
So they will keep applying the pressure.
October 24, 2024
I knew things would be bad with a Labour government; I didn’t think they’d turn so bad quite so quickly.
October 24, 2024
I actually see no, or little, difference between this and the last government
October 24, 2024
The Commonwealth is no longer a useful construct for the present and future. We should focus on maintaining mutual self-interest with individual countries where this is desirable from a material point-of-view, not on the basis of sentimentality or the desire to protect our national ego from the reality of either being asked to leave or being kicked out of our ex-colonies. That mutual self-interest does not include reparations.
October 24, 2024
Nothing to disagree with here.
But this is part of the UN’s Agenda to redistribute wealth from western nations, transfer it to other nations “who deserve it” and global levelling down.
Nothing we do will eradicate the past. And however much they were given, it would never be enough.
If they send us a bill for slavery reparations, we should send them a bill for using, for free, all the inventions we have given to the world. I guarantee they would end up owing US money.
October 24, 2024
āIn 1833, Britain used Ā£20 million, 40% of its national budget, to buy freedom for all slaves in the Empire. The amount of money borrowed for the Slavery Abolition Act was so large that it wasn’t paid off until 2015. Which means that living British citizens helped pay to end the slave trade.ā
I think weāve done our bit.
October 24, 2024
And the reason it was called compensation and not buying was that Parliament had just outlawed buying and selling of human beings. This is never explained to the people who say they want compensation for the slaves too. Buying them was simply the safest, quickest, most effective way of freeing them but it couldn’t be called that.
October 24, 2024
Ā£20,000,000 in 1833 is equivalent in purchasing power to about Ā£2,983,444,781.68 today, an increase of Ā£2,963,444,781.68 over 191 years. The pound had an average inflation rate of 2.66% per year between 1833 and today, producing a cumulative price increase of 14,817.22%.
October 24, 2024
There is a difference however – in the eighteenth centuries the English and some other Europeans put themselves forward as enlightened, civilised and educated peoples, busy with commerce, churchgoers all but that did not apply to others mentioned here who were the native peoples the ‘savages’. Regretably we should have known better – in fact we did know better but took advantage – greed took over and countless indigenous peoples suffered and died in awful circumstance – we are not going to get away with just a nod to the past – there is certainly a case to be answered
October 24, 2024
We educated millions, free of charge. Including Gandhi and Mandela both to become lawyers. I dispute your assumption. Itās plain wrong.
October 24, 2024
Well said Sir John, I wish that the Labour simpleton would read your diary today, as a mariner my sympathy goes to the people and families of RN seamen who lost heir lives stopping slavery,
The nasties trying to profit now from actions of the past must be pushed back.
October 24, 2024
The whole notion of compensation for long past slavery is pure nonsense as nobody alive has suffered slavery from British slave traders or even personally knew a relative who did so. In principle compensation is only relevant for personal suffering or loss, not for distant history – otherwise we could claim compensation from Italy for the ancient Roman invasion, from Denmark and Norway for Viking raids and from France for their invasion of 1066! It is all absurd and instead of taking it seriously we should question the sanity of those proposing it.
October 24, 2024
You could spend a lifetime trying to right the wrongs of the past with its infinite permutations and still never arrive at any agreement regardless for many logical reasons.
It doesn’t stop some people trying it on with the noise amplified by woke MSM who love to peddle ludicrous outrageous stories. No wonder China, Russia and countries like North Korea enjoy seeing the West tying itself in knots and guilt whilst they indulge in their own versions of slavery regardless.
October 24, 2024
No chance of getting reparations for modern slavery, and they’re all on the make so they’re not interested. We should just shutter the Commonwealth, it’s worthless. Have specific bilateral talks with Canada, Australia and New Zealand about constitutional matters, the rest of them can queue up to prostrate themselves before Chairman Xi.
October 24, 2024
All of this looking to the past and bringing up questions about reparations etc would not have happened during the late Queen’s time – she was too much respected in her own right – but now that she has gone we can see that respect for the monarchy and the Commonwealth is fast disappearing – it was bound to happen – they themselves ‘the royals’ allowed the mystique to slip away – might be best now to just let it all go and draw a line
October 25, 2024
Immigrants who are here now and baying for reparations should do some history and look at ancestors of the indigenous population who worked in the factories in the 19thC in terrible conditions without health security or working rights, my family come to mind who worked for Chance Brothers in the Midlands. Then they should look at the small towns by the sea who were regularly plundered by the arabs who wanted slaves. I read that they were so frightening to look at that some people died on the spot. I am fed up with listening to people who have had the benefits that my ancestors, and myself, have worked hard for. They should shut up and get to work like we did and that means all hours that God sends you not wfh and four day weeks or living off benefits.
October 26, 2024
Fully agree – it is future we should all be conceerned with. Reparations are b…..t unless of course the enslaved countries were willing to pay for all the advantages which the colonial powers introduced.