Poor old Gladstone…who knew? Such a bad lad. Not a supporter of slavery but not a vocal abolitionist, and one who benefitted from his father’s ownership of slaves….apparently “a racially marred legacy” which we must reject along with everything else he did.
Not long ago, as per the BBC film above, he was ‘one of the greatest Britons of all time’, an ‘outstanding prime minister’, an ’eminent chancellor of the exchequer’, those facts alone are ‘hugely impressive‘ but he dominated political life and ‘improved the lives of millions’ changing politics forever.
How soon forgotten as BME activists try to blacken his name and scrub it from history…the BBC’s run down of Gladstone’s life as it reports that?
Liberal politician Gladstone is the only person to have been prime minister on four separate occasions.
He is described as having “ultra-conservative” views and spoke out against abolition in Parliament because his family had slaves on their West Indian plantation.
And that’s it in two reports, very short reports on this subject….one of them bigging up the conceited Jon Snow far more than Gladstone.
No quote from those with a more rounded view of life such as….
Richard Kemp, leader of the Liberal Democrats in Liverpool, told the Liverpool Echo the debate was tokenistic and that Gladstone was “a worthy recipient of honours”. “He was born on Rodney Street [in Liverpool], and was the only person who has been prime minister on four occasions,” he said.
“His government laid the basis of the welfare state, widened who could vote and did so many things we take for granted in this country. We should be incredibly proud of him. Gladstone was without doubt an abolitionist – precisely what he argued to get it through is not for me to doubt.”
Maybe we should ban the name ‘Bevin’ after all he conscripted all those poor lads to work in the coal mines during the war…and what of those conscripted to fight?…so many sent to their deaths on the orders of politicians at home. What of the press gangs and those deported to the colonies? Who ordered that? Find their names and erase them from history. Who put all those people in the work houses or indeed in the factories that were such places of fun and comfort?
Life’s hard, often made harder by those in charge, then you die. Black people [often sold by other black people] weren’t the only ones ‘enslaved’ in reality. As Marx might say…“You have nothing to lose but your chains!”
And maybe Muhammed should also fall…’temples’ around the country celebrate this slaver and warlord. Let’s see some radical student activist trying to get their name in the papers take a stab at denouncing him and his ideology….the living document and guide to all things Islamic, the Koran, after all approves of slave taking…hence ISIS. Ban the Koran! No?
And whilst looking at various sources for this post I came across this from the Guardian…of course….
The National Service Act was the negative counterpart of the NHS, whereby civilians were dragooned into compliance with the demands of the state. Its chief proponent was Field Marshal Montgomery, the posturing bully who was in a permanent panic of denial about his repressed homosexuality, and hoped to use military service to mould national character towards chaste combative virility. For many conscripts their sense of the state was not the benign NHS but the bullying of national service square-bashing.
That’s another British heroic figure to cross off the list for repressing his homosexuality[?] and not openly supporting the LGBTUPUXVVBQ community.
The best way I’ve heard it described is that these students are moral relativists when they look across the world, but moral absolutists across time. Some Victorian guy failed to denounce slavery in the exact way they demand? Erase him from history! Slave markets in modern Libya (doubtless run by Mormons and Buddhists)? Who are we to judge?
Ditto, with Monty. They hate, hate, hate evangelical churches, or even actual shrinks, offering ‘gay cures’, but any historical figure who’s been less sexually-active than Henry VIII risks getting, well, conscripted, into the Pink Legion retroactively.
How can people stand shoulder to shoulder with Hillary Clinton given her relationship with a man that mistreats women, abuses power and lies to his Country … oh, I see ….
This idea of objecting to statues is a strange one . So the current crop of people object to some one. But supposing the next lot think a lot of someone. What is needed is a revolving thing so that people can choose – or keep rotating it so that every one is both pleased and offended at the same time.
I think it’s akin to tv series which are very popular at the time but a few years later it’s repeated and every one goes “ why did we think that was so good?’ .
If it’s bad now, just wait till the students dig out all of the tweets that Gladstone sent.
Had twittering been possible then he might have tweeted:
“…. Quran, an accursed book, so long as there is this book there will be no peace in the world. ”
instead of merely saying it in the HoC while waving the offending tome around.
I wish someone would do that today.