The supporters of Rangers Football club had a special message from their club last night as they took their seats to watch the match against Hamilton Academicals.

If they sang “The Famine Song” they were liable to be arrested.

This statement had been written after consultation with the police.

Strathclyde police later reported that there was only one arrest at Ibrox Park and that was for drunkenness.

James McCarthy, the young Irish midfielder for Hamilton who had received sustained racist abuse from Rangers fans on Saturday in the SPL at New Douglas Park, was allowed to go about his job without being told to go home to Ireland.

This is progress. If it takes little electronic reminders to Rangers fans not to indulge in racist singing because they are at risk of arrest then so be it.

One day such warnings will not be required.

They are at the moment. The  “Self-Policing” initiative brought in by Rangers Supporters organisations obviously did not include forbidding grown men racially abusing a 17 years old kid who plays his international football for the Republic of Ireland.

If “Self-Policing” fails then real policing is required. As it turned out all that was needed to remind the Rangers support that the Famine song was, in the opinion of the police, illegal.

When social historians come to write this period of Scotland’s history they will undoubtedly spend a few paragraphs on unpacking the “Famine Song Controversy”.

My Professor at York University, Laurie Taylor, was fond of highlighting where an old dispensation was blindsided by a new paradigm. This is, essentially, what I think has happened here. The Famine Song controversy has been a clash of rights versus racism.

The Famine Song was merely the most recent manifestation of Scotland’s oldest racism. In the old Scotland the idea of the mere Irish having rights was a stupid as blacks folks being at the front of the bus before Rosa Parks said “enough”

Racism is, in contemporary Scotland, not only socially unacceptable it is also illegal.

So the Famine Song had to be defended by those who sang it with a denial that the song was, in fact, racist.

David Edgar of the Rangers Supporters Trust stated on Radio 5 Live that the Famine song was “a rather tasteless chant”, but he dismissed the idea that the Famine Song was racist as “nonsense”.

Belatedly the campaigning organisation “Show Racism The Red Card” publicly stated, on the 6^th of this month, on their website that the Famine song was racist.

Rangers Football Club has yet to publicly concur with that opinion.

The police had advised Rangers Football club in September that singing the song could put the singers at risk to arrest for a “racial breach of the peace”.

The Famine song is racist. The debate on that should be closed. Why this controversy ensued was that the denigration of the Irish in the West of Scotland is in the societal DNA of the old Scotland of the British Empire. That is the Scotland that spawned Rangers.

That global expansion of the London state is now, of course, a matter of history it is no longer a matter of fact.  There are more people in Cork City than live in British Crown Colonies today.

The Empire is over and now only the trailer trash of that empire remains to vent their hatred at those who once were that empire’s victims.

Graham Spiers stated, in the aftermath of the Manchester riots in May that “a white underclass has attached itself to Rangers.”

Moreover the Times journalist was of the opinion that “there is a social poison at the heart of the club.”

It was, in my opinion, that poisonous core that sang the Famine Song with such gusto.

Alan Shatter wrote to the Ibrox club on October 2^nd about the Famine song.  I checked with this office today (October 29^th) and he had yet to receive a reply to his letter.

Ireland and the Irish still have a special place in the mindset of the “white underclass” that Graham Spiers referred to when discussing the Manchester riots.

Ironically it has been the involvement of the Irish in Ireland and our elected representatives that has seen this racist sub-stratum scuttle in confusion.

How many of those who racially abused 17-year-old James McCarthy at New Douglas Park on Saturday sat obediently at Ibrox last night?

Is that all it takes?

The Billy Boys, a song roared in hatred at the Glasgow Irish Untermensch for generations, for generations, is now gone, banished from soccer stadia in Scotland.

It is appropriate to use the lexicon of the Nazis because the song celebrates the street gang formed by Billy Fullerton.

Fullerton was one of Mosley’s Blackshirts and formed a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in Glasgow in the 1920s.

In the new paradigm of rights and respect in Scotland the old culture of Ibrox has no place.

If it is required that for a while such basic tenets of human decency need to be displayed on large screens in big writing, if not in big words, at Ibrox Park then so be it.

Last night the Famine song was not sung at Ibrox.

Now that is a result that I can truly celebrate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phil phoned George Galloway’s radio programme to inform him of the awful racist abuse that young James McCarthy had received from Rangers fans that day at New Douglas Park. Phil also told George that James had been racially abused the previous week by a section of the visiting St.Mirren fans.

Phil was emailed to say that there had been a caller to George’s show claiming to be a St.Mirren fan in Bolton who claimed that James McCarthy had NOT been racially abused by St.MIrren fans at New Douglas Park. Moreover that postings to this site putting the St.Mirren side of the story had been ‘taken down.’ As the site is moderated there is no need to ‘take down’ any message. Unsuitable postings are simply not approved. The usual reason being that the postings are abusive or very badly written.

 

 

As a journalist you usually know you’re doing your job when people aren’t pleased to see you.

My family are pleased to see me, and my friends welcome me into their homes, so I don’t take it personally when people don’t want to see me and my press card.

Its only business it isn’t personal.

Billy Singh of “Show Racism The Red Card” (SRTRC) wasn’t pleased to see me at Tynecastle last Friday.

It is ok Billy this is business, nothing personal.

I had, since, mid September been trying to get an interview, a comment even, from Billy Singh of SRTRC.

I had spoken on the phone with two of his colleagues.

I wanted SRTRC’s view on the Famine Song.

Many people considered the song to be racist and it was sung at soccer grounds by Rangers fans.

The nice people at SRTRC told me that Billy Singh was dealing with the issue and that I would have to deal with him.

I left my number, but didn’t get any reply.

I had to go to print in the Irish Post on Friday October 1st with SRTRC having made no public statement about the Famine Song.

Later that day SRTRC made a statement via their website that singing the famine song could lead anyone singing it to be liable to arrest for a “racial breach of the peace”. This statement on the SRTRC website was, err, very similar to the statement released by the Ibrox club in late September.

At this stage I felt like one of the journalists who were piecing together the sequencing of the Northern Ireland Peace process. Who was writing statements for whom?

Still no call from Billy.

Finally on Monday 6^th October STRC made a public statement via their website that, in their opinion, the Famine Song was racist.

Phew!

I know that several Irish community organisations had approached SRTRC in May to complain about the Famine Song.

Still my phone didn’t ring.

A journalistic colleague who works at the Scottish parliament told me that there was due to be a charity football match played between a SRTRC select and MSPs at Hearts’ ground Tynecastle.

No brainer.

A few clicks on the Aer Lingus website and I was good to go!

It is fair to say that Billy was surprised to see me turn up in Tynecastle, as the game was about to start in Hearts home ground on Friday 17^th October.

I introduced myself and showed him my press card. I told him I was researching a piece on the Famine song.

I asked him why SRTRC had taken so long to state publicly that the famine song was racist?

Billy stated, “We have always considered the Famine Song to be racist! It brings nationality into it, it is racist and it is wrong.”

I asked Billy why, having been petitioned by Irish community groups about the song in May, that his organisation had only made a public statement two weeks before our conversation October 6^th?  Billy could not answer my question, but conceded that the October 6^th statement on the SRTRC website was the first public pronouncement by the organisation on the Famine Song.

Billy stated that SRTRC was “working behind the scenes with Rangers football club and the Rangers supporters organisations.”

Billy went onto the field of play and slotted in at right back, he did very well.

As I watched the “Red Card Select” confirm to the MSPs that they would never have made it as footballers (I stopped counting the score after five to the Red Card).

I chatted with Red Card manager for the day Lex Gold.

A very amiable man he is.

He explained to me that the SPL did not have a songbook of banned songs and he, publicly, could not have an opinion on the Famine song, as he might be the guy to punish an SPL club if they were deemed to be negligent in tackling racism among their own supporters. There was, of course, a corollary to this. If the SPL deemed the club in question to be doing all that were possible to eradicate the illegal behaviour of their fans then the SPL would not punish the club.  He agreed with me that, in a situation where the club could not be found to be negligent in tackling racism by their fans, but that if that racist behaviour persisted then it was a matter for the police not the SPL.

I also interviewed SFA boss Gordon Smith.

The ex-Rangers man stated that the SFA could not have a public view on the Famine Song as the SFA was, in effect, the court of appeal of SPL clubs.

If the SPL punished a club, for whatever reason, and the club thought this unjust or unfair then the club could appeal to the SFA.

Subsequently, Smith explained, the SFA could not have a public view on the Famine Song for that reason.

I also asked the SFA chief about the treatment of young James McCarthy who had decided to play for the Republic of Ireland. Smith was particularly adamant that young James McCarthy of Hamilton Academicals should be left alone  “It is his decision; it was his decision to make. He should be left alone!”

In fairness he couldn’t have been clearer or more unequivocal. People should leave young James McCarthy alone and respect his decision to play for Ireland.

That was from the guy at the top of Scottish soccer as we chatted in the away dugout at Tynecastle. He had just came off the field of play where he had scored the goal of the match, a twenty yard curler with the outside of his right foot.

Smith’s goal was an absolute cracker. Even topping Chic Charnley’s swerving shot which was also from outside the box.

As the Red Card team celebrated Gordon’s goal Gary McKay started to sing to the MSP team “Are you the House of Commons in disguise?”

There is nothing wrong with rubbing it into your defeated opponents, nothing at all.

Everyone who assembled in Tynecastle that day was saying that racism could not be included in any song or chant in soccer.

Agreed.

I had been concerned that following on from Ally Ross’s piece in the Sun attacking James McCarthy’s decision to elect to play for Ireland instead of the country of his birth that he would be the victim of racist abuse.

I had been in phone contact with the club secretary Scott Struthers   the week before I travelled to Scotland and I was impressed with vehemence with which he objected to the attacks on James in the media.

Moreover he told me that everyone in the club knew that James would declare for Ireland.

He explained to me that following on from the Ally Ross piece James was not speaking to the media.

This I fully understood.

I attended the Hamilton v St.Mirren match the following day at New Douglas Park.

I had called him the day before on my way back to Glasgow from Tynecastle. Scott was surprised that James had not been in touch, but it was absolutely no problem on my part.

I told him of my intention, as a journalist, to attend the next Hamilton match and sit in the away end.

I attended the Hamilton v St.Mirren match the following day at New Douglas Park.

James McCarthy was subjected to sustained racist abuse in the second half from St. Mirren fans.

Every touch of the ball was booed. In the second half Hamilton were attacking the away end. Each time McCarthy was on the ball for any length of time some chant or other would be struck up. “Plastic Paddy” was the main chant.

In the scale of racist chanting this wasn’t up there with the shameful treatment of Mark Walters by Celtic fans in the 1980s. However, it was, throughout the 2^nd half sustained. There was a vociferous minority of St.Mirren fans at the back of the away end where I was sitting.

Every touch of the ball was booed from the time I took my seat with a few minutes played right through to the final whistle.

In the first half he was the only Hamilton player who was booed by the St.Mirren fans. In the second half as Hamilton chased the equaliser.

James McCarthy was regularly on the ball charging from midfield towards the St.Mirren goal.

On each occasion he was running with the ball the chant of “There’s only one plastic paddy!” would strike up from the hard core of St.Mirren fans.

After the match I went down behind the goals and introduced myself to a senior police officer. I showed him my press card and told him that I was in touch with Scott Struthers the Hamilton club secretary and that he was expecting me.

As we walked around to the tunnel area I asked the police officer had he heard the abuse directed at young James McCarthy?

“Yeah he gets a bit of stick doesn’t he?” stated the officer with a slight giggle.

I thought, little chance of this law enforcer approaching the match delegate though the appropriate channels.

After several phone calls and emails I got to meet Scott Struthers. Lex Gold had spoken of him in high terms and I had already made, as one does, an assessment of the disembodied person you are communicating with.

He is a fine man, with only the best interests of young James McCarthy at heart.

He was willing to go on the record about the booing. He declared that he was “disappointed” at the conduct of the St.Mirren fans towards James.

I was lead into the press box where the rest of the media were preparing words and images of the soccer watch we had all just witnessed. When I was asked what blatt I was working for a couple of the pack were interested in the piece I was researching.

One sports journalist who I won’t name to save his blushes stated to me that:

“This PC thing has gone mad hasn’t it?”

I thought of the event I had attended the previous day.

I countered with “ when is anti-racism political correctness? Surely it is beyond debate that racism is a social evil and that it should be confronted at every opportunity?”

“Yeah, but James McCarthy is white and Scottish so it can’t be racist!”

This, I suspected, was what he thought to be a winning polemical point.

“Well racism isn’t necessarily a matter of skin colour, although of course it can be. FIFA and UEFA are very clear that racism can be about nationality, citizenship or ethnic heritage. The abuse aimed at James McCarthy was specifically about his Irishness and his decision to declare for the Republic if Ireland. Hence the abuse was racist.”

His answer was a mumbled “ Yeah, suppose….”

I considered that if this was typical of the level of awareness of such issues in the pressroom what chance the supporters in the cheap seats?

Scott Struthers then brought young James out to be interviewed by me.

The first thing that strikes you about the young Irish midfielder is that he IS young.

I was standing in front of him outside the pressroom at New Douglas Park and thinking that this was a boy doing a man’s job.

It wasn’t the time or the place to have a relaxed examination with a hassled 17 year old about issues of national identity. So my questions on his wearing of the green were to the point.

“Why did you pick Ireland James?”

“When I was young, when I was a kid I would always watch the Ireland matches on the telly.”

For a fifty year old to hear a lad of 17 hark back to the days of his innocence made me smile, but it was a clear and precise answer from the lad. He felt drawn towards Ireland. He qualifies for Ireland through his mother’s side. Donegal people. His uncle Hugh Coyle had stated quite clearly in a piece in that day’s Sun that James was Irish on both sides of his family. In qualifying to play for Ireland he also was entitled to legal citizenship.

I told him

“You will need to get yourself one of these for your travels!” as I brandished my Irish passport. His smile said it all. James McCarthy is for the wearing of the green.

James told me  “the Irish set up has been great.” James told me that in a recent 2-2 draw with Portugal his midfield partner is Owen Garvan of Ipswich town and that he hoped that they could strike up a partnership together.

I told him that he would need to learn the words of An t-Amhran na BhFiann. He promised that he would!

When I asked James could he hear the abuse from the St.Mirren fans?

“Yeah I heard it, but I just keep my head down and try and block it out.”

James McCarthy is a lovely young lad, polite and well mannered. As I left New Douglas Park I hoped that the fans of all Scottish clubs would heed the words of Gordon Smith and leave the kid alone.

The following day not one of the Sunday papers that covered the match mentioned the booing of James McCarthy.

There was no doubt that anyone in New Douglas Park that day would have known that James McCarthy was booed every time he got a touch of the ball. They may not have heard the “plastic paddy” chants from the knot of St.Mirren up at the back of the away end, but almost the entire away end was booing when James was on the ball.

There was no play related reason to be booing James McCarthy, he had not kicked or injured a St.Mirren player for example. So they would have had to discount the fact that the was being booed so they did not need to comment on it

So there it was, it didn’t happen. Within 24 hours of the Show racism the Red Card football match and the fine words here was racist abuse of a young Irish kid and not a mention of it in the papers.

The next day (Monday) I was on my way to the airport when a journalist colleague in Dublin called me to say that there had been a match report on the Hamilton official club website which had mentioned the racist abuse of James McCarthy by a section of the St.Mirren fans.

Luckily he had printed the screen because a short time later the match report had been amended and the reference to “racist abuse” had been excised.. I called Scott Struthers to ascertain what had happened. He confirmed to me that that there had indeed been such a match report on the club site, but that it had been altered.  I asked him why and he said because there had been no abuse of James.

“Sorry Scott, but I have you on record as saying that you were disappointed at the booing of him every time he touched the ball”

“Yes” the club secretary replied, but there wasn’t any racist abuse of James.

I heard the unmistakable sound of goalposts being moved. I reminded Scott that I had personally told him after the game about the chants.

“Yes, but it was only you who heard them.” He said, “ There was no report by the stewards or the police.” I thought of the policeman who had taken me around to the tunnel.

I thanked Scott for taking my call and for all the hospitality and help he had afforded me on the match day and before in facilitating my work.

I remain of the opinion that Scott Struthers is a fine man.

Scott had told me that James had given an extensive and exclusive interview to the Advertiser the week that he wasn’t speaking to the press (after the Ally Ross piece in the Sun). It was a hunch.

I got through to Andy McGilvray who covers the “Accies” home games at New Douglas Park. I told him who I was and the conversation I just had with Scott Struthers.

“That’s nonsense I heard it!” I asked Andy where in the ground he was?

“I was in the main stand right in the middle.”

“Like, above the tunnel area?”

“Yeah”

“And you heard the ‘plastic paddy’ stuff?”

“Yes, everybody heard it!”

I asked him could I go on the record with this conversation and he agreed (or you wouldn’t be reading it now) I thanked him and hung up.

My cell phone immediately went off in my hand again, it was my colleague in Dublin. He had been intrigued by the censored match report between, lets face it, two not every unimportant Scottish soccer teams. He had gone onto a message board for St.Mirren fans and there had been reports of phone calls made to the Paisley club by St.Mirren fans about the original Hamilton match report.

A complaint from St.Mirren to Hamilton, I thought, seemed a likely explanation for the removal of the original match report.

I called St.Mirren and asked to speak to the press officer. I was told that he was on vacation. Ok could I speak to someone else? General Manager Brian Caldwell took my call. He denied that there had been any racist abuse of James McCarthy. I told him that I had heard the abuse and that I had been in the away end. He countered that he had also been in the away end and that he had heard nothing!  Mr.Caldwell then asked me what I was doing in the away end with the St.Mirren fans. I told him, quite bluntly, that following on from the Ally Ross piece in the Sun and the Real radio football phone in that I feared that James McCarthy might have been the target of anti-Irish racism because of his decision to play for the Ireland.

“So you went there looking for it?” accused the St.Mirren general manager.

Well yes Mr.Caldwell I’m a journalist I was there checking out a story. It is what journalists are supposed to do! Journalists find stories and then report them to the public. I admitted that it was a small minority of the St.Mirren fans that were subjecting James to the abuse. Mr.Caldwell then stated that if it was only a small minority then it wasn’t a story. This I told him was a slightly different from “it didn’t happen at all”.

Silence.

At that stage it seemed almost impolite to tell him that a journalist from the local paper sitting in the main stand could hear the racist abuse of James McCarthy that Mr.Caldwell sitting in the same stand as the St.Mirren fans claimed he could not.

I thanked Mr.Caldwell for taking my call.

I am back home in Ireland now and I can reflect that in the space of four days I attended an event dedicated to eradicating racism from the game in Scotland, a soccer game where an Irish kid received racist abuse and found out, by looking at the Sunday papers, that such abuse didn’t make it into a single match report. Moreover there is a hesitance in Scotland to call what happened to James McCarthy racism.

You know, as a journalist, that you’re doing your job when you ask questions that people don’t want to answer.

 In a parallel universe there is an ice hockey match in Canada.

 

One club draws its’ support and its’ narrative from the thousands of Scots who left Scotland during the “Highland Clearances”.

 

 The other club are their bitter rivals and their support is largely drawn from the English ascendancy in Canada.

 

The Toronto Royals are Canada’s establishment club.  The religious ethos of the club has always been Anglican. Their ex-players and managers populate the upper echelons of Canadian ice Hockey.

Until 1989 they did not hire any player who had a Scottish background, especially of the player had went to a faith school where the Highland free Presbyterian ethos was extant.

 

The Scottish team have been in the recent ascendancy in matters ice hockey. They are the current champions.

 

This is unacceptable for the followers of the Toronto Royals and their owner Dick Thatcher.

It hurts their pride to see the Winnipeg Gaels becoming the main power in the land.

 

Moreover in the global marketplace for sporting merchandise the current interest in Scottish products has seen the Winnipeg Gaels become a global brand.

 

They now are more financially powerful that the Toronto Royals.

 

These “immigrants” with their tartan tops and tourist shop bagpipes are so proud of their “heritage” who do they think they are?

 

These McDonald’s and Camerons are always wailing on about evictions and coffin ships!

 

Up strikes a song informing the synthetic highlanders of Manitoba that “the Clearances are over why don’t you go home?”

 

That night a young lad in the tartan top of the Winnipeg Gaels is set upon he is called a “Jacobite Bastard”. He is kicked to death. Supporters of the Winnipeg Gaels try and get the issue raised on phone ins and in newspapers. A well-known Toronto columnist says that if Canada is such a bad place then people are free to leave. It is, after all, only a song. The assistant coach of the Winnipeg Gaels, ex team captain, Willie Munro, a Skye man, is attacked in the street in Toronto and beaten unconscious.

 

The Scottish embassy (it is a parallel universe so we can make Scotland an independent nation!) is contacted by a Scottish passport holder in Manitoba.  This Scottish citizen complains about the anti-Scottish racism of the song that has, in the Canadian media been treated as “sporting rivalry” and “banter”. The Scottish ambassador delegates the job to his cultural attaché. This leaks to the media and there is outrage at this “interference in Canadian affairs”.

 

The Toronto Royals CEO Godfrey Soames issues a statement warning the club’s supporters that they could be vulnerable to arrest if they sing the “Clearance Song”.

 

The club statement does not condemn the song as anti-Scottish or racist. Soames are not challenged about this by the Toronto based Ice Hockey journalists.

 

Later on a member of the Scottish Parliament is contacted my by a constituent.

 

The person had been visiting family in Manitoba and had gone to the Hockey match in Winnipeg. The ‘Gaels were playing the Toronto Royals. He was appalled at this “humorous” deriding of the Clearances and those that it deposited in Canada in the 19th century. The Scottish politician raises the issue in Edinburgh with the Scottish foreign minister.

 

The Canadian born Journalist in Scotland who has been working on this story is pilloried with abuse from Canada. Canadian racists inform him that he is a “pretend Scotsman,” “..We’re glad you went home … kilt wearing trailer trash!”

 

The journalist contacts the Canadian ice Hockey authorities, which have a mission statement to stamp out racism. The Ice Hockey federation are happy, they state on their website, that   racist chanting at Inuit players has markedly decreased in recent years. The journalist repeatedly contacts the Ice Hockey federation and the Canadian ice Hockey players union for comments on the “Clearance Song”.

 

He also tries and gets a statement about the decision of a Canadian born Lachlan MacDonald to elect to play for Scotland in the upcoming Ice Hockey world cup. Lachlan MacDonald, a Manitoba lad, is booed in every Hockey stadium in Canada. He is referred to as a “traitor” by sports Journalists. It is rumoured that he is considering moving clubs and going to play in the USA Ice Hockey league to escape this racist abuse.

 

The Scotland based journalist does a tour of various locked doors In Canada and can only report “not available for comment”. Finally the anti-racism charity “Lets Kick racism out of the Rink” updates their website to say that the “Clearance song is, in our opinion, racist”.

 

Back home in Scotland people who are reading about this  “Clearance Song” are dismayed that such attitudes exist in the 21st century. Official inaction against the supporters of the Toronto Royals continues and they, defiantly, belt out the “Clearance song”. In the age of digital 24 hr media the image of Canada as a modern, pluralist, tolerant society suffers badly.

 

Of course all of the foregoing is very very wide of the mark.

 

Canada is the gold standard for how to make a multi-cultural society work.

 

It is the anti-thesis of their large dysfunctional neighbour to the south.

 

I did say it was a parallel universe.

 

The analogy though is firm enough.

 

The Scottish embassy had every right to raise the matter and, indeed, a duty to the Scottish citizen domiciled in Canada.

 

No right thinking person could come to any other conclusion that the “Clearance song” was racist and those supporters of the Toronto Royals who repeatedly sang it were themselves racists.

 

I had studiously avoided watching the Olympics, much less write anything about it when they were on.  I had caught a section of the opening ceremony on the news and it was a stunning spectacle.

 

In that I was drawn to the closing ceremony as I expected the same eye-popping, jaw dripping display. I was not disappointed.  For all the majesty, energy and synchronisation of motion I was unsettled by the similarity to the Nazi Olympics.

 

This was all too much like “Triumph of the will” for the digital age.

 

This is an empire on the rise. Obese, historically illiterate Americans sat on their couches and watched their nemesis-although I doubt that they can conceive of such an animal.

 

If these Americans were not historically illiterate then the shuffling entrance of the original global superpower – the British.

 

It is impossible to parody Boris Johnson or how he looked on the global stage. Hands stuffed in his pockets looking on with a confused disinterest at what the natives were getting excited about.

 

This will be China’s century. By 2040 her economy will be larger that that of the USA.

 

It seemed to pass everyone by that the centrepiece of London’s Olympian “hello” to the global village was an exploding bus.

 

Truly 2012 will be the Al Qaeda Olympics.

 

Blair’s war of choice against Iraq will be played out in stadia, streets and, even perhaps, the athlete’s village.

 

Not since Munich 72 has an Olympic games been so threatened.

 

The British security services will, and indeed should, watch all ports and airports for possible Jihadi slipping into the country determined to achieve martyrdom.

 

However the threat is more likely to have been born and reared in Bradford.

 

Empires are built on slaughter and chaos. The demise of an empire is not really such a different experience.

 

Yorkshire born Jihadis detonating themselves in crowded London streets killing as many infidels as they can will be a bloody reminder of the price Britain will continue to pay of Blair’s delusion that the UK was capable of striding the world stage as a partner of the USA.

 

The British Army is now only capable of deploying 12000 soldiers in the field on a fulltime basis.

Now, as the global financial system implodes into chaos all of the developed world’s economies are slipping into recession.

 

There is one major economy that will grow next year-at around 7%.

 

China.

 

It is 500 years since Zheng He’s voyages of exploartion and a century since the defeat of the Boxer Rebellion.

 

China has a long history and waiting another few decades to achieve global domination is not a problem to the old men in Beijing.

 

However the spectaulcar collapse of US led capitalism in the last few weeks may bring Chinese domination  that bit closer.

 

The Chinese are rapidly building up a blue water navy, including aircraft carriers.

 

This time the dockyards and the plans for ships will not be burned as they were in the Ming dynasty.

China is coming out.

 

The USA will increasingly be crippled by the three deficits identified by Professor Niall Ferguson in his work “Colossus”.

 

The British historian Ferguson argued that the US Empire suffers from a manpower deficit, a financial deficit and an attention deficit.

 

China has more than enough of all of these to dominate the planet.

 

With the collapse of the British banking sector and it HAS collapsed British Prime minister will have to bring in budget cuts.

 

He has no choice.

 

One project that may well be axed is the controversial £3 billion project for two aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy.

 

Meanwhile the Chinese are building the modern day equivalent of dreadnoughts as quick as their dockyards can produce them.

 

Britannia no longer rules the waves, but in this century maybe reduced to having little more than a coastal marine.

 

When my father’s father lay in wait at Carrowkennedy, Count Mayo with a rifle and some home made grenades we was, with his comrades in the West Mayo flying column, fighting the world’s superpower.

 

Britain was capable of fielding huge armies and had the world’s biggest, most professional navy.

 

Now Britain can’t field more than a brigade in any permanent deployment. The Royal navy’s surface fleet is less than 25 ships for the first time in its history.

 

First comes economic decline then military and political decline.

 

People in the USA looking at Boris Johnson with his hands in his pockets in Beijing were looking at their shuffling future.