The Tories are back!

Paddy McMenamin takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the political manoeuvrings that led to the Tories returning to power.

Clegg and Cameron

Politics is a funny old game – Jimmy Greaves

Just when we thought it was safe to fly Ryanair through volcanic ash clouds, to start looking forward to the end of the latest recession, to dine out in McSwiggans again without feeling guilty and indulge in a summer of jingoistic fun as England get beaten on penalties in the World Cup by Morocco, they’re back! The party of little England, of Churchill and Maggie May, the Falklands and Dunkirk- the Tories are back! Now after almost nine decades of deliverance from the land where the sun never sets, we probably shouldn’t give two hoots who occupies the seat of power of our former colonial masters, but we still do! Same as we follow the fortunes of ManU, Liverpool and God forbid Wimbledon, the British Open, X Factor, Coronation Street, et al. Amazingly we still have a fascination for the goings on in our little offshore neighbour?

The politics are no different, much the same as here, Tweedledee or Tweedledum? FF or FG? Civil war rerun? Labour or Tory, Left or Right? War of the Roses, North/South divide, middle England and the Tory consumer belt have rejected ‘new Labour’ for a phenomena not new to us but for the ‘Saturday night at the Proms’ crowd, the Tory/Lib Dem coalition is not what Maggie ordered! Besides the overlooked fact that their national debt is slightly worse than Greece – the basket case of Europe, that Iraq and Afghanistan are as difficult as Crossmaglen to subdue and that they have no chance in South Africa, life could be worse for Cameron and Nick Clegg, at least they don’t have to negotiate with the Swiss family Robinson!!

Now that the Good Friday Agreement has been delivered, the latest colonial master to set up shop in Stormont, Owen Patterson, should have an easy ride. Big Ian has gone out to graze, Peter and Iris will be too busy making up and counting their expenses; the Shinners continue on the FF road to respectability and the ‘Stoops’ to oblivion, and the economic desert will continue to download the nine billion from the ‘mainland’. Happy days!

What a difference from 40 years ago in 1970 when the Tories romped back into power and precipitated by their actions, 30 years of conflict and armed struggle. What we refer to now euphemistically as the ‘Troubles’ might have been nipped in the bud if the Tory government of 1970 hadn’t adopted the traditional approach of ‘croppies lie down’! August 1969 witnessed the Battle of the Bogside and the first deaths in Belfast as rampaging Loyalists attacked the Falls. The arrival of British troops created an uneasy peace and for the next nine months a ‘honeymoon’ period existed, and if the problems of a divided community had been addressed in a positive fashion, well we might never have heard of the Provos and the armed struggle. But true to form our former colonial masters reverted to type and as happened after Easter week and the executions, British actions created the conditions for armed struggle. June 1970, just weeks after returning to power, the government ordered the Curfew of the Falls area for three days with six deaths and wrecked houses, hardly ‘hearts and minds’ stuff. In August 1971, they introduced internment without trial totally against nationalists and in Jan 1972 we added another ‘Bloody Sunday’ to our collective mindset of British benevolence towards us, when they murdered 14 innocent civilians on the streets of the Bogside.

If you really want to know why it took 40 years to make the peace, end the armed struggle, remove those same British troops, and create a better place for everyone, then the actions of that Tory government in the early months of the 1970’s are a major contributing factor. Reginald Maudling, British Minister for the North in 1970, once commented on leaving Belfast, "What a terrible place"! It reminds me of Richard Nixon speaking to Henry Kissinger during the Vietnam war, "The Vietnamese are bastards, we’ll nuke them"! There was a terrible misconception in Westminster concerning Ireland in the 70’s and indeed stretching right up to the Iron Lady herself, Thatcher. We were insignificant, as indeed were the mining villages in Scotland and Wales, as were the Argentine soldiers in the Malvinas, as are the Iraqi and Afghan peasants and the residents of Gaza. But times have changed and the world is a better place (unless you live in Gaza). Let’s hope Cameron and Clegg don't mess it up!