Indo-UK News and Discussion - April 2013

[eklavya]

^^^^
Only one of the persons in the clip below is well educated and extremely smart, but all of them represent the modern British identity. Enjoy:

[Raja Bose]

A passage to Mayfair

The empire strikes back. It would be funny to watch gora butlers, maids, gardeners and chauffeurs catering and serving the Desi Punjabis and Gujjus with their Billoos, Buntys and Munnis in tow.

From the article:

A very rich Indian with a London abode says it makes him mad to see so many fine Victorian monuments built with the stolen wealth of India (“but what about all the millions he’s stolen?” another Indian migrant harrumphs).

We SDREs seem to be genetically endowed with Gunga Din tendencies.

[Yayavar]

True! But then this sentiment is slowly gaining following and over time, maybe like the return of Inca artifacts from Yale, some of them will go back to their origins.

Went to Queendom's locations and was reminded of the loot form Desh at all steps . Worse paid money to see it - including the Dragoon's in their museum highlighting the 1857 'Indian Mutiny' medal. Their primary contribution was massacre of thousands of civilians along the Ganga. Heck, in one placard (on Mysore war against Tipu) they happily even state the word 'loot' when describing the result of the pillage. In British museum one can see the loot from India and other places.

[sanjaykumar]

I have stood before Havelock's equestrian monument at Trafalgar. I was not sure if it shames Indians or the British.

[Yayavar]

Well the blue cockatoo balancing it on the other side certainly mocks it all .

[brihaspati]

The City of London & Its Offshore Empire
http://www.socialphy.com/posts/news-pol ... mpire.html

A few weeks ago Westminster MP Mark Field, one of Britain’s most prominent cheerleaders for tax havens and the City of London, cited a couple of interesting statistics, to bolster his argument that people should go easy on tax havens. “The UK has a constitutional relationship with half of the top 30 offshore finance centres,” he said – implying that this is a good thing. He added, for good measure, that just the three island tax havens closest to the UK – the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man – provided net financing to UK banks of a staggering $332.5bn in the second quarter of 2009. Jersey Finance, the promoters of the profoundly corrupt tax haven of Jersey, puts it in plain English: “For many corporate treasurers, institutional bankers and treasury specialists, fund promoters, brokers and other corporate financiers, Jersey represents an extension of the City of London.”

These statements are all quite correct. In my book Treasure Islands, I describe the City of London as the spider at the centre of a web of tax havens scattered around the world, feeding vast tides of money, and the business of handling money, to the City.

If you are worried about the political and economic might of the City of London and want to know how to confront it, you cannot make serious progress without tackling tax havens. And tax havens make an excellent target, especially for the Occupy movement. In November I said in a speech on the steps of St. Paul’s that I believe Occupy’s greatest strength – the key to its ability to resonate with ordinary people around the world – is in its focus on two things: extremely high and rising inequality, and the corruption of capitalism. In both respects, tax havens are right at the very heart of concerns about both. And Britain is right at the heart of global concerns about tax havens.

First, take a look in a little more detail at this British web of tax havens.



In the inner ring of the British web lie these three Crown Dependencies: Jersey and Guernsey in the English Channel, and the Isle of Man between the UK mainland and Ireland. The next set of links in the web are the Overseas Territories: the remnants of the British Empire which resolved to remain constitutionally attached to Britain after most of the rest of Britain’s empire achieved independence. The Overseas Territories include some of the world’s biggest tax havens: the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands and Bermuda – along with Gibraltar, Turks and Caicos, Anguilla and Montserrat.

The spider analogy may seem unnecessarily sinister, but it is quite apt. The tax havens will generally focus on hoovering up money flows from nearby jurisdictions: so the tax havens in the Caribbean will focus heavily on attracting money flows from North and South America, for instance, while the Crown Dependencies will focus heavily on Europe, and so on. These places are often merely serving as booking centres, entries in an accountant’s computer that allow a company to pretend that it is really located in the especially mucky Overseas Territory of the British Virgin Islands while the real business – the hammering together of that banking syndicate, the legal work for that giant property deal, and so on – gets sent up to London. “If I have money to spare, I pass it to the father,” said Martyn Scriven, secretary of the Jersey Bankers’ Association in 2009. “Great dollops of money go into London from here.” Vast, secretive and often dirty financial flows wash into the stock markets and football clubs and financial institutions in the City every day from tax havens. Whatever this offshore money touches, it causes harm: blowing up unproductive property bubbles, corrupting football clubs, hiding ownership patterns in the stock markets, and on and on.

The whole relationship between the UK and its tax havens plays out as an elaborate charade. These territories are partly inside, and partly outside, the UK. They have their own local politics, with all the fun of the fair, and they love to say they have full independence when it comes to setting their own laws. But probe into the constitutional relationship, and it becomes clear that responsibility falls to the UK. Smokescreens come wafting out of London and the tax haven capitals whenever the relationship is probed – ‘there is nothing we can do’ is the typical response to those who say that the UK cracks down on the criminality, abuse and corruption run out of these places. And behind it all lies the City of London, anxious to preserve its access to the world’s dirty money.

In both the Crown Dependencies and the Overseas Territories, the Queen appoints the governor, domestic legislation is given royal assent and the United Kingdom is responsible for their good governance, defence and international relations. It is also the guarantor of these territories’ debts. Given that many of the tax and secrecy facilities provided by these places constitute acts of economic warfare against the revenue authorities and taxpayers of other countries, and is an aspect of the governance of these islands, this puts the responsibility for their tax haven activity firmly in the UK government’s hands. As I say in Treasure Islands, the British spider’s web “is a money-laundering filter that lets the City get involved in dirty business while providing it with enough distance to maintain plausible deniability.”

The City of London Corporation loves its tax havens. Although it did not appear on his official itinerary (why not?) the Lord Mayor of the City of London visited the Isle of Man last month, where he praised its “longstanding and much-valued partnership” with the City. The City of London Corporation has called the Isle of Man a “core asset” for the City. The Lord Mayor roams the world with an official mandate to expound the “values of financial liberalisation” around the globe (what a strange role for the head of a municipal authority). The more that other countries liberalise their economies, the more financial activity there is buzzing around, ready to be caught by the nearby tax havens and funneled up to the City.

These tax havens love to declare how clean they are – but they can be shockingly, even terrifyingly corrupt. Anyone visiting Jersey on a summer holiday might be forgiven for thinking that this is simply another part of Britain: apart from the different-looking ten pound notes, the high street in St. Helier looks and feels just like any other in Britain. But look into the politics in enough depth, and the difference is staggering. People won’t believe you when you explain how corrupt Jersey is.

In an affidavit signed in May 2011 Lenny Harper, Jersey’s former Deputy Police Chief, said: “I went to Jersey in 2002 full of expectation of the challenge that lay ahead. I soon learnt that it was like nowhere else in the British Isles. . . . There are no checks and balances on power and the abuse of it. This is obvious each time one tries to make a complaint against any member of the government. With such an absence of controls, such an absence of accountability, the ordinary decent people of Jersey are helpless.” Stuart Syvret, a former health minister, is less diplomatic, and he is worth quoting at some length.



“Jersey is governed by a crypto-feudal oligarchy which, of itself, is captured by the international offshore banking industry. It is a gangster regime, cloaked with the “respectability” of the trappings of the British establishment. . . . As the local elites of these tiny islands continue to provide a loyal service to the rich British elites – for example, enabling them to dodge taxation – then the miniature oligarchs of places like Jersey are guaranteed protection. No matter just how nakedly lawless their own conduct.”

The media – both the Jersey Evening Post, as well as the Jersey arm of BBC – are captured by the finance industry. They parrot the pro-tax haven line daily – sometimes almost to a comical degree – and dissidents are only quoted rarely, and usually highly disparagingly. Syvret has been thrown in prison more than once. The dominance of the finance industry in Jersey is nearly absolute. And few people in Britain care.

We should all care. As the British web of tax havens around the world feeds the City, pumping up its already mighty powers, Britain is turning into more and more of an offshore island in the world – and the City of London is turning into more and more of an offshore island within Britain. If we don’t stand up to the City and its tax havens, we face a future that looks increasingly like Jersey’s. But without such nice beaches.

[Singha]

wow. no wonder new jhonies like dubai are no match for the british. beta numbari, baap dus numbari.

[Philip]

Sadly,I've seen first hand the decline in UK society for 25 years now.Those who have the connections,"old school tie",old money,etc., have done well in general,making more moolah than ever.The middle class,which used to possess typical British values and traditions has faced the brunt of the eco downturn ,is being squeezed financially,and the working class are kept happy as long as thye can guzzle beer at the pub and watch football on tellly,eating crisps and other junk food,getting 'orribly obese.The menial jobs are now firmly in the hands of the immigrants,who are rapidly replacing the coloured/black community as counter staff in retail outlets,hospitality industry.London parks are more likely to be filled with East European "picknickers" who like the Romanians reportedly get baton charged when they decide to set up camp! This winter,a flood of immigrants is expected which worst case fears by natives is likened to a human immigrant tsunami that threatens to destroy the already torn fabric of British society.

Many "white" Britishers are migrating to Oz.Many went to Spain to retire,but Spain is now in sh*t street.The fear is that as in Greece,Spanish banks may follow the example of Greece and simply steal a large % of depositors savings.The Mayor of London,Boris J,has suggested that Britain should welcome immigrants from Oz ,since they share common values,etc. Does that include p*ssing" on cricket pitches I wonder?

On my last visit I was at the historic York Minster (York,once the capital of England) where a Bishop was being installed in his seat.The great Minster,which can hold thousands was mostly filled with tourists and there was scarcely a dozen or two locals who attended the ceremony.Along with tourists,the count would've been a staggering 40! Christianity has almost collapsed in Britain."Pseudo-Secularism" is replacing faith,as Lord Jonathan Sacks,chief rabbi has written in the national media.The same thing is happening in India,though our poor aam admi and middle class are generally devout and God fearing."Secularism" commonly understood ,should mean an equitable society,where rules hold good for all regardless of caste or creed.But it is being abused in India in a pro-active manner,creatiing "enclaves" of mediaevalism for certain entities ,allowing them to impose their own style of fundamentalism,bypassing the common law, in oder to preserve votebank-politics to stay in power.


http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013 ... tion-syria

Archbishop of Canterbury urges caution on Syria
Justin Welby says MPs must consider all aspects of 'delicate and dangerous situation'

[vishvak]

About London and its offshore empire, any idea about historical dates of the financial juggling kingdom?

This to know since when this is going on - in its true style. Since when would it be like that only?

[Lalmohan]

london (and amsterdam and brussels and paris and... and..) have been doing this since the late middle ages (ever since they started using the sea routes for trade)

[Haresh]

The empire strikes back. It would be funny to watch gora butlers, maids, gardeners and chauffeurs catering and serving the Desi Punjabis and Gujjus with their Billoos, Buntys and Munnis in tow

It would be funny indeed. Unfortunatley it would be the goras laughing. In the UK it is just not polite or acceptable to be rude to your staff and to treat them with any disrespect or disdain.

If wealthy Indians were to do this they would find themselves without staff pretty quick and if it came to legal action they would lose.

I have met quite a few wealthy goras through my work and business and they would never be high handed with any of their staff.

The feew wealthy Indians I have met were nothing but spoilt wealthy idiots who thought money would buy them class and that they had a right to be rude to people they deemed to be of a lower status than themselves.

Wealth is not an indicator of class, good manners and politeness are.
If some wealthy Indian (or any one for that matter) was rude to me I would not hesitate to be rude back and even react with violence.

I hate all snobs they embarress themselves and are insecure.

[Vayutuvan]

Haresh good one that. Except violence I would go the non-cooperation route though.

[Abhaey]

Part 5 of the extended Indian Independence Day series in the Huffington Post UK:

Why 'The White Man's Burden' Has Less Factual Authority than 'Looney Tunes' - The Baffling Imperial Myths About India, Africa & the Developing World

The previous sections are available here:

Part 4: The Greatest Cover-Up in History ? How Imperial Britain's Racist India, Africa & China Narrative ‎Still Persists

Parts 1-3: 15 Indian Inventions & Discoveries That Shaped the Modern World

[eklavya]

Haresh, couldn't agree more with you, but please could you fix your post above so that it makes clear that the comment you are reacting to was made by anupmisra, not myself.

The empire strikes back. It would be funny to watch gora butlers, maids, gardeners and chauffeurs catering and serving the Desi Punjabis and Gujjus with their Billoos, Buntys and Munnis in tow

It would be funny indeed. Unfortunatley it would be the goras laughing. In the UK it is just not polite or acceptable to be rude to your staff and to treat them with any disrespect or disdain.

If wealthy Indians were to do this they would find themselves without staff pretty quick and if it came to legal action they would lose.

I have met quite a few wealthy goras through my work and business and they would never be high handed with any of their staff.

The feew wealthy Indians I have met were nothing but spoilt wealthy idiots who thought money would buy them class and that they had a right to be rude to people they deemed to be of a lower status than themselves.

Wealth is not an indicator of class, good manners and politeness are.
If some wealthy Indian (or any one for that matter) was rude to me I would not hesitate to be rude back and even react with violence.

I hate all snobs they embarress themselves and are insecure.

[Manish_Sharma]

Sadly,I've seen first hand the decline in UK society for 25 years now.Those who have the connections,"old school tie",old money,etc., have done well in general,making more moolah than ever.The middle class,which used to possess typical British values and traditions has faced the brunt of the eco downturn ,

What british values? If there is any one country/culture devoid of any values it is the british.

Looting and genocide of not just Bharat but other colonies as well, niel and havelock wiping out village after village not even leaving an infant alive.

Jallianwala bagh?

Or after orchestrating genocide by famine in bengal by churchill ordering all crops to be exported from bengal & when churchill is told of millions dying due to this british orchestrated famine, churchill retorts "Indians will breed fast again like rabbits....."

Probably todays new generations of UK maybe much better from old UK which was 100% looter and genocider.

[Haresh]

eklavya,

Edited as requested, apologies for the mix up

[eklavya]

Haresh, no worries, many thanks.

Incidentally, do you watch Downton Abbey? Interesting portrayal of the relationship between the upper classes and their servants. But not all think it was accurate:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvan ... orian.html

This book/series from the 70s/80s is a classic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porterhouse_Blue

David Jason's (Del Boy) portrayal of Skullion is just wonderful.

[member_19686]

The Great Hedge of India is a book about an obsession. Roy Moxham, ex-tea planter, ex-gallery owner turned book conservator, was searching among the volumes in a second-hand bookshop on the corner of London's Charing Cross Road when he came across Rambles and Reflections of an Indian Official by Major-General Sir W.H. Sleeman KCB, first published in 1893. Twenty-five pounds secured the item and away he took it, little thinking it would be the beginning of an ongoing fascination with an object few people initially believed existed. Moxham was beguiled by a footnote in the Major-General's book which quoted Lytton Strachey's father, Sir John Strachey. The note said, "To secure the levy of a duty on salt ... there grew up gradually a monstrous system ... A Customs line was established which stretched across the whole of India, which in 1869 extended ... a distance of 2, 300 miles ... It consisted principally of an immense impenetrable hedge".

Moxham was incredulous: could there really have been a hedge that stretched half the length of one of the world's largest countries? None of the standard histories he had read had mentioned a customs hedge and surely someone would have noted something quite so bizarre? On searching out the source of the quote he found that Strachey had not been misquoted but other references to the customs line were few and far between. His search was on. The book explains Moxham's fascinating and ultimately successful search for (over three years, with three separate trips to India), and fascination with, the hedge. Every other chapter outlines, with an enviable clarity and an always easy, conversational style, the historical context in which the hedge arose. The Great Hedge of India is a gem: a joy to read, entertaining, informative and occasionally angry--Moxham's research led him to discover the reason behind the hedge, a salt tax, was punitive in the extreme. "I was deeply shocked by what I discovered about salt. When I first had the idea of finding the remnants of the Customs Hedge I had imagined the barrier as a piece of British whimsy ... It was a terrible discovery to find that it had been constructed ... so as to totally cut off an affordable supply of an absolute necessity of life". An excellent little book. --Mark Thwaite --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

http://www.amazon.ca/The-Great-Hedge-In ... 1841194670

Salt Starvation in British India – Consequences of High Salt Taxation in the Bengal Presidency, 1765 to 1878.

http://www.rmoxham.freeserve.co.uk/salt ... vation.htm

[rgsrini]

Britishers/England managed to get away with the biggest attrocities in human history so far. If the concept of Karma is true, then it will comeback to bite them one day in the future. I only wish, I exist to see that and enjoy it.

Our government will do nothing, not even educate its own population of its own history. Unfortunately, we can only rely on "Karma".

[vishvak]

Imagine pukis claiming Kohinoor diamond of British Imperial crown. Karma does not mean being like paki. Do good for shubh laabh sooner or later I say.

[member_19686]

TEA - Addiction, Exploitation and Empire tells the history of tea, from its discovery by the Chinese, to the first British imports in the seventeenth century, through to the present day. It tells of how the British tax on tea led to violent smuggling, and the loss of the American colonies; of how the British addiction to tea led to war with China. It describes how tea was then planted up in the Empire - in India, Ceylon, and Africa. Intrepid and eccentric British planters opened up hundreds of square miles of tea - but at a terrible cost to the native people. Britain lost its empire yet, through the brands it controls, still dominates the world of tea.

http://www.rmoxham.freeserve.co.uk/Tea% ... 20book.htm

[Yayavar]

^^ the above has been a source of confusion to me. Tea apparently was discovered by Chinese or in China. But, when the English attempted to grow it in India it failed (Camelia sinesis ..not sure of spelling), and then they realized that there was the local variety 'Camelia Assamica', and that is what we all drink now. So it is inconceivable that the Assamese did not already know of Tea and use it.

[brihaspati]

They failed to keep the tea-plants alive on the sea-journey after first stealing them from protected royal gardens in China. This was the first attempt. Then, the guy who was attempting this struck upon the idea of carrying the seeds/fruit in germinating soil/compost while on ship. This variety and process was successful.

There had always been local tea varieties growing wild and also used locally for medicinal purposes and partly also as food. In fact one version of the arrival of tea in China is supposedly at the hands of a Bharat born Buddhist monk who took tea from desh to China and cultivated it.

[Yayavar]

but the point stays that the tea now used is Assamica and not Sinesis. So it is not exactly 'discovered' in China. We only have the English word for it. As the last story illustrates that it could have been anywhere.

[Haresh]

eklavya.

I watch it because my wife watches it, not out of choice. The problem with these period/historical drama's is that they are seldom accurate. You can portray a rosy impression of the past. I read the link from the Telegraph and have no doubt it is accurate. In any master- servant relationship the servant gets the $hit end of it.

I imagine more of this sort of thing will be shown, people look to the imagined glories of the past because the present is so depressing.
Britain is coming to terms slowly with it's new place in the world.

In one of these drama's, can't remember if it was Downton or Upstairs Downstairs they had a Sikh man servant who was with an Indian cavalry unit at Ypres. Good that it was mentioned and hopefully it will be mentioned more often.

[Haresh]

India pushes 'shock and awe’ currency plan to save BRICS

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/curr ... BRICS.html

One of the comments:
" michealvernon
Today 01:05 AM

Hot air exuding from Delhi. Why not a ' shock and awe' reform to transform India and its economy. Firstly, ensure that no one with a criminal record is able to stand for elections. This will mean that two thirds of MPs will have to immediately resign.

Next confiscate the over one trillion USD of illicit funds stashed by corrupt politicians and civil servants, in off shore accounts. This will immediately strengthen Indians rupee to below 40.

Privatise all government owned banks and resource companies, which will dramatically reduce the fiscal deficit. Instead the government should focus on basic services like eduction, health care, security,housing for the poor ( which are all in shambles). Liberalise the Labour Act so that India can compete with China in manufacturing. These archaic laws have hobbled Indian industry with the result that almost all toys, electronics, household wares have to be imported. India's troubles are self inflicted.

Please stop blaming the West for your economic miseries. Look no further than East Asia which is decades ahead in development, thanks to their visionary and enlightened leaders. India's problem is the coterie of corrupt, arrogant and jingoistic leaders who have ruled the nation for the past five decades.Unfortunately, the Indian electorate continues to re-elect these kleptocrats and the 2014 elections may be no different."

[member_27444]

The best organized drug runners and as well as best pirates producing nation

[Philip]

We have our "caste system",Britain has its "Class system".The two have much in common on that front.The Soviets (Chinese too) also had their own version of the Orwellian Big Brother system,where "some are more equal than others".

There are dark secrets and skeletons in every society and nation.What we should be concerned today is the rise of neo-imperialism and eco-colonialism,after two World Wars,a Cold War and umpteen "police actions",Korea,Vietnam,Iraq,hthe Balkans,Afghanistan,Libya and now on the cards...Syria and later on Iran? The continuing attempt to enslave the world by such govts. is to be universally condemned and fought against with all our might.Preserving our hard-won freedom and sovereignty is almost as difficult a task as fighting for it.Frpm polls in European nations,including Britain,where the Commons has shown great courage and wisdom in defeating the move for Britain to invade/attack another sovereign nation,based solely upon the "moral obscenity" epithet used by Kerry against the Syrian regime as the fig-leaf for intervention,forgetting the "moral obscenity" of Vietnam,Iraq,and events in Af-Pak,where the conflict and drone attacks have killed tens of thousands of innocents ,euphemistically called "collateral damage"! The human rights atrocities of Camp Gitmo and Abu Ghraib are not therefore "moral obscenities"? A Nobel peace Prize winner now is desperately looking for an excuse,led by his mouth-frothing, neo-Nazi blood-lusting,hate-monger of a "wild bore" (spellign deliberate) ,of all things the US Sec. of State;an individual who gets orgasmic at the thought of the US "kicking ass" every now and again.

David Cameron,by joining the Kerry hate-wagon,has shot himself in the foot and suffered a mortal blow to his reputation and leadership qualities.Instead of "tasting the beer" at a local pub,where the warring antics of his predecessor,latter-day crusader,Tony B Liar, is fresh in the minds of Britons and their MPs,instead chose to follow in his footsteps and display his servility to the Yanquis ,willing to be mercenaries,"God (Obama) wills it",and inflict untold suffering upon yet another nation.The ordinary people in Britain and Europe have had enough of a century of war ,spilling over into the 21st century with even more ferocity.the world wants peace while the US and its willing mercenary allies want war.

Meanwhile,enjoy this report of the deviant of popular history,David Irving,Nazi apologist.Still sticking to his guns!


Exclusive: David Irving - the hate that dare not speak its name
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 92411.html

After a stinging libel defeat and imprisonment in Austria, the Holocaust denier seemed to have disappeared. In fact, he’s still peddling his views – but the venues just got smaller, as Simon Usborne discovered

David Irving cuts a lonely figure in the lobby of the Bull Hotel in Peterborough. Wearing a blue suit and a purple tie, the historian and convicted Holocaust denier sits uncomfortably on a chair he has pulled out from the nearby bar. He’s here to welcome ticketholders for the latest stop on his secretive UK lecture tour.

“And you are?” he asks visitors who pause to look at him. I give him the name of the friend I had asked to buy a ticket so that I could attend his talk, entitled The Life and Death of Heinrich Himmler. “Upstairs, the Wakeford room,” he says, adding: “I’m just intercepting people as they come in.”

A small group mingles awkwardly around a conference table stacked with Irving’s books. DVDs, including two versions of Triumph of the Will by the Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl, are displayed for sale next to the tea-making facilities. A tape recording of radio reports from the Second World War plays on a loop.

Irving soon walks in, shutting the door behind him. Just 13 people have gathered, each newcomer having been personally vetted by the historian and repeatedly sworn to keep secret the location of the talk. There is one woman and one child, a boy aged about 11 brought along by his father. We take our seats at a table equipped with hotel notepaper, water, and bowls of Fox’s Glacier Mints.

Irving, 75, is justly paranoid about security. During a career spanning 50 years and more than 30 books, he has emerged from relative respectability to become a notorious revisionist historian, and a target for anti-fascist demonstrators. In 2000, he lost a £2m libel action against the US historian Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books. The judge ruled that Irving “is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-Semitic and racist”.

Five years later, Irving was sentenced to three years in an Austrian prison for “trivialising, grossly playing down and denying the Holocaust”. He was released after 13 months and banned from returning to the country. He has also been banned from Canada, Italy and Germany.

After a period of relative quiet, Irving has now returned to publicise his unfinished book about Heinrich Himmler, founder of the SS and architect of the Holocaust. A series of talks began on 18 August in Southampton. Stops since have included Bristol, Coventry, Manchester and Edinburgh. He is due to speak in Oxford tonight, and in London on 21 December.

Anyone can buy a ticket on the author’s website for £19. I had attempted to go to the Coventry lecture last week, that time asking a relative to buy my ticket. But Irving refused “him” entry and refunded the money, citing “General security concerns. Nothing personal.”

On Thursday, my friend received a call from Irving about his application for that night’s talk, and was quizzed about his interest (he claimed to be a curious history buff). Satisfied, Irving only then emailed the details of the location, repeatedly calling for secrecy.

As word of the lecture dates circled among Irving’s legion of detractors, many issued appeals for demonstrators to disrupt them. At the Bull, Irving talks about his attempts to evade them. “In York, a man who had paid in advance accidentally replied to an email from a different account that gave his name as ‘anti fascista’. We sent him to the Little John, which is a homosexual bar.”

The Little John, now known as the Blue Boar, was immediately besieged on Twitter before its bemused manager insisted it was not the location for the talk. “Its not not happening at the Blue Boar, I own it and would never allow biggoted racists to use the pub!” he tweeted.

A spokesman for Peels Hotel, which owns the Bull in Peterborough, said Irving had booked its room as John Cawdell (his middle names). He had not heard of Irving but said he would not have allowed the talk to go ahead had he known the facts.

Before he even gets to Himmler, Irving laments his treatment and standing alongside what he calls “conformist” historians, and the financial hardship imposed by numerous court cases. But he insists he is a crusader for truth, writing “what I call real history”.

The two-hour talk about Himmler, who he refers to as “Heiney”, unfolds without a break. Irving claims, among other things, that Himmler did not commit suicide but was murdered by his British captors. Later, while recounting Himmler’s youth, Irving rises to his feet and thrusts forth an imaginary sabre as he re-enacts a fight Himmler had won in his duelling fraternity at a Munich university.

Eventually, we come to the Holocaust. Since his conviction the historian has denied denying the Holocaust, conceding that millions of Jews did die in gas chambers. But in Peterborough he says: “If you read the memoirs of Churchill or Eisenhower or de Gaulle, they don’t mention it at all. It never happened as far as they were concerned.” In around 1970, he adds, the Jews were “advised by a PR firm to give it one name, stick to that name, and stick to those figures and gradually you’ll make billions out of this. That’s what happened.”

Irving claims that Hitler was unaware of the atrocities being committed in his name, that Himmler’s fearsome Waffen-SS Nazi fighting force “had a completely clean reputation” and that Auschwitz is “hugely inflated and hyped up. It’s like Disney. I don’t go there. It has no part in history.”

An impressive speaker, he produces carefully selected evidence to back up each claim – photos, intercepted telegrams, diaries and Himmler’s own notes. The assembled guests nod in silence. At 9pm, we are released to the bar downstairs for a break.

A man with a lion tattoo on his arm boasts about a copy of Mein Kampf he recently acquired (Irving himself collects Nazi memorabilia. In 2009 he was preparing to sell items on eBay including a fragment of bone purported to be Hitler’s).

A retired man in his 60s who has come from Lincoln says he is not worried about the secrecy surrounding the talk and praises Irving for speaking out. “The more you learn the more you realise we’re all subject to the skulduggery of the Zionist bankers trying to achieve one world order – and do anything to get it,” he says.

After the break, Irving talks about the publishing houses run by Jewish executives who turned their back on him (he self-publishes now). The Lincoln man offers: “They run the world, don’t they?” Irving, who strongly denies being anti-semitic, replies: “Well sometimes people stand up and fight back.”

He says Jews in America control all media, banks and that “they dare not appoint any leading person in the White House to ministerial positions involving money without him being a Jew. Look where that got them in Germany in 1933. And they will not learn the lesson, they all think it won’t happen again.

“Then they ask why they are so hated. I look in the mirror in the mornings and I say to myself – people don’t like me and I know why. I know what I could do immediately to be liked by the media and newspapers – completely reverse my opinion. But I don’t do it.”

In 2011, during one of Irving’s group tours of death camps in Poland, he delivered a similar rant. Will Storr, author of The Heretics: Adventures with the Enemies of Science, then asked him for an explanation for his views. According to Storr, Irving replied: “Probably something different in their brains.”

Irving says he hears people say Jews are hated because they crucified Jesus Christ. “I say if you walk into a pub in Wapping and ask people why they don’t like the Jews they don’t mention Jesus. They mention other reasons. They’re worried about their mortgages and the banks…that’s the reason why the Jews get hated.”

The next day I call Irving to ask him about his talk. He quickly claims he had clocked me as a journalist, but doesn’t say how. He says on average he refuses two people per lecture. He disputes the comment about “brains” (“I was talking about our brains, not the Jews’,” he claims) and says he based the “Wapping” line purely on a recent poll that suggested 85 per cent of Americans blamed Jews for the global economic crisis.

On Monday, Irving plans to fly to Poland for his latest guided tour of Nazi sites. On 10 September he plans to return to Germany for the first time in 20 years to speak in Berlin after his travel ban was lifted by a court last year. If not reverse his opinion, could he not express it less freely, and spend more time at his home in Windsor?

“I’m not the kind of guy who rolls over,” he says on the phone. “I’m English. I fight back. If the Jews had not started this campaign to destroy David Irving I wouldn’t have defended myself. I’ve defended myself like any other decent Englishman. And I know where the bodies are buried.”

[RamaY]

Philip ji,

Excellently put.

Every society has, and destined to have, aberrations. It is part of human DNA to be cruel, selfish and greedy etc.,

The west did not forsake its history, culture or language (English/German/Latin/Spanish) for the crimes against humanity by people belonging to those societies.

Only in India we have people like Kancha Ilaiah and Chandrabhan Prasad like idiots and their pay masters calling for destruction of our history, culture and languages in the name of discrimination by some over others. At the same time we worship the slave languages like Urdu and English thinking that they are symbols of virtue and divinity.

[member_27444]

Excellently put

Is not very well put in Queens.....


and etc.

[Haresh]

Philip,

There has always been an ugly streak of anti-Jewish hatred amongst the British ruling classes.
David Irving is a very nasty little man, with a disturbing obsession with Hitlers SS.

A very little known fact is that as well as all the freak show Nazi's who contributed money to his legal defence, there were also contributions from the infamous Bukhari brothers of MPACUK.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/nov/ ... r.religion

Birds of a feather flock together.

[Philip]

I recently saw a pic of Prince Philip and Lord Mountbatten (Battenburg) walking behind the coffin of a high-ranking Nazi ,before WW2 arrived. In fact the British royal family is mostly of German extraction.In an interview,even Prince Philip said that he was earlier attracted to the Nazi rise to power,as Germany grew more prosperous,etc. under them,and that there was a dislike of the Jews around.
At least he was honest enough to acknowledge the fact. Many Germans and non-Germans too,especially the English,adored Hitler until he reached Dunkirk!

Anti-Semitism sadly has never been eradicated in Britain nor Europe for that matter.These days,the world's troubles are all put down to a combined Jewish conspiracy where the US is manipulated by Jewish money,etc. Der Fuhrer would've loved to have lived in these happy times! English society has however been devastated by the waves of immigrants in recent times,and has lost much of its charm and civility.Scotland is however much,much better,but the barbarians are at the gates there too.Just read this tale fo woe from a well-known Englander.

Vinnie Jones claims immigration has made England unrecognisable and 'not the country I grew up in'

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/peopl ... 95617.html

Actor and ex-footballer Vinnie Jones has said he would never return to England because immigration has transformed his former home into a unrecognisable country.

In an interview with The Radio Times, the Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels star said that England was “past its sell by date.”

Mr Jones added: “It’s not the country I grew up in. It’s a European country now. If someone blindfolded you and put you on a plane in LA, and you landed at Heathrow and they took it off, you wouldn’t have a clue where you were.”

The 48-year-old, who was born in Watford, said he wasn’t familiar with Ukip, but insisted “I just think we should get our own house in order before we open our doors. It’s mind-boggling to me.”

Mr Jones, who now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children, said he didn't even miss English foods, because he was able to import them.

“We can get all that in LA, though you sometimes have to pay through the roof for it. A bottle of Ribena is 14 dollars,” he said.

“But I get my Walkers crisps delivered once a month. I have a box of Roast Chicken, a box of Salt and Vinegar, and a box of Monster Munch... and there’s more Premier League football on TV there than there is here.”

When asked about about footballers rolling around in apparent agony following contact with another player, he replied: “Yeah, well, that rolling around, that's the foreign players.

"I said it all 15 years ago, that diving would creep in, and also that the England team would suffer, because none of these foreign managers would buy English players. It's all happening, just like I said it would."

[Jarita]

The entire British financial class is of Jewish extract and closely married to the aristocracy. I believe Britain is the least anti Semitic of the lot.
The above assessments are based on incomplete data

[Manish_Sharma]

Jarita ji in one of the Ken Follet novels (forgot the name) he writes about riots against jewish ghettos upto the second world war. Its just suddenly after Ccamps that UK changed its tune suddenly.

[Haresh]

The entire British financial class is of Jewish extract and closely married to the aristocracy. I believe Britain is the least anti Semitic of the lot.
The above assessments are based on incomplete data

I think that is an exaggeration. They entire financial class?? How did you arrive at that conclusion?

I used to work for a bank in the city and they were not all Jewish. That is a pretty ignorant stereotype.
Do you assume that all Indians either work in IT or are Doctors?

Jewish people are represented very well in finance, but they are not the entire financial class.
None of my Jewish friends work in finance and none of the people I have met who work in Finance are Jewish.

[Lalmohan]

quite a lot of doctors and dentists are jewish
and a lot of bankers these days are indian

lets just say that the jews are well represented in the professional classes, like other educated minority groups

[Haresh]

Russia mocks Britain, the little island
Russia mocked Britain today as “a small island no one listens to”, sparking a diplomatic spat with David Cameron.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... sland.html

[Singha]

quite a lot of doctors and dentists are jewish
and a lot of bankers these days are indian

lets just say that the jews are well represented in the professional classes, like other educated minority groups

historically jews had been ghettoised in europe because many warlords and kings took away their right to farm land . so they had to settle in towns and learn trades - music, carpentry, metalworking, teaching, math...anything that involves crafts or mental work and not tied to farming. I believe that is the main trigger who so many jewish musicians, teachers, doctors, writers...and ofcourse financiers like shylock etc.

where there was no such constraint I think they took to farming and animal rearing as well - as in israel by draining reed swamps, brazil , argentina, mehico etc.

[Lilo]

Russia mocks Britain, the little island
Russia mocked Britain today as “a small island no one listens to”, sparking a diplomatic spat with David Cameron.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... sland.html

Putin is da Man

[anupmisra]

New report on Camp Bastion attack recalls efforts to protect Prince Harry

UK-related news from Afghanistan

Prince Harry was moved to a secure location during the Taliban's brazen attack on Camp Bastion, according to a harrowing new report by GQ magazine on the Sept. 14, 2012, nighttime raid.

The report would seem to contradict comments published by the Daily Mirror earlier this year in which the 28-year-old royal said he fired on the Taliban during the attack on Camp Bastion and had killed insurgents during his tour.

Take a life to save a life

The U.S. Army uniforms the Taliban wore during the raid were likely "stolen from supply trucks and sold in Pakistan" and came with "proper ranks and name tags."