This year, 2023, marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury docks in Essex on 22 June 1948. The ship brought around 500 people from Jamaica and Trinidad to the UK. Many of the new arrivals were employed in state services such as the NHS and public transport filling post-war employmentContinue reading “The Windrush Generation, Seventy-five Years on – 1948-2023: Caribbean Immigrants to Britain; Policy, Music & Culture”
Category Archives: Northern Ireland
‘Peacelines’: Britain, Ireland & Europe – The Making & Keeping of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement; 1973-2023.
Borderlines – Remembering Sojourns in Ireland: The recent ‘post-Brexit’ negotiations over the issue of the trading relations between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland have made me reflect on my two ‘professional’ visits to the island as an adult, in 1988 and 1990, a decade before the Belfast talks led to the ‘Good Friday Agreement’.Continue reading “‘Peacelines’: Britain, Ireland & Europe – The Making & Keeping of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement; 1973-2023. “
The Disintegration of Multiculturalism in Early Twenty-first Century Britain – The Child Exploitation Gang Scandals:
Current ‘Culture Wars’ & an issue revisited: The current British Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, has been in the news again this week following her interviews on the BBC TV Sunday Morning programme with Laura Kuenessburg and Sky TV’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme on 2 April. She was recently embroiled in a controversy with sportsContinue reading “The Disintegration of Multiculturalism in Early Twenty-first Century Britain – The Child Exploitation Gang Scandals:”
Old Gold, ‘Golden Team’ & Ballon d’Or: The Globalisation of Football & The Legendary Career of Flórián Albert, 1953-93.
The ‘Magical Magyars’: As I was born in June 1957, I have no personal recollection of the Hungarian national ‘Golden Team’ (Aranycsapat) of the early fifties that began a new era of football with their famous 6-3 and 7-1 victories over England, never before beaten at home in the ninety years of the Football Association.Continue reading “Old Gold, ‘Golden Team’ & Ballon d’Or: The Globalisation of Football & The Legendary Career of Flórián Albert, 1953-93.”
Majesty & A Fall from Grace: The Lives & Times of the Latter-Day Windsors – Part Two: Borders, Brexit & Bombings, 2002-17.
The Twin Causes of ‘Brexit’ – Migration & Asylum: In 2015, David Cameron and the Conservatives surprisingly won an overall majority of MPs and were able to form a government by themselves. In their Manifesto, they had promised to conduct a renegotiation of the terms of Britain’s membership in the EU, and then ask theContinue reading “Majesty & A Fall from Grace: The Lives & Times of the Latter-Day Windsors – Part Two: Borders, Brexit & Bombings, 2002-17.”
Majesty & A Fall from Grace: The Lives & Times of the Latter-Day Windsors – Part One: Big Days, Budgets & Bigotry 2002-17
Another Royal Fairy Tale Begins – William & Kate, 2002-2011: The sun was coming up over Westminster Abbey on Friday 29th April 2011, and on the Mall, some of the visitors were sleeping on chairs near the road, and others were standing and talking. They came from all over the capital city, as well asContinue reading “Majesty & A Fall from Grace: The Lives & Times of the Latter-Day Windsors – Part One: Big Days, Budgets & Bigotry 2002-17”
Majesty & Grace X: The Reign of Elizabeth Windsor – Winter of Discontent to Golden Jubilee, 1979-2002; Part 2 – The Peace Process & The People’s Princess.
The Sectarian Divide in Belfast & the Peace Process, 1980-98: After the Provisional IRA assassinated Lord Mountbatten on his boat off the Western coast of Ireland in 1979, the mainland bombing campaign went on with attacks on the Chelsea barracks, then Hyde Park bombings, when eight people were killed and fifty-three injured. With hindsight, the emergenceContinue reading “Majesty & Grace X: The Reign of Elizabeth Windsor – Winter of Discontent to Golden Jubilee, 1979-2002; Part 2 – The Peace Process & The People’s Princess.”
Majesty & Grace X: The Reign of Elizabeth Windsor – Winter of Discontent to Golden Jubilee, 1979-2002; Part 1 – Wars & Paupers.
Britain at the End of the Cold War World: Britain had retreated from most of its empire by 1970. The only remaining colony was Rhodesia, which had been ruled by a white minority government, illegally, since 1967 and through the seventies. Britain resumed control in 1980 and the country became independent as Zimbabwe later thatContinue reading “Majesty & Grace X: The Reign of Elizabeth Windsor – Winter of Discontent to Golden Jubilee, 1979-2002; Part 1 – Wars & Paupers.”
Andrew James 