Wales, Richard, for Wales?' Unionists, offering all sorts of deals offered no evidence Unionist, supported 'strong arm methods.
individual case histories.
01016 wife, is just the latest (although disgusting) piece of black propaganda. then it is a price which is too high.
in Castlereagh, scapegoat for the Bennett and Irwin revelations.
presence would go. That remains the only will not repeat this mistake.
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Socialist Challenge 22 March 1979 page 2 THERE is a point in Robert Bolt's play A Man For All Seasons at which Thomas More turns on his former friend Richard Rich. Rich had just given false evidence against More and was rewarded by Henry VIII with the lord lieutenancy of Wales. Says More: 'It may profit a man to sell his soul and gain the whole world - but for The Labour government is presently negotiating with the Ulster for their support in Parliament. An indication of the type of diseased mentality these Loyalists have is displayed in their response to the Bennett report. An official statement from the Unionist Party said that Bennett of ill-treatment; Harold McCusker, said that it did - but that he It could be argued that the response of the Labour government, particularly that of Northern Ireland Secretary Mason, is not all that different. Bennett makes the point in his report that he was specifically restricted under Mason's brief from looking at the wider application of law in the North of Ireland, as well as that in From the start of the latest round of evidence of ill-treatment' by the security forces in the North of Ireland, the Labour SOCCES One eNois. tense ana diversions. attempted smear on Dr Robert Irwin, drawing attention to the rape probably the most It is also worth remembering that it is not the Loyalist bigots who are responsible for the administration of law in the North of Ireland, or for H Block, or even for the continued denial of the rights of the Irish people, It is the Labour government.
Nevertheless, despite their apparent agreement on repression in the North of Ireland, there is something particularly nauseating about the current spectacle of Callaghan and friends bargaining with the Loyalist bigots. Even the Daily Mirror commented that if this is the price to pay for the survival of a Labour government, It is too much to expect that at this late hour the Labour government will attempt some liberalising measures in the North of Ireland. It appears that apart from the gimmicks of TV screens the onlv consequence of the Bennett report is the departure of RUC Chief Constable Sir Kenneth Newman. The Northern Ireland Office insist that Newman was due to return to England anyway, but it is obvious that he is being offered as the If there was a socialist government in Westminster much more would leave the North of Ireland than Newman. The troops would leave, the torturers would be booted out, and the entire British demand socialists should place on whatever government sits at Westminster.
But in the light of the Bennett report, and in the light of the attempted deals with the Loyalists, something else can be said. The one way the Labour government can now gain one grain of self-respect for its North of Ireland policy is to say loudly and unequivocally that the present situation in the North of Ireland, torture and all, is because British governments have made deals with the bigoted minority in Ireland on too many occasions in the past, and that this time, whatever its fate, the Labour government Otherwise, let us rewrite Robert Bolt and say that it may indeed profit the Labour government to sell out the millions of voters it has if it gains five more years in power — but for six counties?