Northern Ireland

Pat Finucane

I see that David Cameron stood up today in 'Westmonster' and apologised for the farce which followed the murder of the solicitor Pat Finucane.  An enquiry led by Desmond Lorenz de Silva has long since been described as a 'disgrace' and many more adjectives.

I am always concerned when a politician calls for an 'independent enquiry' because I suspect that someone from the legal profession will be hand picked to ensure that nobody who belongs to the Political Class will be indicted. 

I served in Northern Ireland both in the seventies and the eighties and it always amazed me how close we were to the protestant community even though we should have been neutral. I personally witnessed a British Staff Sergeant almost attacked because he 'forgot' to stand up for the National Anthem at the end of a social evening in the Sergeant's Mess of the local UDA!

It was an unreal situation but there was little doubt in my mind that we, the British Army, sided with the protestant community even though we always knew they could cut up rough if we did not adhere to the official policy.  Don't get me wrong I liked them but I was working undercover and they were not the target.  I always thought that they were capable of a violence that would probably exceed that of the IRA...which says it all!

So can we trust 'independent inquiries'? In my opinion none of the Political Class and that includes politicians, the judiciary and the police will ever be 'independent'. They all have agendas and so we cannot trust them.  The inquiry into the death of Pat Finucane proves just that!  

The millions spent on the Leveson Inquiry also proves it. He has jogged off to Australia leaving behind him an unsolved mess. The only winners are always the lawyers.  It is time that this ceased.

Northern Ireland

So Gordon McDoom has travelled to Northern Ireland to solve the problem of their power sharing arrangements. Here we go again and Gordon is the last person who should poke his nose into their internal affairs.

During my military career I spent some considerable time in the middle of this centuries old dispute. The Irish have this wonderful talent to charm but behind this facade they have a culture that we will never understand. Their history, their culture, their very being is linked to a kind of apartheid. Frankly it is not the wish of the public but it is the wish of their politicians who have always held sway.

They traded on this apartheid and it will continue. To get involved is madness. Let them sort it out because that is what they want.

Northern Ireland

I am watching the news reports of the problems that have flared up between the two communities in Northern Ireland because they have both been awarded the same amount of compensation for dead relatives. What kind of idiot thought that one up? Why should any of them receive taxpayer's money for something that happened thirty of forty years ago?

Is someone also sitting down and deciding that the relatives of all the British soldiers killed in NI should also get a payment? Should the people who lost relatives in mainland England because of IRA bombings also get a payment? This is typical lunacy thought up by the legal profession (as was the Bloody Sunday enquiry) so that they profit from the grief of so many others.

I served twice in the province as a soldier and it was tragic that the situation between the two communities had been encouraged to fester. When one considers the problems in the Middle East and compares that with the peace that has descended on Northern Ireland then we can only hope that peace will last.

It will last because the people want it to last but to bring the extremists back face to face in front of the television cameras was unbelievable. It is mischievous lunacy because nobody can ever agree who merits what above whom.

Get over it folks! It happened and it is over. Don't let the lawyers use you to open up old wounds.