The "Special Relationship".......................

[10ClarionSt]

..............myth continues with the visit of President Biden. There is, and never was, any "Special Relationship". It only exists in the minds of deluded people who think the UK is still a world power.

The myth started when Germany declared war on the USA following the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. This meant that the USA and the UK were now allies and as such, would make the joint effort against Germany and Japan (not forgetting Italy). It also meant the sharing of intelligence. Churchill was reluctant to let anyone know about Ultra and Bletchly Park, including the Americans. In the end, he was persuaded to let them in on it. That was the start of the, so-called, Special Relationship. There was no other reason for this "relationship", other than to defeat the Axis Forces. The only "relationship" the UK has to the USA is that they are both members of NATO.

There was never any kindred spirit towards the UK from the USA. In fact, in 1934, in the midst of world economic turmoil and depression, the USA formulated a plan that might involve a war between them and the British Empire. It was called War Plan Red and would have commenced with the invasion of Canada and British held territories in the Carribean.

Special Relationship my armpit! :o)

[New Judge]

//And the result now is Fiona Bruce on Antiques Roadshow insulting us by showing the ancestral home of an historically successful business family who probably gained all their wealth from the exploitation and subjugation of working people. These places should be demolished and the lands used to build housing, hospitals etc.//

The thing is, 10CS, that those activities were of their time. We don’t have to agree that they were necessarily good or acceptable. They range from being arguably unpleasant to downright abhorrent. But if you eradicate all traces of them you are effectively erasing history and no society should do that.

The argument about labour in cotton mills and the like is not clear cut. It could be argued that without those successful entrepreneurs, the lot of the folk who worked for them would have been even worse than it was. Some of the founders of businesses in those days were definitely instrumental in improving – vastly in some cases – the lives of those they employed. Think particularly of the Cadbury family and their “model village” at Bourneville and Sir Titus Salt and Saltaire. I agree these were not typical of Victorian employers, but between them and those who cruelly exploited a vulnerable workforce, there is lots in between.

You cannot simply dismiss what happened during the industrial revolution and the Victorian period which followed as a time when working folk were bullied and exploited by cruel industrialists. It’s not as simple as that and it’s certainly not right to speak of it in the same breath as slavery. They were not all Bradley Hardacres:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_(TV_series)

[10ClarionSt]

Thanks for that NJ. You could also add the Sunlight village on Merseyside to those.

However, those examples were much later in history and were probably indicative of a wakening of conscience.

[New Judge]

//However, those examples were much later in history and were probably indicative of a wakening of conscience.//

Yes, I imagine you're right. But that's the whole point. If you don't have earlier attitudes to compare with you cannot measure how they have changed. We would never have got from a penny a week for sixteen hour days to employment law as it stands today in one jump. There has to be progression that can be seen and measured and if you destroy the memory of the earlier models you cannot see that progression.

[vulcan42]

" There has to be progression that can be seen and measured and if you destroy the memory of the earlier models you cannot see that progression."
An Excellent point New Judge, I hope those who wish to rewrite history will appreciate its relevance and importance.

[jno]

[i]America is the world’s most powerful country[i]

I suppose. It strikes me however that China feels comfortable ignoring America when it chooses; America doesn't think it can ignore China.

[Peter Pedant]

"There has to be progression that...... .........dels you cannot see that progression."

is a re-statement of the idea "whig progression of history"
whig - yes one of them

from wiki

Whig history (or Whig historiography) is an approach to historiography that presents history as a journey from an oppressive and benighted past to a "glorious present".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whig_history

it isnt ( tenable) or it doesnt ( progress)

AJP Taylor was keen to debunk it, and he was a historian from 100 y ago - foo !

A few examples illustrate its falsity - Iranian revolution 1979 ( women voted for the first time in History to disengranchise themselves.) look at them now

Lenin as a successor to the Tsar or even Stalin as a successor to Lenin or Putin as a successor to gorby

You may judge yourselves

The thread is open to outraged squawks from the usual suspects
let me kick off
1. dat garbled dat is
2. who whig den, who ?
3. stalin - I heard of him once