14 APRIL

THE TIMES – NASSER MUST BE STOPPED OR OTHERS WILL ALSO DEFY US. [ 1 August 1956 } On this day in 1956 The Times ran a leader insisting that even if Egyptian president Nasser might be legally justified in taking back the Suez canal, his action must be opposed because it was a dangerous…

GENERAL’S REQUEST TO DEPORT BOER WOMEN TO REMOTE ISLAND IMPRACTICAL. On 20 July 1901 the British Secretary of State for War, St. John Brodrick wrote to General Kitchener, the Chief of Staff of British forces in South Africa, commenting on his suggestions for the seizure of Boer property and the permanent banishment of the families…

NO WMD HERE BUT WE FOUND MARMALADE ! [ 27 November 2002 ] On this day in 2002, the British government pushed UN weapons inspectors in Iraq to investigate one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces on the Tigris river. Britain felt reasonably confident that Saddam Hussein would refuse them entry, thereby providing the United Kingdom and…

LORD MANSFIELD – THROWING SLAVES OVERBOARD CANNOT BE MURDER. [ 22 May 1783 ] On this day in 1783, Lord Mansfied, the presiding judge at an appeal hearing, issued his verdict on the case of  132 men, women and children thrown overboard from a British owned slave ship, the Zong, on 29 November 1871.  It…

UK REVERSES ITS POSITION ON GUANTANAMO, ACKNOWLEDGING THIS MIGHT INCREASE THE TERROR THREAT. An internal government memo dated 22 June 2018, leaked to The Daily Telegraph, and marked “Official Sensitive” noted that UK ministers would not oppose the US government sending two British terror suspects, Alexanda Kotey and Shafee El-Sheikh, to Guantanamo,  although at the same…

BRITISH TROOPS KILL 10,000 INDONESIANS IN BATTLE TO REASSERT DUTCH COLONIAL RULE. 10 November 1945 – The British begin a large scale assault on the Indonesian city of Surabaya, where nationalist forces equipped with weapons they had seized from Japanese troops continued to defy orders to disarm.  Several days earlier a British brigadier, A.W.S. Mallaby,…