[FuckingRotter]

Tom, the suppression of universal suffrage in Great Britain has more in common with that in Bogside and West Belfast than perhaps you realise.

Do a web search of "Peterloo".

When some women were granted voting rights in this country, working class men who were previously disenfranchised were given the vote at the same time.

As recently as 1989 the British Government introduced what they termed the community charge. Some communities took this as an instruction, and charge they did! The community charge was a form of local government funding that basically meant a truck driver feeding a family of five in a mid-terrace two up two down house, paid the same as a stockbroker living in his detached five bedroomed house. Now, libertarian me isn't a big fan of punitive taxation, but even I can see there is some imparity there!

How local authorities determined who should pay was by looking at the electoral register. If you were on it, you paid. So the charge was quickly nicknamed the Poll Tax.

People with two or more properties could also choose which property they could register as their permanent home, thus selecting an area where the charge was lower if they wished!

What happened was, there were a few organised protests, some turned violent, with police usually getting the blame. The protests culminated in what became known as the Battle of Trafalgar Square. However, the community charge was eventually abandoned because people in their millions just refused to pay. In some authorities as much as 80% of this tax remains uncollected.

It didn't just end there though. When local authorities sent out court summonses, people turned up in their thousands to have their day in court! Communities formed bailiff patrols and just surrounded houses when they turned up.

Move forward 30 years, and whilst Mary Lou and Arlene are squabbling over language, basically an exercise in pedantry, literally, instead of getting on with the job they've been elected to do, the UK political class are attempting to over-turn the biggest democratic mandate ever in this country. And in some inner city areas, electoral fraud and enmasse coercion of voters, the effective disenfranchisement of women is going unchecked, because so long as the ragheads are voting for the right candidate, it doesn't really matter does it?



So yes, Paddy has had it tough, and there is no excuse. But as Harold MacMillan might put it, Paddy has never had it so good, as he has it today. Unfortunately, just when things had turned a corner in Northern Ireland, politicians with questionable motives seem determined to put the kibosh on the whole thing.