The Rest is History Episode 418 Britain in 1974: The Election Crisis (Part II) In February 1974 a bus carrying servicemen was bombed, killing 12 people. This was the first IRA bombing on British soil, and during 1974 there was an IRA bombing every week in Britain. The Labour Party was disarray, led by Harold Wilson, the brilliant, suburban, Scoutmaster and said to be the Queen’s favourite PM. Although he had led the Labour Party to victory in 1964, ten years later he was tired and over it all. He was surrounded by strong characters in their own right: Tony Benn who wanted to nationalize everything and the rude and bullying Dennis Healey. Jeremy Thorpe, the pro-European leader of the Liberals was a cad, but the Liberals saw themselves as ‘nice’. Then there was the Tory Enoch Powell with his ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, which ended up in him being sacked from the Conservative Party and now off the leash. Labour was not expected to win, but the result was that the Tories and Labour were the same, and the Liberals won 19%. The first-past-the-post system yielded 301 seats to Labour, 297 to the Tories and 14 seats to the Liberals. The Liberals refused to enter into a coalition with the Tories, which meant that Wilson became Prime Minister of a minority government.
Things Fell Apart. Episode 4 Spicy Brando tells the story of Brandon Caserta (not sure of the spelling) who as a troubled young man found himself attracted to Jordan Peterson’s ’12 Rules for Life’ which led him into involvement with militia groups and preppers, particularly when the state of Michigan imposed strict lockdown measures. His involvement with the Wolverine Watchmen found him arrested by the FBI in October 2020 over the group’s plan to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Although Brandon himself was found not-guilty, the ringleaders were found guilty. However, Jon Ronson (and the court case) raises questions over just how serious all this trash-talk was, and whether the Wolverine Watchmen were a white supremacist group, as they had been portrayed.
Emperors of Rome Episode CIV Slavery Slavery was central to Rome’s economy and power. At first, slaves were taken in conquest and then any children born to a slave woman became a slave. There were slave markets in Rome and the owners could do anything they wanted to their slave. Historian Keith Hopkins has estimated that 25% of the population was enslaved, making Rome a ‘slave society’. It was normal for even modest households to have one or two slaves. Slaves played a variety of roles: educated slaves would act as secretaries, agricultural slaves worked on the estates, others worked on construction especially of public buildings, and the worst of all was to work in mining. With such a high proportion of the population being enslaved, there was always fear of rebellion, so slave catchers were numerous. A slave collar has been found, with a ‘note’ attached given their name and that of their owner, and instructions on how to return the absconded slave. Manumission was not uncommon . When set free, former slaves became citizens with most (but not all) the rights of a Roman citizen. When freed, they would have three names, one of which was their former owner’s. There was the potential for social mobility, but Augustus passed laws against cohabitation between a free woman and a slave. Some have said that Christianity put an end to slavery, although Rhiannon Evans notes that the Apostle Paul sent an escaped slave back to his owner. It was more that slavery become economically unviable in the later Roman Empire.
The Daily Stoic. Heather Cox Richardson on What History Teaches us about Fighting the Dark Energy of the Human Soul I’ve been listening to Heather Cox Richardson since lockdown days but I was a bit surprised to see her pop up here on the Daily Stoic. I’m not really sure that she was as much into the idea of the “dark energy of the soul” as the presenter was, but what she did talk about was that in replacing one story in history, it needs to be replaced by another story. It can be the story of a group, or of an idea. Really, they’re just chatting away. Nonetheless, it was interesting to hear her talking about history in a forum that is not devoted to history.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 