The Anonymous Widower

The Battle of Bolton

Yesterday, what happened in Bolton was not the way to protest.

You could argue that on the one hand it was a protest very similar to the Battle of Cable Street, where East London was determined to stop a march by the British Union of Fascists. My father, a left-wing Tory, was at that battle in 1936 and his view was that it was all of the East End against a rather nasty group with connections to Hitler.  It could not be argued then, that we didn’t know of the ambitions and awful nastiness of the German dictator.

You could also argue that on the other, there are strong fears about such things like Sharia law and militant Islam.

I was listening to Radio 5 last night and the two sides had an argument with the presenter, as they thought they’d been duped into talking to each other by the BBC.

That probably shows more about the groups than anything else.  They wanted a fight and that is what they got.  But it was mainly with the police, who as ever were stuck in the middle.  They should have let both of these groups get on with what they wanted to do.  Preferably, in a place where they couldn’t do any damage to anybody else.

Those on both sides of the argument should talk to make sure that nothing like this happens again.

March 21, 2010 - Posted by AnonW | News | Fascism, Islam, Law, My Father