"This devaluation (pound get a blow)
Will cause an eruption (pound get a blow)" :
Fellow-Jamaicans the Bleechers went as far as suggesting that "Pound Paper" should be replaced by dollars and cents. Rank treason IYAM. I always wondered why Lee Perry hadn't got a knighthood.
By 1976 Labour were back in power under Jim Callaghan, and there was another sterling crisis. Once more there was comment from down yard way, via the late Vivian 'Yabby You' Jackson.
By the next sterling crisis in 1992, the Tories' Black Wednesday, Jamaicans had lost interest in UK events. The Mother Country had become the Mother****** Country and West Indian musicians no longer titled themselves Sir, Lord , Count or Duke.
So we're unlikely to get much comment on current sterling woes.
Never mind. In the finest tradition of the Green movement, Laban has recycled Yabby You's 1977 tribute to the collapsing pound.
"Did you read it in the news today ?
The pound has fallen down"
9 comments:
Beloved Mother Country?
The historical links between the English-speaking Caribbean countries, and the UK are definitely diminishing.
Wislon link
"Economic performance did show some improvement after the devaluation, as economists had predicted. The devaluation, with accompanying austerity measures, successfully restored the balance of payments to surplus by 1969. However, this unexpectedly turned into a small deficit again in 1970. The bad figures were announced just before polling in the 1970 general election, and are often cited as one of the reasons for Labour's defeat.[7]"
If I remember correctly these figures were spurious and there was, in reality, something of a surplus in 1970.
In the ghastly circs in which we find ourselves it doesn't matter how much the pound depreciates in terms of other currencies. Our industrial base has been destroyed - you can't export if the former factory is now a car lot or a "retail park".
Talking of which I wnt on a little trip to Bicester "Village" a couple of weekends ago. I was hoping to go to a GBG rated pub and then be picked up later after a toddle along the Cherwell. I had hoped to encounter Lark Rise and pass the time with "Twister". It was not to be. The pub was closed, to my utter horror, and the entertainment of female family members. I had, perforce, to go to the fuck awful Bicester retail park where half an hour was spent in orbit round an appalling multi-storey observing completely braindead twats clutching bags labelled with designer tat. It was a terrible experience, but I did find a pub - of sorts - where the staff were kind and sympathetic and the Greene King IPA somewhat palatable.
At least economic collapse will put paid to this trash.
We need to start again, to go back to where our great adventure began - I was most impressed by "Wolf Hall".
All these lefty diversity co-ordinators need to be re-deployed to positions be-fitting their talents - picking cabbages in the fields and cleaning toilets, we don't actually have a labour shortage as such.
Obviously we have been screwed by traitors, and for these the punishment must be condign.
"The official equalities watchdog will threaten to brand as racist police forces which are deemed to have used stop and search powers excessively against people from ethnic minorities, the Guardian has learned.
Police forces will be told they face enforcement action unless they give meaningful promises to change, says a report for the Equality and Human Rights Commission expected to be released later this month."
Stalin's on the job then
"A draft of the report
concludes: "The evidence points to racial discrimination being a significant reason why black and Asian people are more likely to be stop and searched than white people."
Or perhaps there is another explanation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/10/racism-police-stop-search
There is no more prostitution in Balsall Heath.
There is a definite pattern. Labour spends its time in office mucking the economy up, then the Tories get in and fix things (I still think the latter are bastards though). Similar to William Gazy (who appears to have taken his blog down - COME BACK!!!), I want Labour to win the election so that Brown completely and utterly buggers the economy. It truly is the only way to kill the "liberal" "elite" left.
I wonder when is Brown going to give us his version of Harold Wilson's speech:
It does not mean that the pound here in Britain, in your pocket or purse or in your bank, has been devalued.
@ Clem Yeobright
The official equalities watchdog will threaten to brand as racist police forces which are deemed to have used stop and search powers excessively against people from ethnic minorities.
I think there's a link between this forthcoming report, and the current news story about only 1 in 4 anti-social crimes being investigated. It's a little confusing - Trevor Phillips said that ' "institutional" "racism" ' no longer existed.
Should read:
the "liberal","elite" Left.
Fellow-Jamaicans the Bleechers went as far as suggesting that "Pound Paper" should be replaced by dollars and cents.
1967 probably wasn't that long after Jamaican independence.
But of the various overseas territories Britain still runs, a number of them use the yankee dollar:
* British Indian Ocean Territory
* The British Virgin Islands
* The Turks and Caicos Islands
And others use all sorts of weird and wonderful currencies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_overseas_territories
Speaking from having lived in the Caribbean for a couple of years, Britain seems an awful long way away and a rather odd anachronism even in a British Overseas Territory like the BVI. Particularly when compared to the giant USA towering over the region, whose influence and people are difficult to ignore.
Still, the cloggies and the Frogs have still got islands there so in a way its not that weird.
But if you live there, you can't help but wonder what the hell Britain gets out of it.
With the Falklands, we fought a recent war, they've got oil, and their the gateway to who knows what riches in the Antartic.
But with the Caribbean territories, our only interest is for big cheeses from the City to avoid taxes and indulge in dodgy dealings.
and their the gateway
and they're the gateway.
Have a read of this columnist. This is from the BVI. I used to regularly read this guy because its written in the local dialect and it was quit entertaining. Anyway, this gives you a snapshot of local feeling about the relationship with Britain:
http://www.vistandpoint.com/news/lifestyle/3701-colossos-notes-nat-a-ting-go-so
Lawdamussy! Pardna pon de taxi stan tell meh Oy doan know wah goin on but doan believe a ting wah dem seh bout dem caan foine one local police to be de deputy. Well sah! Pardna she a Depity essenshul, an tiz a Inglish man dem wan to put in dat posishun, an doan kere how much udders apply dem only waastin dem toime.
Oy cud tell yuh! Dem wan a nex woite man to come heah to mek row wid de locul police and udders black me in de force. Nex ting yuh heah, eeder he shot dem or dem shot he and somebordy goin jail go kill demself agen. Lawdamussy!
Pooh we. We ain mekkin no progress wen tiz one step forward an tree step back. Yuh mean to tell me we had two locul police cheef and we caan foine one locul depity? Nat a ting go so, Oy doan believe dat atall atall atall!. Well sah!
Dis WeeOyPee gowament got ti hands full. Water company, depity cheef a police, fore lane hyway, traffick loites and ole people ketchin cole pon Nanny Key beech. Wat a ting. De coat house full a drama wid touris goin jail fuh killin he woife, an all koines a udders wid wishous behaviour dat dem got to answer to an pay fuh. But dat ain all. De taximen ain happy wid how dem push Americkan law pon we an gots we up and dung wid all koines a change dat doan mek no sense. But Ah goin leve dat fuh anudda toime. Well, meh boy. Ti got ting!
Incidently, it took me 6 weeks to fully understand the locals. Also, Jamaicans have a quite different accent and after a while you can distinguish them easily.
Boy, do I miss it.
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