122. Events, dear boy, events

122. Events, dear boy, events

After discussing his relative success with a moderately liberal programme in England last time, in this episode we talk about Palmerston’s far greater difficulties abroad. There was another Opium War in China, as Britain fought to enforce the East India Company’s right to push drugs there, and then an uprising in India, which Brits still like to think of as a mutiny though many Indians see it as a War of Independence.

Both events involved extensive brutality, most of it by Britain, but Palmerston did just fine in the debates on both. The stumbling block proved to be something far less significant: a terrorist outrage in Paris by a man who’d had some connection with England. The French demanded that Palmerston take action, and he responded by proposing new legislation. That had seemed to many like kowtowing to the French, and the Opposition in parliament was able to engineer a victory in a vote against his government’s behaviour.

Oddly, that was on the very night after his victory over military action in India. One evening, he was victorious, the next he was out. Events, you see, events are the real killers in a statesman’s existence.

Illustration: Sepoy Mutiny, 1857 by Charles Granger, showing a scene from the 1857 Indian uprising. From Wikimedia Commons.
Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Jaksot(274)

265. War in a unipolar world

265. War in a unipolar world

By the latter part of the twentieth century, the world had become unipolar. The Soviet Empire collapsed even more rapidly than the British one had after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. China was not yet...

26 Loka 202514min

264. Ethics, votes and wars

264. Ethics, votes and wars

We saw in the last episode, that Britain’s involvement in the NATO intervention in Kosovo could be regarded as part of an ‘ethical foreign policy’, since its objective, many felt, was humanitarian, th...

12 Loka 202514min

263. Tragedy at home, ethics abroad

263. Tragedy at home, ethics abroad

Divorce, contrary to what many believe, was not permitted by the Church of England. Henry VIII didn’t divorce two wives, he had the marriages annulled, declaring in effect that they’d never happened. ...

5 Loka 202514min

262. Uncool

262. Uncool

In the early years of Blair’s premiership, his supporters liked to refer to Britain as ‘Cool Britannia’, in a play on the title of the song ‘Rule Britannia’. Last week, we talked about some of the coo...

28 Syys 202514min

261. Cool Britannia

261. Cool Britannia

The Blair government threw itself into action as soon as it was formed.Rather confirming the existence of a deal between them, something they’ve never confirmed, Blair quickly appointed Gordon Brown C...

21 Syys 202514min

260. New Dawn

260. New Dawn

It was a new dawn. Or at least so Tony Blair said, as he emerged from his landslide victory in the 1997 General Election. It’s what he would say, isn’t it?Still, there was some truth to the claim. It ...

14 Syys 202514min

259. Major error, major success, Major’s out

259. Major error, major success, Major’s out

We’re just about ready to move on from John Major but, before we do, we need to spend a few moments on two major events of his second premiership. One was a significant breakthrough, in Ireland, even ...

7 Syys 202514min

258. Major’s bastards and Labour’s deal

258. Major’s bastards and Labour’s deal

By winning the 1992 general election, John Major had gained his own mandate to form a government, instead of imply inheriting Margaret Thatcher’s. He’d shown himself capable of leading the Conservativ...

31 Elo 202514min

Suosittua kategoriassa Historia

olipa-kerran-otsikko
gogin-ja-janin-maailmanhistoria
mayday-fi
huijarit
mystista
rss-ikiuni
tsunami
totuus-vai-salaliitto
konginkangas
rouva-diktaattori
rss-i-dont-like-mondays-2
rss-sattuu-sita-suomessakin
historiaa-suomeksi
rss-subjektiivinen-todistaja
rss-peter-peter
maailmanpuu
rss-kirkon-ihmeellisimmat-tarinat
historian-nurkkapoyta
tiedetta-ja-sirkushuveja-vanhojen-aikojen-podcast
hippokrateen-vastaanotolla