Women accounted for more than 40% of the slave owners found in these records. ibid.
A nation as addicted to cheap sugar as it was to the profits of slavery. ibid.
Above all the slave system made Britain wealthy. ibid.
How in the nineteenth century a British government coup in India created the British Raj. And was heralded by the Victorians as the civilising triumph of the empire. British History’s Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley III, BBC 2017
They called themselves the Honourable East India Company and they went to great lengths to engineer a facade of British respectability. ibid.
British merchants took over. The national bank that issued the country’s currency, and in the name of free trade, their manufacturers invaded internal markets. From that moment on, England replaced Spain in dominating almost all of the continent. What it had not obtained before with armies, it now obtained with loans … This was the birth of neo-colonialism. The Hour of the Furnaces ***** 1968
The unity of America was destroyed. ibid.
It’s amazing to think that that’s the best election result that we could have hoped for. The Conservatives forming a coalition with the political wing of the Old Testament – the Democratic Unionist Party. I’m always worried when I see that word Democratic in a name. Frankie Boyle’s New World Order III
The old statement that England acquired its empire in a fit of absentmindedness is amusing but does not explain very much. It does, however, contain an element of truth: much of the empire was acquired by private individuals and commercial firms, and was taken over by the British government much later. Carroll Quigley, Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time
At the twilight of the British empire, bankers, lawyers and accountants from the City of London set up a spider’s web of offshore secrecy jurisdictions that captured wealth from across the globe and funnelled it to London. The Spider’s Web: Britain’s Second Empire ***** 2017, Youtube 1.18.01
The British empire: the largest empire the world has ever known. For over 300 years Britain ruled, its armies conquered, and its bankers proclaimed the might of its currency. But one day it all began to fall apart. One by one countries declared their independence from Britain and no amount of force could reverse the tide. As British elites saw their wealth, privileges and empire disintegrate, they began to search for a new role in a changing world. And they found one in finance. This is a film about how Britain transformed from a colonial power to a modern financial power and how this transformation has shaped the world we live in. ibid.
Britain’s overseas jurisdictions – the last remnants of empire. Accountants and lawyers from London arrived in the Cayman Islands and other dependencies and began to draft a set of secrecy laws and regulations. ibid.
The City of London adapted and survived … Its Lord Mayor is selected by the heads of medieval guilds. ibid.
‘Over and over again we have seen that there is another power than that which has its seat at Westminster. The City of London, a convenient term for a collection of financial interests, is able to assert itself against the government of the country. Those who control money can pursue a policy at home and abroad contrary to that which is being decided by the people.’ ibid. Clement Attlee
BCCI: extensive financial fraud, money laundering and terrorist financing … The Bank of England did nothing. ibid.
‘The Trust lies at the core of the British secrecy model.’ ibid. expert
International banks from across the globe set up branches in London and Britain’s offshore jurisdictions in order to take advantage of this new system. ibid.
Secrecy jurisdictions are heavily used for fraudulent and grey area financial activities, areas where secrecy is not just desirable but a necessity. ibid.
The Cayman Islands is the first largest financial centre in the world. It hosts 80,000 registered companies, over three-quarters of the world’s hedge funds and $1.9 trillion in deposits. It has a population of 60,000, roughly equivalent to New York’s homeless population. ibid.
Accountants form the backbone of the offshore system; they administer the structures that allow individuals and corporations to shift their money offshore and evade taxes. ibid.
In Britain secrecy and complexity in finance and government help to obscure corruption in public office. ibid.
Guns just like this were fired by British empire troops in a public park in Amritsar India on 13th April 1919. Hundreds of people were killed. The Amritsar massacre was the moment Britain lost the largest empire in history. The Massacre that Shook the Empire, Channel 4 2019
Among the confirmed dead were fifteen children. ibid.
The fancy punishments in Amritsar in 1919 were orchestrated by General Dyer, the officer who gave the order to open fire that led to the massacre. ibid.
During the sixteenth century, England began its brutal conquest of Ireland, and declared half a million acres of land in the north open to settlement. Under British colonial rule, the Irish were regarded as a lower species and naturally inferior. They were descendants of apes. Exterminate All the Brutes II: Who the Fuck is Columbus, HBO 2021
Ireland was now part of a rapidly expanding British empire. (Ireland & British Empire) Fergal Keane, The Story of Ireland 3/5: The Age of Revolution BBC
The Boar War had proved that there was a dedicated minority of Irish committed to breaking the link with Empire. Fergal Keane, The Story of Ireland 4/5: The Age of Union, BBC 2011
The Act of Union had given Catholics economic power but their political destiny remained in the hands of London. Fergal Keane, The Story of Ireland 5/5: Age of Nations
Fears grew that Britain would introduce conscription in Ireland. ibid.
[Patrick] Pearse stepped outside and read from a proclamation signed by himself and the six other leaders: he declared an Irish republic. ibid.
Public anger deepened following mass arrests and the imposition of martial law. ibid.
The volunteers evolved into the Irish Republican Army. ibid.
Collins would find himself directing a guerrilla war. The IRA campaign which began in 1919 was met with fierce reprisals against civilians by security forces like the Black & Tans. ibid.
In October 1921 a Sinn Fein delegation led by Michael Collins arrived in London to discuss a political settlement. ibid.
The slide to civil war had begun. ibid.
Michael Collins was assassinated in County Cork. ibid.
In the Protestant-ruled six counties of Ulster electoral boundaries had been drawn to ensure majorities for unionists in most areas. ibid.
A place of discrimination and exclusion. ibid.
Physical and sexual abuse on a large scale was part of the secret history of the new state. ibid.
Ireland remained neutral ... Germans bailing out over the South were interned. ibid.
Television challenged the voice of both priest and politician. Women joined the workforce in growing numbers and challenged discriminatory laws. ibid.
Republican and loyalist paramilitaries, policemen and soldiers, fought over the old ground. ibid.
Bloody Sunday: January 30th 1972. ibid.
Hunger strikes begin in the Maze Prison October 27th 1980. ibid.
Inequality between rich and poor was still amongst the worst of western Europe. ibid.
The full scale of clerical child abuse was revealed. ibid.
In 2008 a financial catastrophe unleashed public anger. ibid.
IRA disarmament September 26th 2005. ibid.
Britain was the naval superpower with the largest fleet in the world. Professor Jeremy Black, Why the Industrial Revolution Happened Here, BBC 2013
The Royal Navy played a vital role in expanding the trade of the empire. ibid.
Britain v China: a war fought over the most lucrative commodity on the planet. Mankind: The Story of All of Us X: Revolutions, History 2012
The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II was a triumphant assertion of Britain’s power in the world. But it was held in a city that was still ruined from the bombing ten years before. Britain had been bankrupted by the War. Many of those clustered around the new Queen knew that it could no longer afford to rule the world. Adam Curtis, The Mayfair Set I: Who Pays Wins ***** BBC 1999
Colonel David Sterling, a war hero famous for founding the Special Air Service, the SAS. What Sterling would do was to sell to other countries Britain’s military power: Britain would supply them with modern weapons and with mercenaries who would fight their wars for them. ibid.