I looked PC Tibble up on the internet. He was killed in February 1975 after a police operation to arrest burglars in west Kensington unearthed an IRA bomb-making factory. Liam Quinn, an Irish-American from San Francisco, ran away from the police. Stephen Tibble, who had been in the police for just six months, was off-duty and just happened to be there. He joined in the chase, and was shot dead by Quinn.
Quinn was part of an IRA active service unit which had planted bombs in London, and assassinated Ross McWhirter, famous for Record Breakers on BBC TV. They conducted the Balcombe Street seige in December 1975. Quinn escaped to Dublin, then the USA. After a lengthy extradiction battle, he was tried in London in 1988 and sentenced to life.
If Stephen Tibble lived, he would be 58. Perhaps he would have risen through the ranks and today be a senior police officer. Perhaps he would have been worried about his pension. He was married. Perhaps he would have had children, who today would be grown up. His widow is probably still alive. I’ve been thinking about her too. I hope she has lived a good life, despite the tragedy of losing her husband so young.
The IRA bombing campaign in the 1970s and 1980s hangs heavy in the memory of anyone growing up at the time. It dominated our news bulletins, our travel plans and our politics. It created fear and panic, and led to horrific miscarriages of justice. The IRA bombed the Ideal Homes Exhibition in Earl’s Court. Seventy people were injured; four lost limbs. They bombed the House of Commons, pubs, Harrods, the Wimpy Bar on Oxford Street, the London Stock Exchange, Victoria Station, and the Baltic Exchange. Manchester was bombed during the Euro ’96 football championships. And every week, there would be news from Northern Ireland itself, with fresh outrages, murders and heartache.
Given the decades of conflict that preceded it, the Good Friday Agreement must stand as one of the great legacies of Tony Blair’s government. That we’ve lived this past decade without frequent republican bombings is testament to the success of the agreement. You can’t say that it was all down to Labour. But you can say that Tony Blair’s persistence and leadership made the agreement happen. Blair’s memoir, and the testimony of Jonathon Powell and others, shows how skilful negotiating and the bull-like determination to get a deal won the day. Mo Mowlam’s role will never be forgotten.
This week the legacy of ‘Blairism’ has been under scrutiny yet again: partly because of the media attention given to the publication of the paperback edition of Blair’s book and the interviews accompanying it; partly because you can’t talk about NHS reform, welfare reform, the Arab Spring or virtually anything else without referring to New Labour’s period of office. Blair remains the dominant political leader of our times. For some in the party, that’s a cause of frustration and bitterness. They seem to view our three election victories, and the progress that Britain made as a result, as something to be ashamed of. For others of us, Blair’s period as prime minister is a source of pride and inspiration. I liked being in a party which won elections, which was popular, which vanquished the Tories, and which transformed the way most people live for the better. I hate being in a party which is regularly written-off, ignored, or mired in internal controversies.
I’ve argued for more than a decade that ‘New Labour’ is not a period of time or a set of leaders, it is a modern way of expressing Labour’s traditional revisionism. By applying timeless values to modern society, the Labour party remains relevant and necessary. We saw some encouraging signs of Labour’s restless urge to match values to problems this week in the important speeches by Ed Miliband on social housing, Liam Byrne on welfare reform, and Ed Balls on the need for a tax cut to stimulate growth.
If we want once again to be a party in government capable of making history on the scale of the Good Friday Agreement, then the radicalism on display this week (and the moral outrage Ed mustered for PMQs on behalf of cancer patients) is the way forward. More please.
A final thought. Liam Quinn is still out there somewhere. He served a decade in prison, but was released as part of the Good Friday Agreement, along with the rest of the Balcombe Street Gang discovered all those years ago in Baron’s Court. Maybe he’s reading this. The price of peace has been the liberty of men like Quinn. That’s a hard pill to swallow.
all well said P. flippin well said.
Paul, The price of peace is rarely ever a difficult pill to swallow and for that i certainly will thank Blair. When i ended my first term as a Councillor I joined the mob and served my country while Tony Blair faced a very difficult decision indeed, to risk economic alienation with the USA as occured when we refused to involve ourselves in Vietnam (wisely on that occasion as history would judge us and we were punished unfairly politically) and supporting the USA when an attack was made on their homeland upon unarmed civilians. For me Blairism has ove rthe past four month been the primary topic of study from the initial core ideals of reasonable consensus, reasonable compromise to realise our values. Lets be real here neither Tony Blair or Peter Mendleson or Gordon Brown had any experience of power because we continued to lose to Tories including to the Prince of Gray John Major. Undertsanding the concepts of Blairism is critical if one is actually advocate the beliefs and legacy of the man. I’m not sure that has occured here. For Blair’s legacy to live if that is indeed the goal for people claiming to be Blairities, then the objective assessment and applicability of public services, indeed more than just public services, has to be ascertained to determine whether or not the private or public or dare I say “partnership” (based upon ideas advocated by many including Tessa Jowell and Glasman which happily slot into the Blairite idea of using the best possible means to achieve the pragmatic goals) platforms to deliver the best possible results for the very people we serve and exist for as a Party. It has been a journey not just for Tony as he emerged from Power a very different man to the one who created something he may or may not appreciate when he led us in 1997. I still believe profoundly that Tony doesn’t actually realise the incredible things he actually begin in his early years and only because of the trapping of power and the seperation that occurs between being a PM and being a citizen had the effect it was bound to have on all mortal people. You only have to look at what is happening in the world to appreciate why Tony won along with the party that historic second term. Tony blair will alway be part of the Labour tradition because he took us somewhere we had never been in terms of daring policy. You do not learn except by doing and its actually establishing how to use what Tony and his colleagues did, by taking the best and being wary of the mortal errors that we can as a party adapt, evolve and grow.
This is slightly syncophantic of the Blair regime. The Labour party won those elections because the Previous 18 Thatcher years and the electorate still remembered for a long time. The ‘Third Way’ was never accepted by the people (whether it was because of the German connection by Blair and Mandelson is still being debated) Blair’s coziying up to George W Bush started the Blair decline helped somewhat by Peter Mandelson and his corrupt dealings over house purchase and lifestyle given much press coverage. Despite the false publicity about homosexuality and immigration Britain is still homophobic and anti immigration underneath
oh fer gawds sake,that was cheap for a house in Notting Hill! And it’s forever difficult to get to the bottom of homophobia for obvious reasons but that and immigration are contingent on general conditions,which couldn’t really be worse now,or could they,yeah we’re not at the bottom yet true .Anything’s in for a kicking until the economy improves,people are so desperate.
oh fer gawds sake,that was cheap for a house in Notting Hill! And it’s forever difficult to get to the bottom of homophobia for obvious reasons but that and immigration are contingent on general conditions,which couldn’t really be worse now,or could they,yeah we’re not at the bottom yet true .Anything’s in for a kicking until the economy improves,people are so desperate.