Thread by @paddydocherty

A thread about #COVID19, colonial violence, and how the English class system is wrecking the country. 🧐✊🇪🇺#coronavirus #ToriesOut #history #SystemChange #JohnsonMustGo 🦠

This chap is Hugh Trenchard, or “viscount” Trenchard*, a Tory member of the House of the Lords… 🤨🇪🇺 #ToriesOut

*footnote: I don’t recognise titles for living people, having abolished the honours system. I use them for historical personages, for the avoidance of confusion…

Being a reliable Tory footsoldier, naturally Trenchard has offered his “strong support” to Boris Johnson for his handling of the #coronavirus emergency… 😖✊🇪🇺🦠 #resist #liars #COVID19 #ToriesOut #ToryShambles

Given the astonishing failings of the government in its #COVID19 response, this is hardly a robust use of Trenchard’s opportunity to hold No 10 to account. This is the only occasion on which he has spoken on the issue of the pandemic in Parliament. 😠🦠 #coronavirus #ToriesOut

What’s MUCH worse is that he used the vast bulk of his parliamentary question to ask about government financial assistance to small music festivals during the pandemic… 🤔 #COVID19 #coronavirus #ToriesOut 🦠

That’s bad because Trenchard RUNS A MUSIC FESTIVAL at his family seat in Hertfordshire… 😧 #crooks #ToriesOut #corruption #selfishness #COVID19 🦠

standon-calling.com

Just to be clear: this person’s ONLY intervention in the House of Lords on the #COVID19 pandemic has been to ask for something of *direct* benefit to himself. 😠 #crooks #liars #ToriesOut 🦠

His personal interest is declared, so there is no formal wrongdoing, but as a matter of ethics and integrity, this is shameful… Given the scale of the crisis, and the thousands of deaths, this makes him a disgraceful grifter. 😖✊🇪🇺🦠 #booo #crooks #liars #ToriesOut

Sadly, it runs in the family: his son is a convict, having defrauded his employer of £355,000 to help pay for the very same festival… Barring accidents, the fraudulent Alex will one day be “viscount”. #crooks #liars #ToriesOut 🦠

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…

Given that he’s a Tory with what I judge to be dodgy ethics, it will come as no surprise that Trenchard has been a robust supporter of Brexit... 😖✊🇪🇺 #Brexit #ToriesOut #crooks #liars

Moreover, he continues to argue for a *hard* Brexit, safe in the knowledge that, as a banker and “aristocrat”, he’ll be just fine. He has spoken in the House of Lords on Brexit fully 22 times, according to Hansard. #ToriesOut #liars #crooks

So, how does this Brexity “viscount”, who is not overly keen on holding the government to account on #COVID19 but is happy to lobby for his own interests, come to be in the House of Lords? 🧐✊🇪🇺 #Brexit #resist #liars

He is one of the hereditary peers that remain in parliament following Blair’s botched reform of the Lords in the late 1990s, so of course has never been elected by the public… Here he is in military cosplay. 👨🏼‍✈️ #ToriesOut

The RAF uniform is significant because Hugh owes his title entirely to his grandfather, Viscount Trenchard (also named Hugh), who is widely regarded as the founder of the Royal Air Force. Here is the original Hugh in 1919. 🧐 #history

Viscount Trenchard (1873-1956) was the first Chief of the Air Staff (during WW1), & the official RAF website calls him the “Father of the Royal Air Force”. He was known as “Boom” Trenchard due to his love of explosions. @RoyalAirForce

raf.mod.uk/our-organisati…

He also has a prominent statue in London, on Victoria Embankment. The inscription – simply “Trenchard” – suggests a significant degree of fame, certainly when unveiled in 1961. #London @RoyalAirForce #Trenchard

So far, this appears to be a normal (if depressing) story of the English Establishment: forebear distinguishes himself, gets a peerage, and his descendants still hang around in our corridors of power, regardless of their abilities or personal qualities… 😖 #ToriesOut #resist

However, the #Trenchard success story – the version on official websites & in military histories – is fundamentally dependent on our collective willingness to overlook colonial violence, and to see only the “war hero” elements, the parts suitable for Biggin Hill flypasts…

A hint of this can be seen around the base of the statue on Victoria Embankment: a regimental badge, reading “WAFF”, the West African Frontier Force. This marks Trenchard’s service in #Nigeria 1903-1910. 🧐🇳🇬 #BritishEmpire #history #Africa

In most histories of Trenchard’s career, his period as a colonial soldier is overlooked or dismissed fleetingly. This cannot be an accident, for it was exceptionally bloody. 😠🇳🇬 #Nigeria #ColonialViolence #Igbo #Empire

Consider his role in the “Ahiara expedition” in what is now Imo State, in 1905. Following the killing of a Dr Stewart during an anti-colonial rising in this Igbo region, the district officer proposed violent retribution... 😖🇳🇬 #Empire #ColonialViolence #Trenchard

Trenchard is regarded in Nigeria as the most notorious “destroyer of towns”... Decades later, his violent campaign was still remembered. 😠🇳🇬 #Nigeria #Empire #ColonialViolence #Trenchard

Use of extreme force was not in the least exceptional in colonial territories (the empire project resting fundamentally on violence), but the evidence does suggest that Trenchard was especially cruel & aggressive. 😔✊🇳🇬 #Nigeria #ColonialViolence #Igbo #BritishEmpire

Unsurprisingly, he brought a committed racism to his work. In what is in fact a revoltingly hagiographic biography of Trenchard, his attitude to the local people under his supposed care is made clear. #racism #ColonialViolence #Igbo #Nigeria #BritishEmpire #Trenchard 🇳🇬

When confronted with such colonial violence and rampant racism, imperial defenders will often trot out the ‘bad apple’ defence, or the ‘must have gone mad’ claims... These are disingenuous. 😖✊🇪🇺 #BritishEmpire #LameExcuses

Not only was violence at the heart of empire, men like Trenchard were at the heart of the imperial Establishment. The fact that he can have a reign of savagery in colonial Nigeria and then go on to a peerage is proof of that. #ToriesOut #DownWithTheEstablishment #resist

Not only that, after retiring from the RAF, he was even appointed as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police (1931-35), which given his history seems a grisly joke. 😖✊🇪🇺 #gross #racist #crook

So the statue in Victoria Embankment shows not a war hero who deserves a Spitfire flypast, but a racist psychopath who had the blood of unknown numbers of Nigerians on his hands. 😖🇳🇬 #resist #racism #BritishEmpire

What is most galling is that our lunatic and woefully undemocratic system means that the grandson of this appalling individual is handed the right to make our laws, and has helped to inflict Brexit on this country. #brexit #resist #SystemChange #democracy 🌳

I have written already about the way in which the English class system is destroying the country (thread ⬇️), and this is yet more evidence… 🤦‍♂️ #resist #ToriesOut #Brexit #oligarchy 🎩💰

https://twitter.com/paddydocherty/status/1153326167711203328?s=21

https://twitter.com/paddydocherty/status/1153326167711203328

Ancestral colonial psychopathy and love of blowing things up should NOT get someone a seat in the House of Lords… How can we imagine that we’re actually a modern country? 😖 #FFS

Hugh Trenchard (the current one) is now in the House of Lords for reasons that have nothing to do with his personal talents or authority, and is FAILING in his duty to hold the government to account in this national emergency. 😠✊🇪🇺🦠 #COVID19 #coronavirus #ToryShambles

When the #COVID19 crisis is finally over, it is obvious that we need a wholesale #SystemChange. Throwing the self-dealing hereditary peers out of the House of Lords will be just a small part of that. 😠✊🇪🇺🦠 #coronavirus #resist #ToriesOut #ToryShambles #crooks

CORRECTION Thanks to @thrustvector and @OU_Williams for pointing out that Trenchard’s nickname ‘Boom’ came from his notably loud voice rather than love of explosions as some sources have it... This ⬇️ is from the recent Miller biography. ☺️👍 #history #Trenchard
#EnglishAbroad