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July 22, 2000
Right little, tight little island
This country has kept out asylum seekers for a century. DD Guttenplan on our exclusive past
Excerpt from http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4043041,00.html
[...]
2) The David Irving libel trial in February. Reading from the
transcript of an interview with Irving on Australian television,
Richard Rampton, QC, barrister for the defence, asks why
Irving had said that the idea of black men playing cricket for
England made him feel "queasy".
Website
Note on "Operation Backfire":
Guardian Newspapers Ltd are trying to destroy David
Irving before his High Court libel action against them reaches the
courtroom. The writ was served on them in 1996
The correct transcript (Day 15, February 3, 2000 at page 11) reads as follows
MR RAMPTON: Page 3 of the transcript, my Lord, and page 37 of the clip. I am going to start a little bit before the clip extract begins. If Mr Irving wants to read on or have more, than he must do it himself, the whole text is there. I am going to read, Mr Irving, from the sixth line in the middle of the page after the words "our national heritage", where you say this: "When people ask me about racism I say 'would you mind explaining to me what is the difference between racism and patriotism'? Journalists, television interviewers, I've had a great deal of these in the last 2 or 3 weeks, you won't notice this of course, because I've been going to the television studios here or in Camden town or in Isleworth, speaking by satellite live on prime time Australian television, 3 or 4 times last week. New Zealand television as well because New Zealand always picks up what their big brothers do in Australia, and the journalist has said 'Mr Irving, we read in today's newspapers that you told the ABC radio" -- that is an Australian radio, is it not, Mr Irving, ABC radio?
A. Yes.
Q. "'That you feel queasy about the immigration disaster that's happened to Britain. Is that your opinion'? And I said well yes, I have admit to being born in England in 1938, which was totally different England, I feel queasy when I look and see what has happened to our country, nobody has stood up and objected to it' and he says, 'well what do you think about black people on the Australian, on the British cricket team then? How do you feel about that then, the black '? So I said, 'that makes me even more queasy,". Pause there, please, Mr Irving.
A. Yes.
Q. I am going to read on. Why does it make you feel queasy that black Englishmen should play cricket for England?
A. What is left out here is what is also stated in the interview that he then said exactly same question as you and my reply to him on air was, what a pity it is that we have to have blacks on the team and that they are better than our whites.
Q. Why is that a pity?
A. It is a pity because I am English.
Q. Are they not English too?
A. Well, English or British, are you saying?
Q. I am saying that they are English. Most of them are born here, just as all the Jews in England were born here, most of them.
A. Are we talking about blacks or Jews now?
Q. It does not matter. They are all English.
A. The England I was born into it, if you had read earlier, the England I was born into, which is the England I come from and probably the England you come from, although probably a few years after mine, was different from the England that exists now.
Q. Well, thank goodness.
A. When I talk about English, I am talking about the England I came from.
Q. When did the Irvings arrive on these shores, Mr Irving?
A. King Robert the Bruce, I think. We can go back as far as that.