DISPATCHES FROM LIVERPOOL

During the past two years I have been privileged to write the popular column under the heading 'a very british revolution', a title that derives its origin from a quote on national news during the MPs Expenses Fiasco, and the manner in which the British People responded as one, in expressing their extreme displeasure and anger that their own elected representatives had so seriously let them down.

By no means did every member of parliament do this of course. But it is a simple fact: just a drop of acid into a glass of pure water, will thereby render a glass of acid.

But we are a democratic people and we do things by way of peaceful, and some times not quite so peaceful, demonstration, vigorous public debate and ultimately through the ballot box.

In this respect we unknowingly continue to set the standard by which democracy and freedom operate.

The Future

By popular request I have been asked to not only continue writing the column on the blogdspot.com site, but to actually post them to the website www.ianbradleymarshall.com.

This is indeed a privilege and an honour for me.

Liverpool is my home, my City and my people. Our history as a maritime people centres very much upon the Port of Liverpool just along the road from where I am now writing this.

For eight centuries the Port and City of Liverpool have been the gateway to the world, and so it seems right to entitle these letters dispatches.

Of course, there is something of the military in me as my friends and followers will know, and Dispatches from Liverpool is also thereby a direct link with all of our armed forces on operational duty throughout the world, whether on the front iine in war or on the equally important humanitarian front line.

The 21st Century is the most exciting time for all of us to be living in. It is also the most challenging and demanding, and the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, the terrible earthquakes in New Zealand and now, earlier today, Japan and the horror of the resultant Tsunami makes international cooperation and assistance of the utmost importance.

Let us also not overlook the fact that when an event such as the Japan Earthquake occupies the world's attention, disreputable or petty tyrannical leaders will use it as convenient cover to exact revenge upon the people who have dared to challenge their authority to continue to rule them.

The United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, NATO have all made it clear that the events in Libya may need international military intervention, and in the form of a no fly zone being imposed but only under the auspices of the United Nations.

None of us wishes to see unilateral action. It must be unanimous action through the United Nations Security Council.

Meanwhile, let us all do as much as we can to assist the Japanese People and the other nations that have been caught up in the Tsunami, and let us not overlook that New Zealand must continue to receive assistance.

This is the way forward for the international community; and it will inspire peoples labouring under dictatorship to look to that day when they too can have the freedoms we love and cherish and, not surprisingly, tend to take for granted.

Ian Bradley Marshall
LIVERPOOL
12 March 2011