MURDEROUS PLOTS?

November 5th is celebrated in Britain as Bonfire Night, or to give it its more correct name, Guy Fawkes Night. Firework displays and big bonfires will be seen throughout the land. This is a celebration of the foiling of the notorious Gunpowder Plot, in which a band of Catholic villains, including the very unfortunate Guy Fawkes, are alleged to have tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament with gunpowder and to kill King James I, his family and a large number of other aristocrats.



Some historians have speculated that the whole thing may have actually been staged by, or at least secretly allowed to progress by certain government agents, in particular Robert Cecil, the Earl of Salisbury. Conspiracy theorists suggest that Cecil may have fabricated the plot as an excuse for the persecution of Catholics in a land which was officially Protestant under King James (hence the production of the English King James Bible). These conspiracy theories strongly parallel those which are around today regarding recent terrorist attacks such as 9/11 and the London bombings. The Web is awash with those who would have us believe that these were staged by our respective governments as an excuse for a withdrawal of civil liberties. It also mirrors the Burning of the Reichstag in 1933 Germany which was blamed on Communists and precipitated Hitler's rise to dictatorial power.

Whether you believe the conspiracy theorists or not, you cannot deny the fact that nobody does a celebration of religious intolerance and hatred like us Brits. For over 400 years now we have been encouraging small children to make an effigy of the filthy Catholic scum and then chuck it on a massive fire. Then a crowd of smiling, sparkler waving onlookers smile and cheer at the reminder that those people who don't believe quite the same things as us will be dealt with by appropriate hideously cruel punishment.

Can any other country top 400 years? Or is it just that we can't muster virulent hatred quite as well as we did in the old days so that now such celebrations tend to peter out after 150 years or so?

In order to bring back some proper fervent hatred, I think it is about time the secret services of our nations upped their game a bit and used a scape-goat we can all get behind detesting. Amusing as some of their beliefs and antics are, I can't really bring myself to hate entire religious or political groups, even if a handful of them have been very naughty indeed. What I suggest is that perhaps MI5 could, under the guise of a sinister Spectre-style organisation, secretly recruit a number of easily seduced wasps and encourage them to formulate a dastardly plot against Princes William and Harry. Not the Queen, nobody really likes her. But there is still plenty of affection for Di's pretty kids. Then MI5 could expose the plot at the last minute and then the Daily Mail and Sun newspapers could spend a month or so banging on about the evils of wasps, prompting a national crackdown which could rid us of these pesky menaces for good. Obviously they would have to do all this when they were not busy advising the makers of Spooks. Once we have dealt with wasps, they could wait ten years or so and then frame The Tweenies.

Then maybe, just maybe, I would consider my taxes well spent.