Talk:Tam Dalyell

a little more clearly
"He was opposed to Scottish devolution and first stated the famous "West Lothian question?", although the name was given by Enoch Powell."- can this sentence be explained a little more clearly, I'm not sure what it is all about... quercus robur


 * The West Lothian Question is this: if Scottish devolution removes the power of (mainly English) Westminster MPs over home afairs in Scotland, but leaves Scottish MPs at Westminster with power over English (etc.) home affairs, should the number of Scottish MPs be reduced (thus reducing Scotland's influence in foreign affairs), or should Scottish MPs have their right to vote on English (etc.) matters removed (thus making them second-class MPs in some respect)? This is a difficult question for devolutionists, especially in the Labour Party which might find itself relying on Scottish MPs for its majority at Westminster. --rbrwr

Pronunciation of surname
I could never have guessed that his surname is pronounced that way. Will someone add International Phonetic Alphabet or at least SAMPA? --Kaihsu Tai 15:49, 2004 Jan 22 (UTC)
 * Done (only took a year and a half!). --Angr/undefined 28 June 2005 06:42 (UTC)

Also, there seems to be more to the Dalyell name (and the Binns): --Kaihsu Tai 18:16, 2004 Jan 22 (UTC)
 * I wonder if there isn't a /j/ in there too?

It is the same problem as Menzies. The letter for the sound no longer exists: it used to be transcribed as Z, for example Zetland, now written as Shetland but would be better as Hyaltland. See also Menzies Campbell - today written as Ming - the g/z needs to be a bit of a glottal stop. Sebmelmoth (talk) 10:45, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

"He was opposed to Scottish devolution and first stated the famous "West Lothian question"... In this he was wildly out of touch with the people of Scotland." Rather a subjective comment in my humble opinion. The devolution referendum of 1979 did have a majority of those voting in favour but they were only about 1/3 of the total electorate (and thus did not meet the 40% support rule). Was he so out of touch? Timrollpickering, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Knighthood?
What is the basis for listing him as "Sir Tam Dalyell"? I have never heard of him having received a knighthood nor him being addressed in written or spoke form as "Sir Tam". He has always been Mr Dalyell as far as I know. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.41.213.37 (talk • contribs) 02:12, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
 * He's a hereditary baronet. Mackensen (talk) 14:55, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

But as there are no powers to disclaim a baronetcy (as it is outside the scope of the 1963 Act - intended to enable MPs to keep their seats on inheriting a peerage, and this is not a peerage) and he dislikes the title, it seems unkind to make so much of it here. His grip on it seems rather feeble given that he inherits through his mother. Sebmelmoth (talk) 10:40, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 05:10, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

alleged anti-semitism
This is mentioned twice.
 * I've gone and fixed it. In the future, feel free to be bold--jump in and make the changes! justinfr (talk) 14:44, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

" (who is not Jewish but has a Jewish father)" - this is ridiculous and needs qualification. Replace "Jewish" with any other race and see how stupid it sounds. Is the Jewish race somehow different to everyone else? I would say "whose father was Jewish" and "whose great-grandfather was Jewish". 91.84.51.91 (talk) 10:42, 3 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Er Judaism is not just about ethnicity or about nationality unlike, say, being Russian. See Who is a Jew? Greenshed (talk) 21:42, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, this really depends. In the Orthodox religious sense then no, a Jewish father doesn't make you Jewish. In Reform Judaism, which in many countries, such as the US, is actually the most common denomination, having a Jewish father does make you Jewish. In addition due to having historically been an excluded and insular community being a Jew can also be considered an ethnicity, leading to ironic situation in which a person is ethnically Jewish but not religiously or vice versa. This is also because Judaism doesn't go out of it's way to seek converts and so Judaism has been limited to a relatively small number of communities compared to Christianity or Islam. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.70.37.229 (talk) 22:57, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

The Sunday Times: "The Importance of Being Awkward: The Autobiography of Tam Dalyell"
Lynn Barber, Sunday Times, 14 August 2011 --Mais oui! (talk) 09:08, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * "'... Many years later, he learnt from Oleg Gordievsky’s memoirs that the KGB had considered recruiting him because “for sheer naivety, we all agreed that nobody could touch Tam Dalyell” — but they decided against him on the grounds that he had “too many principles”. He spent his 43 years in parliament as a one-man awkward squad, oblivious, as he says, “to being labelled as a repetitive bore”. And it was being a repetitive bore that won him probably his lasting claim to fame as the originator of the “West Lothian question”. This was in a debate on the Scotland Bill in 1978 when, opposing devolution, he stood up at every possible opportunity and asked: “How can it be that I can vote on education in Accrington, Lancashire, but not in Armadale, West Lothian?” or: “How can I vote on health in Blackburn, Lancashire, but not in Blackburn, West Lothian?” Each time he would finish the question with: “It cannot be asked too often,” until John Smith exploded: “Oh yes, Tam, it bloody well can.” Enoch Powell suggested that to save time they should refer to Dalyell’s point as the West Lothian question and so it remains. Roy Hattersley once told him: “Tam, you do realise that, as a little side effect of your anti-devolution campaign, the Labour government fell and Margaret Thatcher became prime minister?” He thinks this comment was grossly unfair — “yet it contained just sufficient truth to make me blush”. And he says although he had some respect for most Tory prime ministers (especially Edward Heath) he had none at all for Thatcher. The best he can say for her is that she had a charming husband and was personally considerate to her staff, but he believes that she launched the Falklands war to save her political career, and lied to the House about the sinking of the Belgrano. Four times he was expelled from the House for accusing the prime minister of lying (twice over the Belgrano and twice over the Westland helicopter crisis) but the electors of West Lothian remained loyal. He campaigned over the Falklands, over Westland, over Iraq, over Lockerbie, but he says that the campaign of which he is proudest was saving the pink-footed booby in 1967. A zoologist friend warned him that the RAF was planning to build a runway on the Indian Ocean island of Aldabra... '"


 * More autobiography stuff: "Independence now inevitable, says Tam Dalyell". --Mais oui! (talk) 03:36, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

"ship school"
In Early life and career is "and taught at Bo'ness Academy and a ship school". What is this? It doesn't seem to be the same as "school ship" which redirects to training ship. If no relevant article to link to, then perhaps a footnote. (Mind you, it is uncited.) Davidships (talk) 23:01, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I have added a couple of citations. In 1961–1962 he worked on the Dunera, a 12,000 ton vessel that had previously been a troop ship, taking school pupils on cruises around Europe. He later wrote a few books about ship schools. Drchriswilliams (talk) 01:37, 27 January 2017 (UTC)
 * yes, Director of Studies, India Ship-School Dunera, ref= Creating the Arabian Gulf: The British Raj and the Invasions of the Gulf, by Paul John Rich, Lexington Books, 2009, page 223).Rodolph (talk) 12:31, 29 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you both, that reads well now. These are what I knew as "educational cruises". (Incidentally, I suspect that "Director of Studies, India Ship-School Dunera" isn't quite right - it should be British India ship-school Dunera - it was nothing to do with the country, but to the ship's owner, British India Steam Navigation Co.) Davidships (talk) 22:44, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Falklands war
The Falklands war was a major episode in his political career, and seems to be passed over in a very few words in the article as it now stands... AnonMoos (talk) 22:50, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Probably the kindest way to deal with it. Dalyell's cranky obsession with the sinking of the ARA General Belgrano, which even the ship's captain regarded as a perfectly legitimate act of war, was simply foolish -- a bit like Dalyell's claim that Tony Blair should be tried for war crimes at The Hague, when the International Criminal Court at The Hague has made clear that it has no jurisdiction in 'crimes of aggression' prior to July 2018, since a workable definition was not even proposed until 2010 and that part of the Rome Statute was inoperative until the definition and jurisdiction were established, and law can never be retroactive, so the ICC has always said that it will prepare no case in relation to Iraq.
 * There is, on the other hand, a case, an RS case in Wiki terms, for describing Sir Thomas Dalyell Bt. -- an arrogant aristocrat who spent his whole life in a stately home which he did not own, at public expense, and who claimed a quite staggering sum on Commons expenses for 'bookcases' immediately before his long-overdue retirement, a rather typical bit of aristocratic presumption on his part -- as an idiot. https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-scottish-mail-on-sunday/20130825/281904475833663 'Recently recalling his days on the campaign trail, former Labour MP Tam Dalyell told how at one election he was denounced as an idiot. "I may be an idiot," replied the man called "Daft Tam" by opponents, "but there are tens of thousands of idiots out there who need to be represented." ' (Which tells you something about his aristocratic de-haut-en-bas attitude to the people who foolishly kept electing him.)
 * So there should really be a section of the article headed 'Idiot' and including his admission that he was an idiot, and his belief that his voters were idiots, and detailing the various idiotic things he did and said, like banging on about the Belgrano and opposing NATO's intervention in Kosovo. It won't happen, of course. But it ought to, really. Khamba Tendal (talk) 17:41, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Confusing presentation of dates
In the summary panel, it says "Member of Parliament for Linlithgow West Lothian (1962 - 1983)"

When I first read this, I was sure it was clearly saying he was a member of parliament for Linlithgow (a town in West Lothian) between 1962 - 1983. Which is wrong!

I only realised how it was meant to be read after I had looked at the introduction to the article, realised it said something different, and then started writing this comment to say the summary panel was inconsistent with the text!

I don't know enough about formatting Wikipedia information panels to know what your options are, but the current formatting / wording is very misleading.

Maybe -- maybe -- something like Heading: "Member of Parliament for Linlithgow (previously West Lothian)" or Heading: "Member of Parliament for West Lothian / Linlithgow"

Panel In office: West Lothian 1962 - 1983 Linlithgow  1983 - 2005

RobertII (talk) 23:07, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Book of Whitburn West Lothian
Does anyone know the name of the book Tam Dalyell wrote plz xxx 92.8.226.143 (talk) 23:34, 14 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Books Sebmelmoth (talk) 03:31, 15 June 2022 (UTC)