Last month two left-wing British
icons died within a couple of days of each other. Tony Benn was one of those extreme left
wingers who was just always there, pipe in mouth, fascinating people with his
extraordinary powers of oratory. People
used to come away from his talks bowled over with his speech but mostly
disagreeing intensely with the content!
He spent 50 years in politics, losing a vote to become deputy leader of
the Labour party by 49.6% to 50.4%.
Despite that he is widely regarded to have played a key role in keeping
the Labour party out of government for 18 years by pushing it well to the left
and thereby motivating others to create the Liberal Democrat Party (the right
of the party) and assisting Thatcher’s rise to power. So perhaps we have more to be grateful to him
for than we might think. His father was
a Lord so when he died and passed the title to Sir Anthony Wedgewood Benn
(Tony’s full name) he was forced to resign as an MP as it was not legal to sit
in both houses. He successfully
campaigned for the right to renounce your peerage (as you do) and was promptly
re-elected as an MP. He served in
government for a long period with various ministerial posts and as Chairman of
the Labour Party. He retired as an MP in
2001, famously explaining that he was leaving the House ‘in order to spend more
time on politics’. He spent the last 13 years touring the country making
speeches, attending interviews, appearing on chat shows and generally showing
us what a politician who believed passionately looked like, a man who was not
prepared to compromise his beliefs in order to get power. Despite his extreme views (he was against
capitalism, wanted Britain out of the EU, out of NATO, and so on) he was widely
admired and loved because of his genuine passion, his honesty and his good
nature. People who disagreed strongly
with is views were still happy to be his friend or to be in his presence. He will be missed. His legacy also includes a huge archive of
memoirs and tape recordings; he recorded everything he did and I expect history
will thank him for this. The second
left-wing icon to die last month was Bob Crowe, leader of the RMT union, one of
the largest remaining Unions. He had
been a member of the communist party and a great admirer of Arthur
Scargill. He was also anti-EU. Crowe was an East Londoner, and involved in
union politics from an early age. As RMT
leader, he was frequently criticised for taking a 6 figure salary/pension but
living in a council house. I heard an
interview with him on Radio 4 the day before he died (it was recorded over a
meal and he sounded well) and when challenged on this point he justified it by
saying he was the only person in his street paying tax as all the others were
on benefits (?!). He Led the Union during a number of clashes, most recently
with Boris Johnson who wishes to modernise the tube and do away with many of the
ticket offices (everyone uses Oyster Cards these days). He called his members out on strike just a
month or so ago to try to retain the staffed ticket office and there were
virtually no tube services for 48 hours crippling London and inconveniencing
millions of ordinary people. I won’t
miss him.
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| Tony Benn |
The Rich mix with the Poor: four
well know TV personalities spent a week with some of the poorest families in
the UK. Theo Pathetis from Dragons’ Den, Rachel ‘my brother run’s London’
Johnson, a fat lady from Eastenders and a rich kid from Made in Chelsea all gave
up a week to get some good TV exposure and to help some people less fortunate
than themselves. I was surprised by both
how little money was left for food (a pound or so a day for most of them) and
by the relatively pleasant properties that most of them lived in. The basic problem for all of them was that
for one reason or another (frequently poor health) the adults were no longer
able to work and although the benefits payments should have covered their basic
requirements, the debts that these families had from a series of earlier loans
meant that basically they could not afford to live (i.e. eat). In many cases the interest rates they were
paying doorstep lenders were in the order of 15,000% APR. One gentleman had to
pay the electricity company about half of his benefits cheque each week (due to
debt) and then fill up his meter with a lot of what remained. He then had about a pound or so for food
every day. This is seriously shocking to
watch, but we can’t expect the state to bail people out when they go on a spending
spree they can’t afford as in that case everyone would be out spending
regardless of the consequences. It is
sad to watch these poor people who have got themselves into these terrible
situations. To be fair, the rich stars
did appear to provide some real help.
Pathetis persuaded one man to declare himself bankrupt to wipe out his
debts and then start again clean. It was
his only way out but he had been too proud to go that route. The Made in Chelsea guy found local food
banks and soup kitchens that made a real difference to that family and helped
the father get back into society. Always
hard to determine how real this was and how set-up and edited to make for
better TV but I am sure either way the issues were real and there are people
out there who do need help. And while
the state provides basic financial help the support these families need is
counselling on how to get out of debt, how to live within your means, the
importance of saving a bit for a rainy day and so on. I think the really eye-opening sequence for
me was when Rachel Johnson decided to make her family a decent meal (rather
than the crap most of them eat most of the time) using the money available from
benefits after debt payments and heating bills etc. They went to the supermarket bought vegetables
and some minced meat all for a few pounds (for a meal for four or five) but
they were nine pence short. So she went
out into the street to ask passers-by for 9 pence. A lady gave her the nine pence but my point
is that if someone asked me in 2014 in the UK for 9p I would just assume they
were nuts. Yet for that family it made
the difference between a proper meal and some cheap junk. It has given me much to think about and I no
longer regard my loose coppers that used to irritate me in the same way.
On Friday March 7th 2014 the
rain stopped and the sun came out.
The wettest winter on record appeared to have come to an end at
last. For most of us the in UK, it was
just tediously wet, raining almost every day since December after a wet
Autumn. The lawns are sodden, the roads
are in a terrible state (potholes damaging our cars all over the place) grey
skies and general dampness. For a while
Oxford looked more like Oxford-on-Sea as with the Thames bursting out and all
the flood plains full it actually looked as if we were surrounded first by
lakes, and then as all the lakes joined together it looked like we were on the
coast with the ring road becoming an elevated causeway over the sea. But for a few people including some of our
friends, the situation is far more severe with flooded villages, houses and larger
areas in some parts of the country. I
expect we will see this more regularly with the change in the climate we are
experiencing. But for the last three
weeks, the mild wet weather has become mild and sunny, with plenty of cool
mornings and warm afternoons with the temperatures reaching 20 degrees. One warm Sunday we went to Avebury in
Wiltshire which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Like its more famous brother Stonehenge
down the road, it originated back in 6000BC. You can still see (and touch) a bunch of
rocks that were placed there all those years ago. There is a pretty little village and some
beautiful walks around the stone circles and a National Trust museum. About a mile away is Silbury Hill which dates
back to 2500BC. Silbury Hill is a man
made hill about 40m high and wide. It
was built at a time when there were no tools so most of the earth would have
been carried by hand over a 200+ year period.
Its use is unclear. It is a
beautiful site to behold, calming, curious and impressive. This historic site near the beautiful town of
Marlborough in Wiltshire is in a delightful country setting in a lovely part of
the country. As you walk around these
huge ancient boulders you realise how far we have come in the last 5,000
years. And as our development gets
faster and faster, it is refreshing to take a step right back in time to see
how our ancestors lived. Particularly on
a nice sunny day!
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| Silbury Hill 2500BC |
Every now and then, a superb
batch of films seem to be produced.
I talked about 12 Years A Slave in an earlier blog and last month we
went to see another superb film: Gravity (in 3D) and I can see why it won all
those Oscars. Apollo 13 on steroids! I must say that watching it in 3D in
a first class cinema, it is a remarkable film. And to think there were only a
couple of actors for most of it! And
Kate Blanchet in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmin.
Not so sure about the film itself, but Blanchet deserved her Oscar
without the slightest doubt. So a great
batch of films and acting in these films all recently released and all winning
Oscars at last month’s awards. We also caught up with a film from a year or two
ago: About Time is Richard Curtis’ last film (unless he changes his mind). It is not a great film but it is a good film,
well acted and worth spending two hours watching if you haven’t got much else to
do. What it taught me is that you should
live each day as if you can’t live it again (which you can’t) and get the most
from it. Instead of getting irritated by
other people or things, try to find a positive angle and enjoy it. Not only will you make other people’s days
better, but your own will be improved.
Which makes me think back to my attempt to make a daily random act of
kindness; verdict to date: must try harder!
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| Gravity Poster |
Well the clear winner
in the “Should we stay in the EU?” debate
between Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats and Nigel Farage of the Monster
Raving Looney Party UK Independence Party was: LBC. It was thanks to the London Broadcasting
Company – a radio station – that the live debate took place. The other two party leaders (Cameron and
Miiliband) refused to participate as they had too much to lose. LBC is much better known now as it was also
broadcast live on Sky. The LBC presenter
Nick Ferrari did a good job of keeping what could have been a much livelier
debate under control. The immediate
polls after the first debate showed that Farage had won but that is perhaps a
gut expression around feelings for the EU and the UK economy rather than a
desire to pull out of the EU immediately.
We need to remember that the popular press has spent years maybe decades
lampooning various EU policies such as ‘In a win for weirdly shaped vegetables
across Europe, the majority of EU states voted to repeal laws which banned
"free of abnormal curvature" in cucumbers and bananas five years ago.’ There are far more serious ones such as the
difficulty the UK courts had in deporting Abu Qatada for example (and he is
bananas). In most cases, the EU has
appealed or changed the legislation largely as a result of popular outcry and
that is how democracy should work.
Unfortunately the way this is portrayed in the popular press can make
the EU look pretty crazy. So headlines
such as: EU bans bent bananas, Water does not hydrate you, Popular British
snack "Bombay Mix" had to change its name to "Mumbai Mix",
Prunes are not laxatives, Barmaids cannot show their cleavage when serving
customers, Turnips cannot be labelled "Swedes", except in one place,
Corgis are banned, Diabetics are banned from driving, Eggs cannot be sold by
the dozen, European sports teams have to have the European flag on their
uniforms, are common whereas headlines such as ‘No War in Europe for 50 years thanks
to EU’ are as rare as rocking horse poo.
Farage plays up all of these nonsense stories and stokes fears that ’29 million
Romanians are going to come to the UK and take our jobs and benefits money’. Clegg corrected him citing the fact that
there aren’t even 29 million Romanians in Romania so Farage is talking nonsense. But the damage is done. Farage then went on about how over 75% of
legislation passed in the House is now EU law and Clegg responded to say
according to the House of Commons Library, the figure is 7%. The challenge we face here is summed up
nicely by The Economist: “It was bound to be a one-sided fight: an
anxious-looking technocrat debating a poorly understood subject with a brash
people-pleaser. Unsurprisingly, then, when pollsters from YouGov asked whether
Nick Clegg or Nigel Farage had won a broadcast duel on Europe on March 26th,
the Europhile deputy prime minister lagged the leader of the populist, anti-EU
UK Independence Party (UKIP) by 57% to 36%.” Part 2 of the debate is next week. I find all this deeply disturbing as the best
future for the UK is to embrace Europe and to reform the EU where necessary,
for us to become a leading light in the world’s largest economy. As a team, we have real clout in the
world. The Chinese, the Americans will
listen. As little UK they will just
laugh at us. In fact the Chinese don’t
like us very much which is not too surprising when you look at what we did over
there in our colonial past. I have some
very good British friends who have lived for the last five years as expatriates
in a wealthy and highly civilised Asian country.
Unfortunately another British man living there recently made some very
insulting comments to the locals and has now fled the country. Shortly after that my friends started to find
they couldn’t get served in restaurants and the buses would no longer stop for
them at bus stops. This is what it is
like to experience discrimination. It is
not a nice feeling and I know there are people in the UK who have experienced
this regularly all of their lives. Nigel
Farage is stirring up negative feelings and passions and will make our country
a nasty place to live. I know that the
few Romanians already here – most of them working hard and paying in more than
they are taking out – are starting to experience this sort of discrimination
more often. This does not make me proud
as I have always seen the British as a welcoming good mannered people and Farage
is quite possibly going to change this. I am going to finish with a quote from Chris Huhne in yesterday's Guardian: "UKIP is the polar opposite of the Lib Dems. The well-educated can afford to embrace change, because those who learn can do so again. They are confident and capable. Globalisation is not a threat but an opportunity. Immigration provides cleaners not competition. By contrast, UKIP's supporters are old, fearful and anxious. The party's appeal is laced with nostalgia for a past in which jobs were secure, teenagers were respectful and smokers never died of cancer. It's a vision of a better yesterday".
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| Farage & Clegg in EU debate |
‘’Comme il est difficile d'être simple" Vincent
Van Gogh
‘’How difficult it is to be simple’’
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