Britain In or Out?

  

Americans are angry.  Why?  Primarily, they are fed up with a political system that is unable to deliver anything to working class and middle class Americans.  The Establishment and the super rich do OK and have been doing for the last 15 or 20 years in spite of the financial collapse, engineered by those self-same super rich.  But its the same in Europe.  Ordinary people are sick to death of the failures of our leaders to achieve anything very much for ordinary people while protecting the interests of the very rich.

  David Camaron has put before the British people a draft set of proposal for his re-negotiated deal for Britain within the EU. In reality it is a document offering nothing — in spite of all David Cameron's stated aims.  If he thinks this paltry document offers enough for us to vote to stay in the EU, he is much mistaken.  No powers are returned to the UK parliament and nothing is to be done about immigration either from withing the EU or from outside.

  But these nothing proposals are not acceptable apparently to other member nations in the EU, so it seems likely that the final document will offer us even less.  How can any prime minister put these proposals forward as a powerful reason for our staying in the EU?

  I shall be voting to leave the EU and I hope all sensible citizens will do the same.  It seems likely that if we vote to leave other countries will be pressing to do so as well and the bureaucratic nightmare which is already looking very wonky, will finall collapse.  And good riddance!

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Incompetent Governments

I recently acquired a copy of a book by psephologists, Anthony King and Ivor Crewe, considering the many blunders committed by our governments. The book deals mainly with the period since the Second World War but there were many before that and it has to be admitted that blunders are not something uniquely British. But we do seem to have been loaded with rather more incompetence than we deserve. Why is this? I do not know but political dogma has been a key factor over many years.

For some time, now, I have been trying to put together a history of my family in the last 300 years or so. Many times in that period there have been examples of government incompetence — in many cases of catastrophic incompetence. I cannot list them all but just look at some of the major examples.

The loss of the American colonies at a time when America did not want independence, only the right to representation in the government of their country.

Appeasement. Over a period of years here was serious incompetence practised by a collection of senior Tories but supported by many others. When did Neville Chamberlain realise that Hitler was not to be trusted? Was it only when the Germans marched into Poland?

Oppression of Ireland. Almost everything about England's governance of Ireland was a wrong-headed disaster. Ireland was treated as a colony rather than an integral part of the UK. The country was subject to numerous colonisations, Irish culture and religion were suppressed, the majority Catholic population could hold no public office, almost all land was owned by absentee landlords; tenants had no rights or security and were often evicted with no notice nor any right of appeal. For decades, most of the Irish lived in poverty and on the brink of starvation but the biggest disaster of all was the total incompetence when the British government needed to deal with the Great Famine between 1845 and 1850. A government welded to the principle of laissez faire capitalism that would not intervene to tackle the fundamental problems of mass starvation and death, when Ireland had enough food to feed everyone had it not been exported.

A variety of Poor Laws that never succeeded in meeting the needs of the deprived; a workhouse system that operated on the principle that accommodation in a workhouse must be made so uncomfortable that the poor would try desperately to stay outside. A situation made worse in Ireland.

A Great Reform Bill in 1832 that was to set us on the path to a true democracy by widening the franchise. It gave no vote to women and increased the number of men able to vote from 400,000 to 600,000 in a country with a total population of 24,000,000. It took another one hundred years to achieve the right of all adults to vote.

In more modern times, the government of Mrs Thatcher introduced a Poll Tax in order to reduce the tax burden on rich people who lived in big houses. The exercise cost £12 billion and as local authorities struggled to collect the tax, there were riots in the streets. Thatcher had to give up and reverted to a system of property tax based on valuation bands — it was like rates only less precise. And re-introducing it cost another £12 billion.

At present we have Cameron proposing to pack the House of Lords with Tory life peers to stop the upper house blocking his legislation. We have nearly 800 peers established in a revising chamber. Most of them only turn up to have lunch and collect their expenses. The house needs to be cut down to size. We do not need more than 400 peers to check government legislation. Perhaps no peer should have a seat in the House of Lords for more than 15 years [say].

Then there is immigration. In 2010 Cameron said that he would cut nett immigration to the tens of thousands. In reality it has increased and is now running at more than 250,000 every year. The last two weeks have provided us with TV pictures of chaos in Calais and at the Euro Tunnel entrance. Lorries are queuing all over Kent trying to get on board ferries or the Eurotrain and some people have had to abandon their holiday plans. Both the Britsi and French governments have been unprepared for this and are doing little to tackle the problem. It was entirely forseeable. When thousands of migrants were being picked up from crumbling boats in the Mediterranean Sea in May and June — see picture above, it was inevitable that there would be a surge in immigrants trying to get into Britain. I don't know the answer to the immigrant problem. The vast numbers pouring into the UK has got to be stopped. Unless they go live in Northern Scotland, we are full up. There were newspaper reports today of mobs of immigrants turning up in Charnock Richard in Lancashire and being housed in 3 star hotels with free bedrooms, free meals plus spending money. This at taxpayers expense and ignoring regular hotel guests who have paid good money to stay in these new immigrant transit camps. It is not surprising that word gets back to the Middle East and North Africa that Britain is a soft touch. One of the immigrants from Sudan was living in a tented hovel and struggling to survive; now he is in a good standard hotel with clean bed linen, free food and some money for living expenses..Cameron, get your finger out and sort this problem. It is yet another argument for leaving the EU and the sooner we do so the better — even if President Obama is opposed!

And then there is Greece and the euro zone. Thousands of people have been involved in almost endless discussions about Greek debt and yet again they have cobbled together an agreement that will do nothing but kick the problem a few weeks or months down the road before they start again; by which time Greek debt will have got even biggere and their chances of paying off the debt will have got less. The EU will remain a mess until they get rid of the euro and revert to national currencies. And that is not a permitted solution.

We have a lot of government incompetence but it extends to the banks and public services all managed by very highly paid over-promoted incompetents. Britain has some good people but their efforts are all too often sabotaged by the public school educated, rich and powerful who spend all their time in each others company failing to see just how bad they are at what they do.  What can we do about it? I have no idea! 

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Racing in the Isle of Man

This is TT Week in the Isle of Man.  Not unusually, the programme of races has had to be revised several times because of the weather.  Usually, it is mist and rain but last weekend it was gales on the mountain — which posed a threat to rescue helicopters as well as riders.  So, the Superbike Race was run on Sunday and it was a win for 46 year old, antipodean Bruce Anstey on his Padgett Honda.  His tenth win overall but his first in the Superbike.  It was an impressive performance and he established a new record time for the race.  He still holds the lap record at 132.298 mph from 2014.  Apart from his riding, his success was a result of two impressively quick pit stops.  He beat Yorkshireman Ian Hutchinson into second with James Hillier third.  Hillier just avoided the crash on the last lap between Michael Dunlop and Scott Wilson, which blocked the track and resulted in a red flag to stop the race.  Luckily, neither rider was seriously injured but both will be very sore for a few days.  Michael Dunlop tried his best with his BMW but he was having a hard time battling its jumping about under him.  He must have been exhausted by the end.

It was good to see Ian Hutchinson back on the podium after a gap of several years following a horrendous crash at Silverstone in 2010.  This was just weeks after his awesome performance at the TT when he became the first — and still only — rider ever to win five races in a week.  The injury to his left leg was so bad that it was thought there would have been no choice but amputation.  He resisted that and after 30 operations he is back racing as good as ever, albeit with a lot of metal and replacement tissue in his leg.

The twenty-one times winner John McGuinness only managed sixth.  He seems to be back at his best but his bike just was not quick enough.

In the Supersport TT on Monday, Ian Hutchinson was the winner and received a fantastic welcome when he arrived back in the paddock.  Well done man.  To come back and perform like that after such a terrible accident is .fantastic.  

It is now Tuesday evening and we have news that Ian Hutchinson has won the Superstock TT as well.  Is this going to be another week of amazing wins for this fantastic racer?  I wish him all the best for his future in the Isle of Man and everywhere else that he chooses to race.

The Isle of Man TT Races get little publicity apart from a bit on TV — probably because they are so dangerous — but the two week festival is the most interesting, exciting and unique experience on this planet.  Mind the press and TV will be there to report and bad accidents and riders killed.  I have not been there for 50 years but the event has if anything only got better.  Racers get killed on average at the rate of one or two every year but, even so, many of them keep coming back for more year after year.  And fans come from all over the world; by bike and car and bus and van from Europe but by air from USA, Australia and Asia.  It is such a friendly gathering where top racers from works teams mix with one man team privateers and with Joe Public in a totally down-to-earth manner.  One of the privateers, interviewed this week on TV told us how, last year, he had Bruce Anstey helping him change tyres.  Always delays can be expected because of weather and other things but no-one bothers very much because there are always other things to do.  You need to be slightly mad to want to race year after year at speeds up to 200 mph on public roads where a crash can be potentially fatal.  But there are many men — and a few women — who do come back again and again.  John McGuinness has twenty one wins to his name and he is trying hard as ever this year.  He is past the first flush on youth — he is just three years younger than Bruce Anstey — but he is still wanting to compete.  This year, the fact is that his Honda just isn't quick enough.  McGuinness is quite a big man and the Honda Fireblade is [a] a small bike, physically and [b] needs a severe update to keep up with the other manufacturers later models.

There is a daily report on the racing from ITV4 which is a much enjoyable TV hour. The presenters, four of them, three of whom have raced round the Isle of Man, all men — no token woman — all very professional, lovers of the TT, well acquainted with all the riders and respected by everyone at the festival.  I shall enjoy every day's reports and. possibly, an edited highlights programme at the week-end.

I must say just a little about Guy Martin.  He comes here year after year and has had everything from these races, except a win.  He always looks in with a chance but somehow something stops him winning; the bike may be down on power, or it just stops or he exceeds the speed limit in the pit lane or [2010] he has a horrendous crash, but he still comes back.  Guy Martin is an old-fashioned English eccentric but an eccentric that is surely unique.  He is a part-time racer, part-time TV presenter, full-time lorry mechanic with, apparently, the most comprehensive spanner set ever seen by the supplier's rep.  He has lashed out and bought a Rolls Royce Merlin engine because it is such a beautiful work of art and he intends to display it in the lounge of his house.  Now the Merlin engine is not small; it is a 27 litre V-12, is heavy — about one tonne — and needs a lot of space.  Guy loves his engines and becomes quite emotional about his Merlin — an engine that was built in 1943 and came out of a Lancaster bomber.  I hope he can get a TT win soon; he certainly deserves it and, I am sure, it will be popular with everyone.

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Death of a Lovely Man

I have had 3 months of total silence on this blog.  There was no particular reason for the silence but at my age, time does seem to slide by almost unnoticed.  I was stimulated to write again today by the announcement of the death of former leader of the Liberal-Democrats, Charles Kennedy.  He was a mere 55 years old.  We don't yet know the cause of death but I suppose we must assume a heart attack until we have proper medical assessment.  We know he has had problems with alcohol — indeed that was why he was forced from his post as party leader.  But I have always felt that Charles Kennedy drunk was a much better leader than either of his successors — drunk or sober.  Winston Churchill proved what could be achieved while consuming rather large volumes of alcohol.

I never met Charles Kennedy.  I did meet two earlier leaders of the Liberal Party, Jo Grimond and Jeremy Thorpe.  I met the latter soon after his election to Parliament for the first time as MP for North Devon in 1959.  Those were heady days when there was much talk of a Liberal revival and there were notable by-election successes; Ludovic Kennedy just failed to win the seat of Rochdale and Eric Lubbock was sensationally successful in winning Orpington.  I listened and talked to Jeremy Thorpe when he came to address the student's union at Leeds University in 1960 [I think].  He was quite impressive as a performer but he seemed slightly slippery — perhaps he was just behaving as a politician and lawyer].  Jo Grimond I met in the mid-sixties at Aberdeen Airport.  Aberdeen Airport in those days didn't amount to much — before the North Sea oil boom had taken off and there were only a few people waiting in the very basic terminal building for a flight down to London.  Mr Grimond had just flown in from his constituency [Orkney and Shetland] and was on his way to Westminster.  It was a wet and windy day and we few passengers stayed in a well-sealed building awaiting the arriving aeroplane.  Jo Grimond struck me at the time as looking like a slightly disorganized country parson — with a rather large hole in the heel of one of his woolen socks.  But we chatted about instant coffees and motorway service stations and he was charming.

Charles Kennedy was the most successful leader of the Liberal-Democrats and his death is a great loss to public life.  He lead his party to its greatest success in the election of 2005, when they won 62 seats — their best result since the Liberals in the 1920s.  He was a a man who could make contact with ordinary people, lacked all pomposity and was able to laugh at himself and politics.  He always seemed at ease when on TV and managed to combine TV appearances with his job as party leader.  Famously, he stood out in public in opposing Tony Blair and the Iraq War.  He was famously justified in this and no doubt this contributed greatly to his election success. .He also opposed the Liberal-Democrats going into a coalition government with the Tories.  He appears to have been justified again in his opposition as his party has been absolutely destroyed at the general election.  Nevertheless, throughout the last five years he was silent in his opposition and I think this was to his credit.  The decimation of the Liberal-Democrats is, I think, more a result of the behaviour of the party while in government.  Both Nick Clegg and Vince Cable were for ever rubbishing government policy while doing little justify their own performances.  Only Danny Alexandre at the Treasury impressed.  He may have had rows with George Osborne every day but none of it came out in public and they presented a united front.  George Osborne praised him, thanking him for his support throughout five years in government after Danny Alexandre lost his seat at the election.

Like 85% of Liberal-Democrat MPs, Charles Kennedy lost his seat at the election.  He represented the constituency of Ross, Skye and Lochaber for 32 years and was a much loved local man, living in Fort William.  He was displaced at the election by the tidal wave of the Scottish Nationalists who swept all before them.  Although collecting less than 1.5 million votes, they now have 56 MPs while the Liberal-Democrats, the Greens and UKIP who together collected 7.45 million votes managed only 10 seats between all three parties.  I am sure that this ridiculous imbalance will come to haunt the parties at Westminster as the SNP's motley crew tries to disrupt government.  It is the most distorted representation of the people in our history — according to the Electoral Reform Society.

Many people in Scotland were sad to see Charles Kennedy kicked out after so many years but yet they were prepared to vote for a Nationalist.  The death of Charles Kennedy is great loss to all of us and everyone from the Prime Minister down has mourned his passing.  Perhaps, he died of a broken heart?

I read a little story in the TMS column in The Times for 3rd June which told of Charles Kennedy in his final year at university in Glasgow spending time with a careers adviser who asked what he wanted to do in life.  "I am not sure," said Charles Kennedy, "I like reading and people so I could be a teacher.  Or possibly, a journalist."  Politics was discussed as a last resort.  A year later, he was elected as an MP at the age of 23 and received a letter from the careers adviser, which said "Dear Charles, I was delighted to hear the news of your election.  I can only presume that all else failed"

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Learning To Read

I have always enjoyed reading and have accumulated books since I was a small boy. I cannot really remember the days before I learned to read.  Presumably I could not read before I went to nursery school in 1944 and I well remember listening to our teacher reading to us as we sat on the floor in a semi-circle near to a roaring open fire in our school room in the winter of 1945.  Later as a five or six year old, in another classroom with a roaring open fire, I sat with about fifty other children looking at a large blackboard and easel in one corner facing the class, on which was written the alphabet — in coloured chalk —  with a little drawing and an explanation for every letter of the alphabet.  A is for Apple;  B is for Bat; C is for Cat; D is for Dog; etc — and so on to Z.  Then we had simple reading books — usually shared one book between two of us.  Those were years of post-war rationing and everything was in short supply.  

My earliest fully remembered reading experience was in September of 1949.  My father took me across to the Isle of Man to see motorbike racing, the Manx Grand Prix.  That was the year when an up and coming rider named Geoff Duke came 2nd in the Junior TT but then went on to win the Senior on a 500cc Manx Norton.  It was a terrific holiday for a small boy and I remember so much that we saw on our days out away from the racing.  On the last day of the week, Friday, the weather was typically Isle of Man autumn style, with mist drifting in off the sea and drizzle falling steadily throughout the day.  It was not weather for wandering around much but it wasn't especially cold.  In Douglas, the capital, that morning we wandered along under the cover of the Villa Marina wondering what to do.  We had cups of coffee and then dad took me into a bookshop and bought a book for me.  In those days paperback books were not the universal, ubiquitous publications that  they were to become from the mid-1950s onwards and mine was a hardback edition of "The Emperor's Bracelet" written by Manning Coles.  Manning Coles was — I am informed by Wikipedia — two people, Adelaide Francis Oke Manning [1891 — 1959] and Cyril Henry Coles [1899 — 1965].  The two writers were neighbours in Meon in Hampshire and both had worked for British intelligence during WWII.  How they decided who wrote what, I have no idea but they were reasonably successful. publishing a string on mystery type novels between about 1940 and 1960.  "The Emperor's Bracelet" is described as a Junior Novel and was published in 1947.  I think my book cost about 3/6d in 1949.  Copies of the book are still available from second-hand shops, costing between about £10 and £50. On that day in 1949, we spent most of the day under the Villa Marina — I reading my book and dad reading a newspaper, probably the Daily Express.  Breaking for a lunch of fish and chips, I read until about 4.30 pm when we returned to the boarding-house of Mrs Kaneen for our evening meal and chat with he other boarders.  I finished the book, either on the Friday evening or on the following day as we sailed back to Liverpool on the Ben-My-Chree, a ferry boat of about 2,600 tons, built in 1927 — and present at Dunkirk in 1940.  

I still have that book, bought for me 66 years ago, perhaps the foundation of my book collection.

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Simon Rattle at 60

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Yesterday was the 60th birthday of Sir Simon Rattle — conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.  It does not seem that long ago since he was an up-and-coming young conductor with the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.  Born in Liverpool, he was clearly a man with considerable talents who succeeded in making the Birmingham orchestra something special.  I have heard that orchestra in live performance— at the Three Choirs Festival — but not for many years and long before Simon Rattle was involved.  I have seen Simon Rattle conducting the Philharmonia in the Royal Festival Hall — on one occasion, I arrived at the hall in a rush and had to wait until the end of Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture before they would allow me into the hall.  That concert included two symphonies by Sibelius and as I waited Vladimir Ashkenazy came rushing up.  He, also, was made to wait, but he obviously thought that Simon Rattle and Sibelius was something worth listening to and later — this was the 1980s — he became a noted performer of the Sibelius symphonies himself.  Simon Rattle had been with the Berlin Philharmonic since 2003 and I think his contract will end in 2018.  He has indicated that he will not try to extend his stay and will leave at that time.  After sixteen years with the finest orchestra in the world, what will he do then?  Have a go at opera, perhaps.  Inevitably, there have been some always ready to criticize his direction of the orchestra and have suggested friction with the players but when his decision was announced two years ago orchestra members expressed their regrets at the decision and spoke of "the great sympathy" between conductor and musicians.  Over the years, his Kevin Keegan permed hair has transformed from a brunette colour to a gradually  whitening grey but I still find it difficult to see him as other than the young man in Birmingham.

I wish Sir Simon all the best for the future.

Another birthday yesterday was that of the buxom country and western singer Dolly Parton.  Not my cup of tea, music wise but as she reaches 69, I have to say that she does seem to have been around for years without changing very much.  I wish her well also.

Yesterday was a good day for birthdays.  Michael Crawford [Some Mother's Do 'Ave 'Em] was 73; Stefan Edberg [tennis player] was 49; Jenson Button [F1 driver] was 35; Julian Barnes [journalist and author] was also 69.  John Bercow, the speaker of the House of Commons was 52, but many a Tory MP will think he has been speaker since ............................................almost for ever!

I wish them all a belated Happy Birthday.

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Ban on Snowman

The weather hasn't been too good in the northern part of Saudi Arabia in the last week or so.  In fact it has been snowing. Very unseasonable in this often very hot country.  Snow has covered upland areas of Tabuk province near Saudi Arabia’s border with Jordan — for the third consecutive year as cold weather swept across the Middle East.  Surely, an  opportunity for children and the young of heart to throw snow balls and build snowmen.  However, Saudi  Arabia is the sort of country where it is as well to seek advice before doing anything.  A member of the public asked a simple question via a religious web site if it was permissible to build a snowman?  Back came the reply from a prominent cleric  “It is not permitted to make a statue out of snow, even by way of play and fun.”  In reaching this decision he quoted Muslim scholars, arguing that to build a snowman was to create an image of a human being, an action considered sinful under the kingdom’s strict interpretation of Sunni Islam.

This absurd ruling was supported by some and ridiculed by others.  After last week's events in Paris to get stories like this makes me wonder what nonsense will we have to listen to or read next.  Any religion or doctrine that cannot accept criticism or ignore trivialities of this nature is not worth very much.

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