Week 11 2012 15.3.2012

Tendring Topics.....on line

‘Some corner of a foreign field…………’

          Shortly after the outbreak of World War I, Rupert Brooke wrote his best-known poem The Soldier, which begins with the lines;

If I should die, think only this of me

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England.

These assume that in that corner of a foreign field, the poet’s remains will at least be left in peace.

          By no means the worst or the most tragic image shown on tv last week, but the one that has remained most persistent in my memory, was that of the vandalised and broken tombstones of British war dead in Benghazi’s British military cemetery and the desecration of the stone crucifix that had been provided there.

            The spectacle filled me with deep sadness – not for those buried there (they are past caring about such things), nor because among those war dead are former comrades of mine who died in a PoW transit camp in Benghazi in the late summer and autumn of 1942.  Nor even was it because of the desecration of the image of Christ, the Prince of Peace, and of the cross on which he had been executed. It was a cross that a fellow-countryman of the vandals, Simon of Cyrene, had helped him carry to Golgotha, the place of execution.                 

            What made me saddest was the thought that, anywhere in the world, there were people who harboured such a hatred of Britain, British values, and of the Christian faith, that they were prepared to vent it even on the dead and on the sacred symbols of their faith.  Such unreasoning and implacable hatred cannot be overcome by force of arms. Nor, I think, can it be defeated or brought to acceptable compromise by reasoned argument and discussion.

            It is for that reason that I see no possibility of an end, either by  military victory or agreed compromise, to the war in Afghanistan that continues to take a toll of our young men and, of course, of an unknown number of Afghan civilians. I have no doubt at all that exactly the same implacable hatred motivates our Taliban opponents there.  Last week six young British men died in just one incident, an event that brought renewed calls for an immediate withdrawal of British troops.

            It is a new experience for me to find myself on the same side as much of the popular press, but there really is no point in waiting a couple more years in the hope that by that time we’ll have had a miraculous victory or that the Taliban will have accepted a reasonable compromise.  Nor do I think that we can rely on the NATO trained and equipped Afghan Army to have either the ability or the inclination to step into the role currently held by our troops.   What is certain is that in that time there will be yet more pointless deaths of young men, more weeping widows and children, and more sorrowing parents.  I am sorry for the Afghans – and particularly for the Afghan women and girls – who have acquired western ways and embraced western values. I can only hope that they will be able to escape from their benighted country before the hate-fuelled  retribution of some of their fellow-countrymen catches up with them.

Later Developments

          Since I wrote the above there have been further disturbing developments, none of which encourage me to change my general view of the situation in Afghanistan.

            Last Saturday 10^th March I learned that the Afghanistan Religious Council, funded by the Afghan Government (and thus, indirectly, by us!) whose decrees had already resulted in Afghan women tv news readers having to wear a head scarf while working, has now decreed that Afghan women and men should not work or be educated together, and that women should not go out in public unless accompanied by a male member of their family.   This decree doesn’t yet have the force of law but it is certainly a straw in the wind, and an indication of the probable fate of Afghan women and girls when NATO forces depart.

            Then, on the following day I heard the appalling news that a United States soldier (a staff sergeant in fact) had gone alone into two Afghan villages in the dead of night and deliberately massacred at least sixteen people, including a number of women and children.   The perpetrator of this horrific crime must obviously have been either insanely drunk or simply insane at the time. This though is unlikely to be regarded as an excuse by those who will demand vengeance.

            Back in Essex, on the same day came news of the vandalising and desecration of a churchyard memorial to British troops who had died in Afghanistan.  Is this evidence of the same implacable hatred, now in England, that resulted in the violation of British war graves in Benghazi?

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‘A Bridge over Troubled Waters’

            Opening my newly delivered copy of The Friend, a Quaker weekly journal, last week, I was surprised to see a photograph that reminded me of a very happy period of my life.  The picture was of the old Turkish packhorse bridge in Mostar, Bosnia; the ‘old bridge’ (or ‘stari most’) that gave the town its name.  I remembered it from the late summer of 1980 when my wife Heather and I had toured what was then a united Jugoslavia in our motor- caravan.

Here is a picture that I took at the time.  Young men were demonstrating their machismo by diving from the apex of the bridge into the turbulent waters of the fast-flowing River Neretva beneath. It was a peaceful scene and, throughout our visit, we saw no sign of the suspicion, hatred and resentment that were so soon to lead to bitter civil war.

A casualty of that civil war was that beautiful old  bridge, destroyed in conflict between Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Muslims.  It was rebuilt with funding from the Turkish Government (sadly there is no way of similarly restoring the thousands of human lives lost in that conflict!)  The picture in The Friend on International Women’s Day, 8^th March, was published as a symbol of peace and reconciliation.

Did you, by the way, know that 8^th March was International Women’s Day and that women  were holding demonstrations on bridges round the world, hoping, says a spokesperson for Women for Women International, that they will represent ‘bridges of peace and hope for the future’?  The organisation declares that ‘Women are forced to bear the burden of war and are targeted for mass rape, mutilation and torture as a tool of war’ and that ‘Eighty percent of wartime refugees are women and children’.

I am only sorry that International Women’s Day wasn’t more widely publicised beforehand.  The campaign reinforced my own idea (for which no-one else seems to have much enthusiasm!) that there should be an all-embracing ‘Civilian Victims Day’, a companion of Remembrance Day on which we remember the war dead of the armed forces.  On that day there would be special religious services of remembrance and of repentance and we would all be urged to wear white poppies as a symbol of our desire for peace.   The proceeds of the sale could be used to help civilian victims of conflict. in a similar way to that in which the proceeds of red poppies on Remembrance Day are used to help wounded and disabled members of the armed forces.

Perhaps the reason that this idea hasn’t caught on is the fact that while virtually every nation of the world has civilian war dead to mourn, very few indeed have no need to repent the suffering they have inflicted  on the civilian victims of other nations, other creeds or other ethnicities.

‘Inasmuch as ye have done these things unto even one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done them unto me’, said the Prince of Peace.

A Boost to the Economy – and Solution to Britain’s Housing Problem?

            I am referring to the Government’s recently announced initiative to underwrite loans from Banks and Building Societies for purchases of new-built homes to enable those lenders to require a deposit of only 5 percent of the total purchase price.  This, it is claimed, will give a boost to the building trade, and thus to the country’s economic recovery. It would also make it possible for thousands of potential purchasers, who could afford the monthly repayments on their loan but were unable to find the all-important deposit, to get their feet on the first rung on the property ladder.

             Will give a boost to the building trade?   I think that it is the sort of idea that could only emanate only from a government of millionaires, remote from the world most of us live in! Even 5 percent of the price of a new home would be well beyond the reach of many would-be purchasers.  It was in 1956 that my wife and I bought the bungalow in which I am now writing these words.  We did – in those distant days – have the offer of a loan with a deposit of only 5 percent. We had been married for ten years.  I had an adequate salary, but   our two young sons, and a loan to repay on the cost of the car I needed for my job, ensured that we had very little money saved.  We had to sell some of our furniture – and my wife’s engagement ring (a transaction for which I have felt guilty ever since!) – to raise that deposit.

            We did manage to pay the monthly repayments unfailingly. I was a Public Heath Inspector employed by Clacton Council.  In those days local government salaries were lower than comparable ones in the private sector, but they were secure and part of that salary was contributing to a pension.  Nowadays salaries in the lower reaches of the local government service are still low but the jobs, like all jobs these days, are anything but secure.  What is more, pension contributions are going to be higher and today’s local government officers are going to have to wait (and work) longer for a lower pension.  Jobs in the private sector are scarce and certainly no more secure.  With all of this in mind prudent home seekers should surely think twice – and then again – before incurring a debt that, like the student loans, is going to be a burden for decades to come, and for which any change of circumstances could make it impossible to keep up the repayments.

            We are, thanks to those ‘brilliant brains’ in the banking and financial services sector, already a nation in debt.  The government seems determined to make us also a nation of debtors!

A Moment of Remembrance – and foreboding.

          I am an early riser.  Last Sunday (11^th March) I switched the tv on to BBC 1 at about 5.40 a.m.   Usually at that time there is a discussion about the European Union in progress.  Last Sunday was different. Unknowingly I had switched on just before the exact moment at which, on that same day a year earlier, the devastating earthquake and Tsunami, followed by a catastrophic nuclear energy emergency, had taken place in eastern Japan.  I was watching a memorial event, presided over by the grey-haired Japanese Emperor and Empress, in an enormous crowd-filled arena. There were recorded scenes of the earthquake, of the subsequent enormous ‘tidal wave’ engulfing all before it – and of the radiation polluted landscape that remains devastated to this day. Then, at the anniversary of the moment the earthquake struck, came a minute of silence As one, the enormous audience fell into silent mourning for the tens thousands of dead, many of whose bodies have never been recovered.

            We are fortunate in this country in that we rarely experience a damaging earthquake and never, so far, a tsunami.  We have had devastating tidal floods though (one on this coast as recently as 1953), and we too have nuclear plant in locations liable to flooding.  A recent survey predicted that within this century, there is a strong probability that both Bradwell and Sizewell nuclear plants, neither very far from us and one very near, will suffer dangerous flooding as a result of the inexorable progress of global warming. 

We have been warned!

           

                       

           

           

                                                 

Week 10 2012 8.3.2012

Tendring Topics..........on Line

 ‘The best that money can buy!’

            The Leveson Enquiry into the conduct of the press, having been absent from the front headline news recently, came back with a vengeance early last week. On the Monday we had learned of the successful launch the previous day of News International’s latest venture, the Sunday edition of the Sun. Over three million copies of the new publication had been sold and Mr Rupert Murdoch, who had launched it in person, was said to be delighted.

On the following day he may have been a little less happy. A high ranking police official revealed to Lord Leveson that bribery of the police and other public officials had been endemic among the staff of the Sun and that this corruption had been condoned at the very highest level.  It was believed that one public official had been paid as much as £80,000 to reveal confidential information!  Furthermore, this activity had been carried out despite the knowledge that it was against the law and that the jobs, pensions and liberty of those involved were at risk. Various devious schemes had been devised to conceal it.

No wonder the recent widespread arrests of Sun journalists, that aroused so much indignation among media pundits, had taken place simultaneously, at dawn, and by surprise.   This had clearly been intended to remove the possibility of evidence being tampered with or destroyed.  

Mr Murdoch is reported as saying that although those activities may have taken place in the past all News International employees would have clean hands in the future. Perhaps so – but it will be remembered that throughout this sorry ongoing saga News International has admitted wrong-doing only when compelled to do so by irrefutable evidence.  In the first instance it was claimed that just one lone culprit had resorted to ‘phone hacking’, and he was a freelance private investigator, not a News International employee.  Then it was just the one publication, the News of the World that was culpable.  Mr Murdoch closed it down, throwing it to the wolves to protect the rest of his media empire.  Now the Sun, News International’s flagship enterprise in the UK, is accused of being a centre of bribery and corruption.  In a tv interview singer Charlotte Church, who, with her parents, has been the victims of phone hacking and harassment, pointed out that when News International says ‘sorry’ it doesn’t mean that they are sorry about their wrong-doing – only that that they are sorry to have been caught out! 

Serious as is the systematic bribery and corruption of members of the Police Force and other public officials, it is the evil influence of News International at the very highest level that most concerns me – and should concern us all.  If the Police were, as is admitted, much too close to the Murdoch Empire – what are we to say of successive Prime Ministers who have enjoyed the close friendship of Rupert Murdoch and his lieutenants?  It began with Mrs Thatcher but was closely followed by Tony Blair and by David Cameron, our present Prime Minister. There was the video shown on tv of Tony Blair greeting Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch’s ‘viceroy’, with an affectionate kiss. There was David Cameron and family spending part of Christmas 2010 with the same lady, and David Cameron appointing Andy Coulson, a former News of the World editor, as his personal spin-doctor.  More recently we have had the cosy mental image of David Cameron enjoying  a brisk canter – on a horse ‘loaned’ to Rebekah Brooks by the Metropolitan Police! 

No wonder News International employees imagined that, with ‘friends at the top’ they could get away with anything.   Now I notice that, as a result of an internal enquiry, News International is handing to the Police evidence of the wrong-doing of some of its employees.  I am reminded of the German farmer who in 1946, when asked what he had been doing that morning, replied, ‘I’ve been de-Nazifying my carrot field – pulling out the little ones so that the big ones can flourish!’

No-one would dream of suggesting that our top politicians could be bribed – or that even the brashest of cosmopolitan media billionaires would be foolish enough to attempt to bribe them.  The former though, are well aware of the fragility of their electoral success and of the power of the rulers of the press to manipulate public opinion for or against them.  This power was impressively demonstrated when, to make New Labour ‘electable’ Tony Blair swung his party’s policies sufficiently to the right to secure Rupert Murdoch’s approbation, and the support of the Sun in the next General Election campaign - which New Labour then won.  Before the latest General Election the Sun returned to its support of the Conservatives, and the Conservatives emerged as the strongest party.  Rupert Murdoch must have been well satisfied with this exhibition of his power.

 The billionaire owners of most of the national press are able to exert far too powerful an influence on our political leaders – an influence that the revelations of the Leveson Enquiry may give us an opportunity to curb.  We boast of our ‘Free Press’ . It isn’t free.  It isn’t even cheap.  It is just the very best that money can buy!

‘When I hear the word “culture”……. I reach for my revolver!’

          Thus in the late 1930s, allegedly spake the late and unlamented Air-Marshal Hermann Goering, the most colourful of Hitler’s entourage.

            We haven’t yet reached that state in this country as we progress in the second decade of the twenty-first century.  There’s no doubt though that in our schools, lessons on what I think of as cultural subjects – history, geography, English literature – come a poor second to those which prepare the young to be employable human resource units supplying the needs of the global market economy; the ‘proles’ of George Orwell’s ‘1984’ .

             A basic knowledge of British and World History and Geography (where we are in both time and space, how we got there, and the direction in which we are heading!) is surely essential for us all in a parliamentary democracy.  How could we hope to exercise the vote intelligently and effectively without that background knowledge?  As for English literature – quite apart from the great pleasure that is to be derived from the magnificent prose and poetry of the past, it teaches us to express our thoughts clearly and concisely (without the constantly reiterated ‘know what I mean? that we hear so often today) and how those in the past have met and tried to resolve the problems that confront us daily.

            I heard a cocksure fifteen year old asserting on tv that Shakespeare is irrelevant these days.  Irrelevant, really?  Romeo and Juliet deals with gang warfare between the Montagues and Capulets,  the dangers of carrying knives (the gang members had long ones called swords!) for ‘protection’, the perils of teenage sex and of ignoring parental advice, and the dangers of meddling by well-meaning busybodies (Brother Lawrence).   And that’s just one of the plays!  Aspiring modern politicians could do worse than study Macbeth ­and Julius Caesar and those tempted to try to make a fortune on the stock exchange might try The Merchant of Venice. 

           

Watching University Challenge on tv can be a humbling experience.  I don’t really understand most of the questions, never mind know the answers.  However I do occasionally know the answers to questions on English history or world geography, and I quite often know more about some aspects of English Literature than any of the contestants.  I have been astonished to observe young men and women who know things about physics, chemistry, zoology, and mathematics that are a complete mystery to me, but who seem never to have heard of such poems as Milton’s sonnet On his Blindness, Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott, Keats’  La belle Dame sans Merci, and John Betjeman’s Subaltern’s Love Song.   Betjeman’s poetry I have come to know and enjoy fairly recently (well, in the past half-century)  but the others, and the Shakespeare plays I have mentioned, were just part of the English syllabus for the London University General Schools Certificate that I took and passed before leaving school in 1937 at the age of 16.

            I can’t say that the maths and science subjects that I was taught at school have been of no value to me. I have always had enough Maths to cope with my income tax returns and to work out royalties due to me from book sales.  My knowledge of General Physics was a help to me when, in my 50s and 60s, I wrote half a dozen commercially successful books about domestic hot and cold water supply and drainage.  It is though, from my study of English Literature that I have gained my ability to string words together into a readable narrative, and from my knowledge of history and geography that I have the temerity to write and publish this blog every week. I wish I knew more about other cultural subjects such as classical music and art. 

            In Great Britain culture isn’t yet the target of a revolver – but it is being slowly strangled in the service of Mammon!

‘Bad News for Home Owners?’

          When the news reader announced that there was ‘bad news for home owners’ at breakfast time this (3^rd March) morning, I wondered what was coming next.  I needn’t have worried.  It was home buyers, not home owners that had reason to be anxious.  Interest rates on mortgages were set to increase, in some cases by as much as fourteen percent.  Some home buyers will shortly discover – when they find themselves unable to make their mortgage repayments – that it is the bank or Building Society, not themselves, who is the true owner of their home.

            I feel very sorry for those who may lose their homes, but not for the politicians who have lured them into a debt that they won’t be able to repay.  Remember David Cameron saying how proud the new householder was when handed the key of his own home?  Just imagine how that same householder will feel when his home is repossessed and he has to hand it back again!

’‘Essex Works!'

            Yes, as far as I am concerned it certainly does.  You’ll recall that a fortnight or so ago I recounted my experience of trying to get a hand-rail fitted to help me get safely from the threshold of my front door to the concrete front path.  A wooden ramp had been provided (by a friendly neighbour) over the two steep steps, but I still felt the need to descend that ramp with extreme care, never venturing upon it without my trusty walking stick!

            The biggest hurdle that I had to deal with was that of getting through to a human voice at the County Hall.  I gave it up one day and rang off while a mechanical voice was assuring me that my call was valued and that I was moving up the queue.  The next day I was more determined (and possibly a little more patient!) and eventually a human voice, of a very helpful young lady greeted me.  I was ‘assessed’ over the phone.  It became clear to me that despite my age there were not a great many things that I might want to do but was unable.  I could get out of bed, wash, shower and shave, do my own shopping, visit friends, cook my own meals and do the washing with the aid of a washing machine.   I had already arranged help with cleaning and with the garden.  No, I definitely wasn’t top priority.

            However, someone would visit me in due course to see about a hand-rail and to see if there were any other hazards about the house were capable of being remedied.  It took about three weeks but ultimately some-one did call.  He agreed that I needed a handrail but thought that otherwise I was coping well with the effects of old age.  Someone would phone and make an appointment to fix the handrail.  And so they did.  A very helpful operative phoned and said that, if it was OK with me, he would call and fix the handrail at about lunchtime today, 3rd March..

            And so he did, quickly and efficiently.  See for yourself.

            It will take a long while to erase from my memory the County Council’s former political leader, Lord Hanningfield.  But in the meantime I am happy to confirm that Essex Works – and worked effectively for me!

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Week 9 2012 1.3.2012

Tendring Topics........on Line


The Cost of Weddings ………

            One of the biggest changes in public attitudes that have taken place during my lifetime is that relating to love and marriage.  In my childhood and youth the idea of an unmarried couple living together as man and wife evoked shock and horror.  It was ‘living in sin’.  The woman in such a liaison was regarded as ‘fallen’, any children were ‘illegitimate,’ a designation that could prove to be a lifelong disadvantage. As late at the early 1950s a popular song announced that, ‘Love and marriage, love and marriage, They go together like a horse and carriage.  You can’t have one without the other’.  Well, that was certainly what I - and many thousands like me – took for granted.

            How different things are in the twenty-first century.   It is considered perfectly normal – even wise – for a young couple to live together, and perhaps have one or two children before getting married or, in many cases, deciding not to marry at all.   Sometimes they’ll say that they are ‘saving up to get married’ by which they usually mean saving up to be able to afford the kind of lavish wedding reception and honeymoon that will be the envy of their friends, neighbours and work colleagues.

            Recently I was quite shocked to discover that many couples may have to ‘save up’ to pay for the actual ceremony. It was something with which I had never been involved.  Traditionally it is the bride’s parents who pay for the wedding, though that too seems to have changed nowadays. Heather and I were married in the Methodist Church of which she was a member with a (teetotal!) wedding reception in the church hall.  One of my sons was married in a Roman Catholic Church and the other in a Registry Office.  Obviously there was a charge for the Registry Office but it didn’t even occur to me that there would be a charge for the actual wedding in a church – except for the services of the organist and, if there was one, the choir.  I thought it was just ‘a service’ like any other service at which the priest or minister officiated.  I have also been peripherally involved in several Quaker weddings – and for them there is definitely no charge.

            I now learn that there has been a charge of £262 for a Church of England wedding and that this has recently been raised to £400.  That is quite a lot of money to a great many people today; quite enough to make an impecunious young couple who had been thinking of ‘tying the knot’ think again.  They may be facing a lot of other expenses including furnishing a home!

            I would never have expected the Church to deter couples from the sacrament of marriage and am not surprised at the fact that at least some members of the clergy are rebelling against this latest charge.  One such is Fr. Richard Tilbrook of St Barnabas’ Church, Colchester.  He intends to stick to the former fee of £262.   He is reported as saying, ‘In this economic climate in poor parishes this is a huge increase which is not acceptable.  We work very hard to encourage people to come to church and to get married in church and I worry that this will turn people away.          Fr. Richard has the support of Colchester’s recently knighted MP Sir Bob Russell who has promised to raise the matter in parliament.

…….and of Funerals

            Charges for Church of England funerals have also been increased to £160, not quite so much, but quite enough to add worry to a great many hard up new widows and widowers faced with the other inevitable funeral costs.

            Oddly enough, I have had some direct experience here.   It must have been about twelve years ago that an occasional attender at our Clacton Quaker Meeting who, like me, had been a POW in Germany during Word War II, asked me if I would officiate at his funeral service when the time came.  No – he didn’t want a Quaker funeral, but he would like me to take it.  I didn’t feel that it was the kind of request that I could refuse, though I didn’t take my promise all that seriously.  There was no certainty that he would predecease me – and in any case, it would be his relatives who would decide on the form that the funeral would take.

            However, eighteen months later I had a phone call from a local funeral director. He had died and his desire that I should officiate at the funeral had been included in the will.  I was given the name and address of his son and daughter-in-law, and I went to see them.  Yes, they would like me to officiate at the cremation.  No, they didn’t want a Quaker funeral.  They didn’t want long Quaker silences.  No, none of the relatives wanted to speak at the funeral, though they were happy enough to tell me all about the deceased. No, they didn’t want any hymns.   

            A crematorium funeral service lasts only 20 minutes but that can seem quite a long while when it has to be filled with talk and prayer!  I managed it, including a reading of the 23^rd Psalm and Tennyson’s Crossing the Bar, in which the poet compares dying with passing through the turbulent water at a harbour’s outlet. I pressed the button that brings curtains round the bier as I asked for a blessing on us all at the end of the service.  My ordeal was over and the relatives were pleased.

            They were even more pleased when I waived the £80 that the Funeral Director told me was ‘the usual fee’.  £80 for twenty minutes work, perhaps an hour and a half in all if my preparation was taken into consideration!   Still pretty good payment – but I wouldn’t have accepted any payment.  Quite apart from the fact that to do so would have been considered unquakerly, I felt that I had simply been fulfilling a promise made to a former comrade; a straightforward not-all-that-difficult task dictated by friendship.

            If the ceremony had taken place in a church that had to be maintained, kept clean at all times, and warm when required, it would, I suppose, have been reasonable to make a small charge for the use of the premises, but £160? – hardly.  Once again Fr Richard Tillbrook of Colchester’s St Barnabas’ Church is sticking to the old fee of £105 for a funeral – and I think that he is right.

             Unjustifiable charges play into the hands of the National Secular Society and others who would like to separate religion from every aspect of what they regard as ‘real life’.

 Some thoughts on Taxation

          Did you notice the story last week about Civil Servants whose salary was being paid into a limited company to reduce their tax liability?  There was a tremendous fuss about whether or not they really were civil servants – or were they just contractors to the civil service. 

            Whether or not they were civil servants is surely beside the point.  What was to the point was that due to a loop-hole (one of many I fear) in the law, the Inland Revenue was deprived of tax to which it would otherwise have been entitled and which the rest of us will now have to pay.  The exact employment status of those concerned should not have mattered in the least.

            It is tax loop-holes of this kind that the government needs to seek out and close with at least the same vigour and enthusiasm that it seeks out Benefit Scroungers,  if it is to persuade even the most gullible that ‘we’re all in this together’.

            Then there was the promise last week by the opposition  that, if they were elected, they would take those with the lowest incomes out of the income tax system altogether because it had been found that extra money in the pockets of those with the lowest incomes tends to be spent, thereby helping Britain’s economic recovery.  Extra money in the pockets of better off people tends to be saved – however wise that may be personally it isn’t going to speed national recovery.

            I understand that argument but, though raising the level of income tax liability would certainly be to my advantage, I don’t think that it is the right way to achieve that objective.  I believe that we need to reverse the transfer of direct taxation (income tax, death duties, national insurance and so on) to indirect taxation such as VAT and customs duties on alcohol, petrol and diesel fuel.  This was initiated during the governments (I nearly said the reign!) of Mrs Thatcher and continued enthusiastically during those of Tony Blair.

            VAT is paid by rich and poor alike (‘we are all in this together’) but it is a much larger proportion of the total income of the poor.  Its imposition and removal therefore affects the poor more than the rich.   Reducing the cost of goods by cutting VAT would make it possible for the poor to buy goods that would otherwise have been beyond their reach – and help economic recovery.

            I have personally had an example of that during the past few weeks.  I have recently self-published part of my autobiography as a 65 x A5 page booklet entitled ‘Zittau….and I’, relating to my association with that small German town both during World War II and more recently.  I had 250 copies printed to give to friends, family and anyone who may be interested.  Printing work of this kind is not subject to VAT – so I was able, within my means, to have the work done and thus help keep the printing firm functioning.  Had the work been subject to VAT I couldn’t have afforded it, and probably many of the firm’s other customers wouldn’t have been able to either.

            As for income tax – well, it is the one tax that could be levied on all of us according to our ability to pay it.  Properly graded, so that we all paid a similar proportion of our incomes, it could make sure that we really were all in this together.

           

I believe that even the poorest should pay a small amount in income tax.  They too could then claim to be tax payers and free themselves of the jibe that others have to pay for public services that they enjoy.  Those – like me – who are a little better off should pay a larger amount but the same proportion of our income in taxation and so on, with the very wealthy paying a much larger amount, but the same proportion of their incomes.  It seems blindingly obvious to me that that is the path towards fairness and the creation of a true Common Wealth.

            I should add that I don’t think that there is the least possibility of the present, or any currently-possible alternative government, pursuing that path in the foreseeable future!

Provoking ‘The Wrath of God’

          It is becoming more and more certain that NATO’s adventure in Afghanistan will end in the same way as the two British incursions into that country in the 19^th century and the Soviet one in the 20^th century - in humiliating departure.  I have little doubt that within months of the final withdrawal of our forces, Afghanistan will be ruled by an extreme Islamist clique, its schools (except of course those indoctrinating boys in the most extreme Muslim traditions) will be closed and its women and girls again reduced to the status of ‘goods and chattels’. There will have been a massacre of those Afghans who co-operated with the ‘Western Infidels’ and were foolish enough to imagine that we would protect them.

            This opinion has been reinforced by recent events.  A population that supported, or meekly endured without protest, the outrages of the Taliban was raised to hysterical fury by the accidental burning of some copies of the Koran by American troops.  There have been days of frenzied rioting and hate-demonstrations against NATO and ‘western values’ generally, culminating in the murder of top American Army Officers in what should have been the most secure compound in the most secure city in Afghanistan.  The murders are believed to have been committed by interpreters or other Afghans trusted as being ‘on our side’.  We may succeed in training Afghans in the use of modern weapons and in the skills of modern warfare – but we can’t dictate against whom those skills and weapons will be used!

            How extraordinary that all the violence and killing has been done in the name of God.  The God in whom I believe knows very well that books, however significant and sacred may be the words that they contain, are made by human hands and, when destroyed, can easily be replaced with identical copies.  Every single one of our fellow humans, on the other hand, is (as our Quaker Advices and Queries assert) unique and a child of God, created by God in his own image and irreplaceable.  My God, learning that sacred books dedicated to his worship and service had been destroyed, would metaphorically shrug his shoulders and say, ‘My servants will make many more to replace them’.  I believe though that nothing would be more likely to arouse his anger than learning that someone had killed even a single fellow human, one of his children, and had claimed to have done so in his name

           

           

           

            

Week 8 2012 23.2.2012

Tendring Topics.....on Line

Where are we going?

          Did you know that we are all to be invited to take part in an election in November of this year?   It is to decide who, in the future, is to appoint Chief Constables and to have strategic control of the UK’s Police Force in our area.  I have to confess that I had only the vaguest idea of who exercises this control at the present time.  I did know that a relatively small proportion of our Council Tax payments is earmarked for the ‘Police Authority’ and, as Police Authority boundaries generally coincide with those of the county, I thought that the Police Authority must be something to do with the County Council.

            In fact, Police Authorities are quite separate organisations.  Typically they have seventeen members, nine of whom are nominees of the County and District Councils in their area and eight are ‘independent’ councillors, nominated by the Police Authority itself.  Of the independent councillors at least three must be Justices of the Peace.  I don’t think that anyone would claim that an organisation of which almost half its members are self-appointed could claim to be ‘democratic’.    Alternatives might be for all the members to be directly elected in the same way as councillors, or perhaps for them to be nominated by the county and district councils in the Police Area. Justices of the Peace in the area might be invited to elect their own three representatives on the Police Committee.

             Those however are not the choices that we shall be invited to make in November. The Government, which has abolished ‘committee control’ of local government and now requires local councils to have all-powerful elected Mayors (the preferred option) or ‘cabinet control’ by a small majority party clique, as in the central government in Westminster, is introducing an even more dictatorial system of control for Police Authorities.  Police Authorities will be abolished and replaced by an elected full-time Police Commissioner for each area who will appoint the Chief Constable, allocate funding, and decide on strategic police policy.  Candidates for these posts will not be required to have any previous police experience and political parties will probably put their own candidates forward.  I understand that the only party so far to have selected a candidate is UKIP – though I have just learned that Lord Prescott (former Deputy Prime Minister) hopes to be Labour’s candidate for South Humberside.  Oh yes – there is one requirement.  Each candidate will be required to find a £5,000 deposit to be forfeited if he or she doesn’t achieve a certain proportion of the total vote.

             The new idea may be more efficient than the present arrangement.  It may be less expensive – though that I doubt.  It will certainly be easier for central government to persuade one man (or woman) rather than a committee to toe the government line. It won’t be more democratic.  And all of this from a government that says it is promoting localism and power to the people! 

            Directly elected all-powerful Mayors! Directly elected all-powerful Police Commissioners!  Where are we going? Perhaps we should have a directly elected all-powerful Prime Minister.  He could be given a new title – National Leader perhaps?  I am old enough to remember that something of the sort was tried in mainland Europe during the last century – in Germany, Italy, Spain and the Soviet Union!

‘One Nation’ Conservatism?

          A few years ago I was amused when one Conservative MP told us proudly that to him ‘One Nation Conservatism’ meant keeping England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as one United Kingdom.  That isn’t its meaning of course.  It derives from a novel written by Benjamin Disraeli, the founder of the modern Conservative Party entitled Sybil or The Two Nations. In it he claimed that early Victorian Britain was not one nation but two – the rich and the poor; possibly not a message that today’s Conservatives want to hear.

            It is a novel remarkable for its realistic description of the living conditions of  working class people in England at that time; a description remarkably similar to that of Frederick Engels who, with Karl Marx, was a founder of the Communist Party, in his ‘Condition of the Working Classes in England in 1844’. The two books were published in the same year – 1845.

            I think it likely that David Cameron, despite his old Etonian background and his millionaire-packed government, would claim to be a ‘One Nation Conservative’.  He genuinely believes that he speaks and acts for the welfare of the whole population of the UK, rich and poor alike.  Of the current financial crisis he claims ‘We’re all in this together’.

 That is something that many would question.    I don’t think though that anyone would doubt his devotion to that other, incorrect, meaning of One Nation Conservatism.   He made clear in his recent speech in Scotland which he had visited to have face-to-face talks with Scotland’s First Minister and Leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party Alex Salmond that he would do his utmost to maintain the union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom, even though Scottish independence would be to his own political party’s advantage in England.  Unable to prevent a referendum on Scottish independence (after all, he does claim to believe in local autonomy) he is determined to achieve a resounding ‘No’ vote when it takes place.     

Did the public speech that David Cameron made on that occasion further or hinder his cause?   The first part of his speech could well have come directly from the Scottish tourist office, listing the illustrious Scots who have played a part in shaping Britain’s destiny. This was followed by an exposition of the reasons why he believed the Scots should reject independence. Most of these (a United Kingdom can play a larger part on the international stage than a fractured one, for instance) are also good reasons for our becoming an active member of a more closely integrated Europe!  There was as well, a promise and a not-all-that-veiled threat.   After the referendum had taken place he (no word about Parliament being in any way involved!) would consider the possibility of transferring other powers to the Scottish parliament and government that are currently held by Westminster.   That would, of course, depend upon there being a clear ‘No’ vote to Scottish Independence in the referendum.

            I don’t know how the Scots may have reacted to all that.  I do know, as an East Anglian, that if a Politician from elsewhere in the UK visited us to make a speech telling us what a wonderful contribution to British history had been made by, for instance. Hereward the Wake, Fr. John Ball,  Cardinal Wolsey, Lord Nelson, Mother Julian of Norwich, Elizabeth Fry and Edith Cavell, I would have thought he was being patronising and trying to teach his grandmother how to suck eggs!  Had that politician been David Cameron I would have been amazed that someone who had imagined, even momentarily, that in 1940 Britain had been a junior partner to the USA in the struggle against Nazism, could have had the effrontery to deliver a homily on British history to anyone at all!

            As for the threat (or possibly ‘promise’), nobody with any sense believes politicians promises and my admittedly limited knowledge of Scotland and its inhabitants suggests to me that the Scots don’t take kindly to threats. 

            If I were a resident of Scotland I would unquestionably vote YES in the forthcoming referendum on Scottish Independence.  I would certainly have much more confidence in Alex Salmon’s Scottish Nationalist government in Scotland than in David Cameron’s coalition.  They have been more successful too.  Despite Glasgow’s one-time reputation for violent gangs, there were no summer riots ‘north of the border’, and I think that, given independence, the Scots would get rid of that nuclear submarine base within their territorial waters.

            However as a resident in England (I’m too old to emigrate northwards and I don’t really think I’d care for the climate!) I have mixed feelings.  I certainly wish our Scottish neighbours and their government well – but I fear that, as David Cameron predicted, independence for Scotland would be to his party’s advantage in England.  It really wouldn’t make much difference to me.  I can hardly expect to live to see anything different.  I would be sorry though to think of my sons and grandchildren condemned to years – perhaps decades – of Europhobic ‘market obsessed’ governments with the gap between rich and poor becoming ever wider, wider….and wider still!   

‘Essex Works’ – so they claim!

            Since falling in a hotel bath on Boxing Day and having to summon help, I have been rather more conscious of ‘health and safety’ than in the past.  I am ninety, I do live alone and I am vulnerable!   I make sure that I always have my Tendring Helpline pendant and my mobile phone within reach while I am having my morning shower.  I never venture out of the house without my walking stick and mobile phone.  I have been looking round my bungalow for potential danger spots.

            One possible hazard that I have identified is just outside my front door.  There is a fairly deep step down to the concrete path.  Several years ago a kind neighbour made a wooden ramp with a non-slip surface to make it possible for me to push my wife in her wheel-chair in and out of the bungalow.  Since her sad death, now nearly six years ago, I have retained it.  I may one day need to get my mobility scooter in and out of the bungalow in the same way!   In the meantime I do find the easy slope of the ramp rather easier than using the step.

 However I realize that I am in my greatest danger of falling as I step down that ramp. I always have my stick and I descend very slowly and carefully.   There is no doubt though that I’d be much safer and more secure if I had a hand-rail to clutch as I come in or go out. 

The observant viewer will note a ‘key safe’ fixed to the wall to the right of the door. It affords the local police means of entry in an emergency.

This, I thought, is where Essex County Council’s Social Services Department will be able to help.  Promoting safety in the homes of old people living alone as I do must undoubtedly be one of the activities to which the County Council is referring in the  claim on all its printed material that Essex Works!  I surely had only to give them a ring and an expert would visit, assess my need, and arrange for a hand-rail to be fitted.  While he or she was with me I’d ask them to look round and let me know if they could see any other potential hazard that I might have missed.

            It hasn’t worked out quite as simply as I had imagined.  First came the problem of contacting the Social Services Department. One morning four weeks ago I dialled the number. Very promptly a mechanical voice told me that my call might be recorded for training purposes and that I’d be put through to one of their trained staff as soon as one became available.  Then, I waited – and waited – and waited. Eventually, it was at my second attempt on the following day, a human voice rewarded my patience.

            I explained my situation to a helpful lady who told me that before I could be helped I would need to be ‘assessed’ and that part of that assessment would, with my agreement, take place there and then by phone.   Why not?   She asked me my full name, address and email address and my date of birth – 18 May, 1921. At that she became more solicitous.  Was I able to get up unaided, wash, shave and shower and dress myself?  Feed myself?  Could I prepare my own meals? Could I do my own shopping, house cleaning and gardening (I already arrange outside help for the last two of these)?  Could I, perhaps with a washing machine, do my own laundry?  As I gave affirmative answers I could almost hear any priority that my age might have afforded, disappearing into the distance.  I was asked if I minded the information I had given being shared with other departments. ‘Not in the least’ I replied.  I would be hearing from them, I was assured, within the next few days.

            And so I did.   I received a communication telling me that I would be told the time and date of my on-the-spot assessment ‘shortly’. That was over a fortnight ago and I haven’t heard yet.  Enquiries suggest that there are three stages still to come; the on-the-spot assessment, delivery of any equipment agreed at the time of the assessment, installation of the equipment.

            It seems quite possible that, at some time or other, I’ll be able to confirm from experience that Essex Works – though not at a breakneck speed!    

           

           

Week 7 2012 16.2.2012

Tendring Topics....on Line

The Thirteenth of February

           Tuesday of this week (13^th February) was the 67^th anniversary of an event has played a major role in moulding the political and ethical attitudes that motivate me in the weekly production of Tendring Topics….on line.

  Regular readers of this blog will know that I spent the final eighteen months of World War II at a working ‘camp’ of thirty ‘other rank’ British POWs in the small East German town of Zittau, at the point where the frontiers of Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland now coincide.  By February 1945 no-one in Zittau, not ourselves, not our guards, not the conscripted foreign civilian workers, nor the German civilians with whom we were in daily contact, had any doubt that Germany had been defeated and that the war would be over within weeks.  The failure of the Christmas offensive (‘the Battle of the Bulge’) in the Ardennes had ended any hope of a German victory or of a face-saving negotiated peace.  The RAF and American Air Forces ruled in the skies, the news from the Western Front was uniformly bad and in Zittau the sound of gunfire from the east had grown from a distant murmur to an ever-deepening roar as the Soviet Army advanced inexorably through Poland into Germany itself.

Throughout that bitter winter the flow of refugees westward through Zittau  grew from a trickle to a steady stream.   There were old men (the young and middle-aged ones had long since been called up), women and little children.   There were British and allied prisoners of war, still under guard, and conscripted foreign workers mainly from Russia and the Ukraine.  There were defeated units of Germany’s allies – Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, renegade Cossacks.  Some were in ancient lorries fuelled by Holzgas  (a flammable gas produced from smouldering wood chips). Some had wagons drawn by oxen.  All the fit horses had been commandeered by the Wehrmacht.  Many trudged through the snow with all their worldly goods piled onto small handcarts. As the thunder of battle drew closer, folk from Zittau joined them.

A fellow-prisoner and I, with our German guard, returned to Kurt Kramer’s wholesale grocer’s premises in Zittau’s Neustadt Square, from delivering  groceries to local retailers, to find that a young woman refugee from Silesia had climbed to Kramer’s top storey and, in despair, thrown herself to her death on the  cobbles of their yard.

The refugees were heading for Dresden, sixty or seventy miles west of Zittau, where they would be sorted out and distributed to the rapidly diminishing areas of Germany that were still relatively safe.  As the second week of February drew to its end, Dresden was packed with them.

Dresden's Lutheran 'Cathedral'. Almost totally destroyed in the bombing raids of February 1945 but now lovingly restored to its former glory.

It was then that the Western Allies struck. On the night of the 13^th February wave after wave of RAF bombers rained fire and destruction on the capital of Saxony, a beautiful historic city crammed with refugees.  Thousands of incendiary bombs created devastating firestorms from which there was no escape. Zittau’s inhabitants saw the westward sky blood-red from the inferno.  With dawn the RAF withdrew and bombers of the US Air Force took their place. Estimates of the dead range from a conservative 30,000 to as many as 100,000.  Among them must have been many of Britain's and America's allies.

I have heard all the explanations and all the excuses.  I remain convinced though that those raids, slaughtering thousands of innocent civilians at a time when the war was all but over, was a war crime and a crime against humanity.  It was not, of course, on the same scale as the Holocaust or other crimes committed by Nazi Germany – but would we really wish to make such a comparison our excuse?

My memory of the cruel slaughter of the innocents in Dresden changed my whole outlook on life and was a major factor in the decision of my wife and I in 1948 to turn our backs on violence, whatever the provocation, and to join the peaceful Quakers.  

‘Full of sound and fury!’*

            ‘Fury’ is a word much overused in the press.  There is ‘fury in the city’ over the suggestion that heads of huge business corporations might be overpaid, ‘fury’ in the House of Commons at the obstinate refusal of the Bishops in the House of Lords to rubber-stamp their plans to penalise the poor, ‘fury’ almost every day in the Daily Mail about ‘benefit scroungers’ being subsidised by hard working Daily Mail readers.

  I try not to get furious too often.  I am sure that at my age it is bad for me. Just occasionally though I read in the press, or hear on radio or tv something that brings me very close to it!  Such a moment occurred this morning (10^th Feb.), making me choke over my boiled egg and toast as I watched a review of the daily press on the BBC’s tv Breakfast programme. A newspaper sympathetic to the government carried a headline telling us that one of David Cameron’s closest advisors (that usually indicates that the government is giving some thought to the matter) suggests that old people should carry on working longer and should downsize their homes. 

Why on earth, the advisor no doubt thinks, should an ancient widower like Ernest Hall, who is no longer a viable ‘human resource unit’ and whose children have long since left home, continue to live in comfort in a three bedroomed bungalow?  ‘A one-bedroomed flat would be ample and much more appropriate for his needs. At ninety he’s probably too old for most paid work but possibly he could take up some profit-making hobby, knitting or basket-making perhaps, that could help to prevent his being quite such a burden on the state’.

              What is the point of urging old people, well past their prime, to carry on working when there are tens of thousands of young, fit and active people looking in vain for jobs?  The government (well, I suppose that one can’t expect too much from a group that probably holds the biggest concentration of millionaires in the UK!) seems to persist in the delusion that unemployment is mostly, if not entirely, the fault of the unemployed.  Government efforts to reduce unemployment concentrate on making young people ‘employable’ – how to prepare a CV, how to write a winning job application, how to prepare and conduct themselves during an interview!  All that would be fine if there were jobs for which people could apply and be interviewed but, thanks largely to the government’s own policies, there aren’t. Perhaps we’ll finish up with having the best-qualified army of unemployed in Europe!

We learn that only one in five of ‘graduates’ from the government’s much-vaunted training schemes obtains a job within a year. That is about right, bearing in mind that nationwide there are at least half a dozen applicants for every job vacancy! 

           

As for the accommodation down-sizing - when the palaces, stately homes, desirable residences and second (and third) homes of the wealthy have been occupied to capacity by the homeless, I’ll think about the future of the modest bungalow that my wife and I bought with our blood, sweat, toil and tears in the 1950s,  '60s and '70s; the home in which, five and a half years ago, my wife’s life came to an end, and in which I hope  mine will come to an end too too!  I don’t think I’ll need to be consulting an estate agent just yet!

            Yes – it does make me furious to think that instead of the better, fairer and more peaceful future for which my generation thought we were fighting in World War II we find ourselves in a grubby and materialistic world of sleaze and corruption, of bankers bonuses and of a press controlled by non-tax-paying cosmopolitan billionaires owing loyalty to no-one but themselves; a world of wealth and privilege for a small minority and homelessness, hopelessness, poverty and enforced idleness for the many.

            I can only hope and pray that this triumph of Mammon is temporary and that goodness, justice and peace will ultimately triumph – though I no longer have any hope of seeing even the beginning of the beginning of that victory.

*From Macbeth again and perhaps particularly appropriate to politics today ‘A tale told by an idiot, full of sound  and fury, signifying nothing’

Toward a Godless Britain?

          It seems likely that the prohibition resulting from a court case, of official prayers at the beginning of local Council Meetings will be short-lived.  Providentially, the Government’s shortly to be enacted Localism Bill will restore the right of local authorities to begin, as Parliament does, with a short period of prayer if their members wish it.

            What disturbs me about this matter is the implication of the National Secular Society, which I haven’t heard effectively refuted, that religion is a private matter having nothing to do with local or national politics, that should be practised only by consenting adults in a church or other special building intended for that purpose.  As a committed Quaker and a communicant member of the Church of England, I believe the exact opposite to be true.  Our religion should inform and guide our every thought and action.

            George Bernard Shaw, no great lover of the Church, said that our faith does not consist of the things that we think we believe, but of the assumptions on which we habitually act.   Jesus said that those who heard his words and acted upon them were like the man who built his house upon a firm foundation. We may indeed hear the word of God in Church, Meeting House, Mosque, Temple or Synagogue but we act in our daily lives. St. Theresa pointed out that, ‘In this world God has no hands but ours to do his work, no feet but ours to run his errands’.

Certainly, before beginning their Council business, Christian councillors should pray that they may be guided to speak and vote in accordance with God’s will.  As an Anglican I am happy for that prayer to be formal and vocal. As a Quaker I’d be equally happy for there to be a few minutes silence at the beginning of each council meeting to be used for silent prayer by those who wish to do so.  Even committed atheists might find a few minutes of quiet reflection helpful before the business of the meeting begins.

            The National Secular Society has the impertinence to consider that it speaks for the majority of Britons.  I am quite sure that it does nothing of the sort.  It will surprise me if the recent census doesn’t reveal that in the UK a comfortable majority of the adult population do have a religious faith and that the Christian faith is the one with the greatest number of adherents.  I am personally acquainted with dozens of committed Christians – Anglicans, Quakers, Roman Catholics, Methodists and United Reformed Churchmen.   I don’t know a single member of the National Secular Society.  Do you?

             I know, none better, that Christians have done some appalling things to each other and to other people in times past.  But I also know that it has been Christians ‘dabbling in politics’ who have pioneered every worthwhile reform that has taken place in this country during the past fifteen hundred years*.  Christians, from King Alfred the Great onwards, have pioneered education for the masses, have cared for the poor and provided shelter for the homeless.  It was a Christian priest, John Ball of Colchester, who preached that When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?’ He went on to become a leader of the medieval peasants’ revolt, and paid for his egalitarianism with his life.   Christians led the campaigns against the slave trade and against the exploitation of men, women and children in the ‘dark, satanic mills’ of England’s industrial revolution.  Christians pioneered prison reform and the provision of social housing and medical care for all.  Christian Bishops in the House of Lords today, lead the opposition to the penalisation of the poor and disadvantaged to help solve national financial problems created by wealthy, but greedy and incompetent, bankers.  Christian charities such as Christian Aid, Cafod and Quaker Peace and Service help people of every race, creed and colour world-wide.  

            Yet the National Secular Society would like to see Christian – and no doubt every other form of worship – confined to special buildings serving dwindling congregations and having no connection with their ‘real’ world!   We must not let them succeed.

*  It could be argued that Christian concern about material matters has a much earlier beginning. The triumphal prayer of Mary, when she knew she was to be the mother of Jesus, contains a note of distinctly radical and very practical politics: ‘He hath showed strength with his arm.  He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.  He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things and the rich he hath sent empty away’.  Isn't that just what is needed today?