Week 37 2014

Tendring Topics…….on line

I told you so!

 Well no, I didn’t really – because I didn’t imagine for a moment that he’d actually desert the Conservative Party, join UKIP and resign his seat in the House of Commons so that we Clactonians could decide in a by-election whether or not we wanted a Ukipper to be our member of parliament.  I did know though that his heart was with UKIP rather than with David Cameron’s brand of Conservatism, and I respect him for following his own convictions rather than his financial and social advantage.  The fact that I am quite sure that his conviction was pointing him in the wrong direction is beside the point.

            I am, of course, referring to Mr Douglas Carswell who is/was (does a resignation from parliament have immediate effect?) Clacton and District’s MP.  A few months ago Mr Carswell asked local members of the Conservative Party to describe him in two words.  I wasn’t invited to do so for obvious reasons.  However I joined in the fun and described him in this blog as a Crypto-Ukipper. Recent events have demonstrated that that description was correct

        During the time in which Douglas Carswell was deciding where his true loyalty lay, members of the local branch of UKIP were selecting their own candidate to fight for their cause in next year’s general election.  Successful candidate was Mr Roger Lord, a farmer from Great Bentley and already a UKIP County Councillor. I had thought that it was the prospect of having an election battle with someone whose views were very similar to those of Douglas Carswell, then their candidate, that had prompted the local Conservatives to push two election campaign leaflets through my letter box,  a week or so apart.  A copy of the latest one – it came just a few days ago – is shown above.  It’s quite eye-catching isn’t it?

            The contemptuous way in which UKIP members rose in the European Parliament and turned their backs on the playing of the European anthem, suggests that common courtesy doesn’t rate very highly among the qualities valued by Ukippers.   However, it might have been thought that someone from UKIP would have let Mr Lord know about Douglas Carswell’s impending defection and his intention to stand for the parliamentary seat for which the local Ukippers had selected Roger Lord as their candidate.

            Mr Lord is quoted in the Gazette as saying, ‘I was selected and have appointed a campaign team and we have an election strategy planned.  I have already recruited several members of Douglas Carswell’s team and they don’t want him back – they fell out with him big time’.

            Mr Lord isn’t the only one to whom Douglas Carswell’s actions have come as a surprise.  Ms. Dewlyth Miles, a former Chairman of the Clacton Conservative Association said, ‘This is a total blow to Conservative supporters in Clacton.  I had no inkling that he was going to do this and would have done everything in my power to persuade him to stay.  Had the Conservative Party known what was going to happen they would hardly have gone to the trouble and expense of printing those eye-catching leaflets and pushing them through our letter boxes!   Looking at that leaflet for a second time, I note that nowhere on it (not even in the small print) is there any mention of either the Conservative Party or the Conservative dominated government, though it gives the address of the Conservative Party in Clacton's Station Road, as the place to contact Mr Carswell.  Could it be that local Conservatives have paid for some propaganda for their UKIP opponents?

            I don’t want either Mr Carswell or Mr Lord to be our MP.   I am not a supporter of UKIP.  I am a Europhile and am proud of it. The EU needs reform –  but so does the UK – and I have no doubt that for us to leave the European Union, to which we are bound by Geography, History, Culture and economic self-interest, would be disastrous.

            I recall that I wrote in this blog that in the European Parliamentary Election I would vote for the Green Party because the election was by proportional representation and every vote counted.  For British first-past-the-post elections my choice would be for whoever was most likely to defeat the UKIP candidate. If he or she were to be a Conservative I’d have a struggle with my conscience but – for the first time in my life – I’d vote Blue.

         When I made that somewhat rash promise, the General Election was nearly two years away and I didn’t really expect still to be around when it took place.  Now though – we’re to have a by-election, probably in a matter of weeks.  My resolve could be sorely tested!   

             

Debt again!

            I have sometimes wondered if I am over-obsessed with the problem of debt.  My parents spent their lives determined never to owe anything to anybody.  I can recall them discussing for hours whether or not to make their first and (I’m pretty certain) only HP purchase – of a new ‘Murphy’ radio or, as we called it in those days, ‘wireless set’.   Pre World War II, if you wanted something expensive, perhaps costing as much as £5.00 (in those days, two–weeks wages for a working man!), you saved up for it, a concept that seems to be almost unknown today.   My wife’s parents (her dad was a skilled and experienced carpenter and never out-of-work) were just the same.

            Consequently when my wife and I took out a mortgage for the purchase of our own home – the bungalow in which I am writing these words today – we did so with some trepidation.  I had already started spare-time freelance writing and, year by year, my earnings from this source steadily increased.  Every penny that I earned from that spare time writing was used to reduce the mortgage debt.  As a result it was paid off completely, and my wife and I became ‘home owners’ and not just ‘home buyers’, ten years earlier than had been planned.

            Nowadays I have both a credit and a debit card but, on the rare occasions that I use the credit card, I pay the debt off directly the demand is made by my bank, thereby incurring no interest charges.

            Partly at least as a result of government policy, debt is at the very heart of today’s society.  To be free from debt has become the exception rather than the rule. Interest rates are artificially low – though they become high enough for those who fail to make their regular repayments!  Young people leave University or other further education with a debt that can amount to £20,000 or £30,000.   It’s true that they don’t have to start repaying that money until they are earning a decent salary – but that debt has to be repaid at just the time when the debtor might otherwise be saving up for a deposit on the purchase of his or her first home.  And that, of course, is another debt that has to be repaid – with interest.  The government’s ‘help to buy’ schemes, by guaranteeing a large percentage of that deposit,  drive up house prices and add to the regular monthly repayments made by the purchaser

           

It seems that the North-East Essex Coastal Area in which I live, in particular Clacton-on Sea, Frinton and Walton-on-the Naze has the highest level of debt in Eastern England.  A report from the Children’s Society and the Step Change debt charity reveals that within our area one third of families are mired in debt totalling more than £5 million!  The report says that 4,826 children in Clacton are affected  and that families are being forced into debt to make ends meet and to pay for the essential needs of their children.  Mike O’Connor, Chief Executive of Step Change told a Clacton Gazette reporter that, ‘Families face a unique set of pressures, but the sad reality is that for many parents credit, which is often unsustainable, has become the only way to cover their essential household bills’. 

            The report in the Clacton Gazette records that our MP Mr Douglas Carswell is well aware of the local debt problem.

 ‘I know from my regular advice surgeries that family debt is a chronic problem and getting worse.  If you look at average earnings in Clacton, they have barely gone up at all in five years, yet the price of basics like food and energy are going up and up.  The Government tells us that the economy is recovering, but in our corner of Essex the only thing going up is the prices in shops, and debt.

            But, of course, Mr Carswell said all that before the Clacton Gazette or I or anyone else knew that he would be changing sides and forcing a by-election in which he hopes to stand as a Ukipper.  I’m rather pleased that the last words that I shall type from him as Clacton’s Conservative MP expressed thoughts with which I can whole-heartedly agree.

            I don’t think that my obsession with the problem of debt is completely unjustified.

.

             

           

Week 27 2014

Tendring Topics……..on line

A democratic choice?

         Democracy;  rule by the people;  is such a wonderful idea and so obviously (to us) a very desirable form of government.  It is said to have originated in ancient Greece, where every individual city claimed to be a democracy. They weren’t democratic by our standards. It never even occurred to anyone that women should have a vote, and there was a large slave population who were excluded from any role in decision making, though they did all the hard work that made those city-states habitable.

            In Europe, including of course the United Kingdom, democracy as we know it today has a fairly short history.  Even the Chartists, the ‘loony lefties’ of the 19^th century only demanded universal male suffrage*. It wasn’t until  the twentieth century (within my lifetime!) that, in this country, all women over 21 had the same voting rights as men.  Most people alive today can remember the voting age being reduced from 21 to 18 – and there are those nowadays who campaign for the voting age to be further reduced to 16.  There are also those (and I am among them!) who believe that we should change our ‘first past the post’ voting system, which makes it possible for a candidate to be elected even if his votes were less than the total received by other candidates, to ‘proportional representation’ by which the number of candidates elected is proportional to the number of votes cast for his or her party.  That would mean that every vote would count, smaller parties would be likely to get some representation in parliament, and it would be impossible for a party to form a government despite having a minority of votes in the country. This has happened in the past.

            One of the criticisms constantly levelled against the European Union is that it is ‘undemocratic’.  Decisions are made by the European Commission, the members of which haven’t been elected by anybody, and by the Council of Ministers – all senior Ministers of the member states of the EU.  Well, they have all been elected as MPs, but were elected to seniority only by members of their own party and are members of the Council of Ministers simply by reason of their office – hardly democratically put there by the European electorate.

            There is one European institution whose members are unquestionably democratically elected – and that is the European Parliament.  It was more democratically elected than our Parliament in Westminster since a system of proportional representation was used in the election.  The UKs representatives pretty accurately reflect changes in our national political thinking.  The Lib.Dems. once a force to be reckoned with, have all but disappeared;  the Ukippers (who want to see the end of the institution to which they have been elected!) have increased in numbers and so have the members of the Green Party – it’s true only from two to three but, of course, they’ll strengthen the voice of other European Greens on relevant issues.

            Now comes the question of who is to be President of the all-powerful European Commission.   The largest single political grouping in the European Parliament is that of the ‘Centre-Right’ – hardly the grouping that I’d normally be keen to support, but I’d have thought they’d be just the lot that would appeal to David Cameron, George Osborne and Co.  Not on this occasion as it happens.  The Centre-Right (and therefore the European Parliament’s) preferred candidate is Mr Jean Claude Juncker. A former Prime Minister of Luxemburg, Mr Juncker is ‘a federalist’ who believes that the EU’s best way forward lies in closer political union.  As such he is anathema to our Prime Minister Mr Cameron who is hoping to achieve the reverse, a looser union. He is trying hard, without much success, to gain support for his insistence that the democratic way forward is to ignore the expressed opinion of the democratically elected parliament, and to leave the appointment of the Commission’s President to the Political Heads of the EU member states.

            I don’t think he’ll succeed but, if he does, I’m inclined think that his fellow top politicians will make the same choice of Mr Juncker!  And so they did - when those top politicians voted on 27th June. David Cameron found just one supporter. Europe's best future does lie in closer integration.  If the UK doesn't think so it'll probably be better for Europe if we left the EU - but I think it will prove disastrous for us!

* It is interesting to note that all but one of the Chartists demands, considered dangerously revolutionary during the 19^th century, have since been met without the dire consequences predicted.  The one exception was the demand for annual Parliaments.  Thank goodness that wasn’t met – who nowadays would want all the hassle, all the false promises and all the lies of a General Election every year?

Almost, some Good News

            It isn’t very often that I have the opportunity to comment on a piece of unequivocally good news.  This isn’t because plenty of good things, resulting from the kindness of good and compassionate people, aren’t happening all around us every day.  But it is the bad things, the cruel, selfish, greedy and stupid actions of a minority of us that make the headlines.  Never forget that It’s the exception that makes the news. 

Meriem with her toddler son                                           

           

I really thought though that this week I'd be able to comment on the unquestionably good news that Meriem Ibrahim about whom I wrote the week before last, had been freed by North Sudan's Court of Appeal. She would, I thought, shortly be going home with her American husband, her toddler son, and her new baby daughter, born in a prison cell. You'll recall that she had been sentenced to be flogged and hanged after being wrongly convicted of adultery and apostasy.The report of her home-going  was too good to be true.  She was released, rejoined her family and was at Khartoum.Airport en route for the USA, when she was re-arrested for attempting to travel on a false passport and is currently, I believe, languishing in a police cell.

It appears that she had only a South Sudanese passport.  It was surely the sort of problem that, given good will, could have been solved within hours - but the good will wasn't there.  The Sudanese Police? Religious Authorities? were no doubt angry that their chosen victim had escaped from their clutches. They might not be able to flog and hang her but they could prevent her going home.

Meriem mustn't be forgotten.  The governments, and the thousands of those who petitioned for her release, must keep up the pressure until this latter-day Christian martyr is free to go home with her family.

The WAR CRY!

          Have you ever had a copy of ‘The War Cry’ thrust at you in the street by an eager individual wearing Salvation Army uniform.  If so, it’s quite possible that you fumbled in pockets or handbag for some small change and took the proffered magazine, quite intending to deposit it in a litter bin at the earliest opportunity.

            If you did that recently, you made a sad mistake.  Today’s War Cry is an attractive, ecumenical and very readable journal far removed from the fundamentalist, evangelical and sectarian publication I remember from the distant past.  I have the 14^th June issue in front of me.  The cover is a ‘still’ from a recently released historical film ‘Belle’ while inside, on page 3, is a review of the film that left me  eager to see it!    There’s also a well-written article about ‘People Trafficking’ a modern scourge with which the Salvation Army is particularly concerned, in which young people (particularly young girls seeking a better life) are tricked into what amounts to modern slavery

             Nor is today’s War Cry narrowly sectarian.  There’s a news story about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent visit to Nigeria in which he prayed with Nigeria’s President and expressed his sympathy and concern about the recent terrorist attacks to which Nigeria has been subjected.  There’s also news of the Methodist Church of Sierre Leone’s campaign against Ebola, a deadly infectious disease that has recently reached theirea from Guinea.

            The Salvation Army has been active in the provision and management of Food Banks (our local Clacton-on-Sea Food Bank is run by them) and War Cry reports on the findings on this subject of Oxfam and Christian-based groups ‘Church Action on Poverty’ and the Trussell Trust.

            Food Banks and food aid charities gave more than 20 million meals to the needy last year and there was a 54 percent increase in the number of people seeking food help.  It was pointed out that food prices rose by 43.5 percent in the eight years prior to July 2013 and during the same period household energy prices rose by 37 percent.  Meanwhile, ‘low and stagnant wages and insecure and zero-hour contracts mean that for many low-income households the income is less every month than their essential outgoings’

            It was good to see that the Salvation Army continues its success in finding people who had lost touch with their relatives.  During May 2014 The Salvation Army’s Tracing Service found 121 such people.  Over the course of the month the service concluded 134 cases, with a 90 percent success rate.

Note to Blog readers.  I have a problem with sending and receiving emails and my laptop will be with a computer specialist till Monday at the earliest.  I am therefore publishing this blog two days early.   I hope to be back to normal next week.   Ernest Hall

Week 21 2014

Tendring Topics……..on line

Thursday’s Vote

          This Thursday (22^nd May 2014) is voting day for the European Parliamentary Elections.  Please don’t just yawn and ignore it.  The European Parliament is the one truly democratic institution of the European Union.  It is more democratic than our own parliament in Westminster since its members are elected by proportional representation instead of ‘first past the post’ as in UK parliamentary elections.  That means that every vote for any party can count.  It is impossible for a candidate to be elected by a minority of the electorate, as is possible in UK parliamentary elections..  It also means that minority parties’ voices are heard – in proportion to the number of electors who voted for them.

            That is why in European parliamentary elections we vote for the party rather than the individual candidate (though the names of the candidates from each party are listed).  That’s how it is that there are UKIP members of the European Parliament with no purpose other than to destroy the institution that made it possible for their voices to be heard!  It is true that, thanks to the determination of some national governments (including our own) to limit the European Parliament’s powers, these are not as wide and all-embracing as they should be.   However European parliamentary power is steadily increasing and will continue to do so if we, the electors, demand it.

The claim made by UKIP’s leader that 70 percent of British laws now come from the European Parliament is totally untrue. Although exposed as false in Radio 4’s More or Less programme on Friday 2^nd May, it continues to be quoted as a fact.

Our own European Constituency covers the whole of ‘Greater East Anglia’ and there are no less than nine parties hoping for seats.   They are ‘Independence from Europe’, ‘British National Party (BNP), Christian People’s Alliance, Conservatives, English Democrats’, ‘Labour’,’ Liberal Democrats’, NO2EU, and ‘Green’.

            Some of those parties you will never have heard of – and the chances are you’ll never hear of them again!  I think that those which may reasonably hope to secure enough votes to get at least one member from East Anglia in the European Parliament are Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats, UKIP and Green.

            Many people who are entitled to vote are totally disillusioned with the main traditional parties.  Conservative policies have widened the gap between wealthy and poor that is, I believe, at the root of many of Britain’s troubles today.   They have run down our conventional armed forces that can have a peace-making and peace-keeping role (as well as being a disciplined force available to help with civil emergencies) while slavishly preserving our nuclear weapons and our Trident submarine fleet. These weapons and the submarine fleet have no purpose other than destroying our fellow men, women and children.  They have totally failed to deter the many acts of aggression, violence and terrorism that have sullied recent history.  If nuclear weapons were ever to be used it would probably herald the end of civilisation as we know it – possibly the extinction of human-kind.

            Sadly, Labour Governments have failed even to try to follow the lead of pioneers of the Labour Movement like Kier Hardy and George Lansbury.  In ten years of New Labour Government the gap between the incomes of the wealthiest and poorest actually increased.   They too are prepared to spend millions on a nuclear ‘ultimate deterrent’ that doesn’t deter!  Ramsey MacDonald is said to have failed because he was ‘dazzled by duchesses’.  Tony Blair and his New Labour colleagues have been ‘blinded by billionaires!’ and their policies are merely modifications of those of the Conservatives.

As for the Liberal Democrats.  There’s really no point in heeding any of their pre-election promises.  The issue of student fees has illustrated that they’ll abandon any of their high principles for the sake of a few seats in the government and the empty title of ‘Deputy Prime Minister. 

            No, I can’t summon up any enthusiasm for Conservatives, Labour or Lib.Dems.  Neither can thousands of others – many for quite different reasons than mine.    This disillusion could give UKIP its chance – Nigel Farage, its leader, is quite sure that it will.  I do urge readers of this blog not to let it. Apart from a determination to leave the EU nobody can be quite sure what UKIP’s policies are because its leader has disowned everything on its former manifesto.  Leaving the EU will not solve all, or any of Britain’s problems.  We are inextricably part of Europe, historically, geographically and economically.  The EU gives our exporters, of both goods and services a ‘level playing field’ in which to conduct their services.  Those ‘petty regulations’ that some find so irksome ensure the health and safety of all EU workers.   The countries of the EU are our biggest market. Of course we need to sell our goods and services elsewhere as well.  There is nothing that the EU does to prevent or discourage this.  Exporters are almost unanimous in their support of EU membership.  Leaving would cost thousands of jobs.  Is that really what we want?

            Apart from getting out of Europe the speeches of prominent Ukippers suggest  that, on the whole, they support the policies and the attitudes of the extreme right-wing of the Conservatives.  They don’t believe in man-made climate change and would stop the provision of wind turbines and solar farms.  They’d encourage ‘fracking’ -  provided it wasn’t carried out in their own back yard!  They’d permit fox-hunting again and allow smoking in pubs and public places where it is now forbidden.  Is that really what we want?

            Fortunately it is possible to react to disillusion with the main parties by voting for a party whose policies are almost the exact opposite of UKIP.   The Green Party, already a force to be reckoned with within Europe, and (unlike UKIP) with representation in our House of Commons, realizes that, unless we do something about it, climate change will destroy ‘the best-laid plans of mice, men’ and political parties.  Have we already forgotten the storms and devastating floods that caused such havoc in this country just a few months ago, the typhoons in the Philippines and the Indian sub-continent, the bush fires in Australia and the arctic conditions in the USA?  The policies of ‘the Greens’ give human-kind its best chance of survival.  They support continued membership of the EU because they realize that to be effective in protecting us from the worst effects of climate change, action needs to be taken on a regional and global level.

Polling day is on Thursday but thousands of us, who vote by post, have already voted.  I have, and I voted GREEN!   Those who wish their grand-children and great grand-children to inherit a world worth living in, will do the same!

Cause and Effect

The devastating mine disaster in a recently privatised coal mine in Turkey that claimed over 300 lives is a timely warning of the possible result of a free market economy, unfettered by the kind of ‘pettifogging health and safety provisions’ imposed by Brussels, from which Nigel Farage and, rather less stridently, David Cameron and George Osborne, are promising to free us!  It certainly does produce higher dividends for shareholders and encourage investment; tough about all the widows and orphans, but you can’t make omelettes……………

Green Party Policies

Since I wrote the above, the Green Party has launched its campaign for the European and local government elections.  Afterwards leader Natalie Bennet was interviewed by the BBC.  Below is the BBC report of that interview.

Speaking to the BBC after the campaign launch, Natalie Bennett said the party hoped to treble its number of MEPs to six, and would need a swing of just 1.6% to do so.  Even with a small number of representatives in the European Parliament, it is "possible to make a real difference" she continued, "as we have done on issues like bankers' bonuses, on fishing policy, on making Europe more friendly and more social".

The party aims to scrap tuition fees and prescription charges in England and Wales, increase child benefit, and renationalise the railways and energy companies These policies would be costed by the 2015 general election, she said, but the party was considering imposing a top rate of income tax of more than 50% on the highest earners"We need a society that works for the common good, not just the good of the few, which it does at the moment," Ms Bennett said. "We need real change in our society. It's working for the 1%, not the 99% of us. We need decent benefits, we need to make the minimum wage a living wage, and we need to insure that privatisation doesn't keep costing us an absolute fortune.  "What we need is for multinational companies, rich individuals, to be paying their taxes, which they're simply not doing at the moment."

Later, appearing on BBC One's Andrew Marr Show on Sunday, Ms Bennett acknowledged that the Greens were "identified with" campaigns against the extraction of shale gas, or fracking. It was, she said, a "very uncertain industry that may very well not get off the ground", she added, and there is "massive and growing public resistance to it" with her party on the "front line" of protests against fracking.

Having read the above, I am now more than ever glad that I voted 'Green' in the European parliamentary elections.  Every one of those Green policies was among those that I included among my political aims a fortnight ago in this blog.