Week 43 2013

Tendring Topics……on line

Our ‘free press’ and the politicians……. just who controls whom?

          I have been observing the current quarrel between ‘the press’ and all three main political parties with astonished fascination.  Our free press is, so its representatives insist, the envy of the civilised world.  It is the safeguard of our hard-earned freedoms and must be at all costs protected from interference by scheming politicians.  Ed Miliband’s recent protests against  the Daily Mail’s  vilification of  his father as an ‘enemy of Britain’ is, so it was claimed, an example of attempted interference; ‘Just what one might expect from the son of a committed Marxist’, was implied.

            I knew nothing about Ed Miliband’s dad until recently. However I now know that he was a refugee from Hitler’s Germany who subsequently served on a destroyer in our Royal Navy, and took part in the D-day landings on the Normandy beaches. That surely speaks for itself.  I am old enough to remember that the Daily Mail in the 1930s supported the Nazis in Germany, and Hitler and Mussolini’s pal General Franco in Spain.  I remember too the Daily Express, a newspaper with a very similar outlook to that of the Mail assuring us throughout 1938 and the early part of 1939 that ‘There will be no war this year – or next year either!’ There really wasn’t much to be proud of in our ’free press’ in those days.

            With regard to the present concerns of ‘the press’, my own anxiety is almost the exact opposite of theirs.   Unless UKIP triumphs in the next General Election, I don’t really think there is the least possibility of our press coming under government control in any way comparable with that of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy or the USSR.   What is a matter of concern is the way – often quite blatant – in which the owners of the press have manipulated and bent the minds and wills of our top politicians.

            I have little doubt that the credit/blame (delete as preferred) for the creation of New Labour lies as much with Rupert Murdoch as it does with Tony Blair and Lord Mandelson.   Remembering The Sun’s boast that, ‘It was the Sun wot done it’ when in 1992 persistent vilification of Neil Kinnock by that newspaper led to an unexpected defeat of the Labour Government, Tony Blair and a few of his colleagues moved the Labour Party’s policies far enough to the right to win the approval of the head of News International.  While Tony Blair was in control, the Sun supported New Labour. Rupert Murdoch acknowledges his own over-riding influence on the political outlook of The Sun, but claims that the editor of The Times has complete freedom of action.  No doubt, but the editor of that once-illustrious publication is well aware of the owner’s views and would be very foolish to ignore them.

            He who pays the piper calls the tune.  On a much more humble scale, I had complete freedom of action when I wrote Tendring Topics (in print) for the Coastal Express. No-one even dreamed of telling me what I could, and what I could not write.  However my awareness of the fact that adverts from Estate Agents and Used Car Salesmen kept the free weekly on the road, made sure that any criticism in my column of either occupation was very limited and discreet.

            Mrs Thatcher courted the good will of Rupert Murdoch and other senior figures in the News International Empire. So did Tony Blair and so, to a greater extent than either of them, did David Cameron and senior members of his government.  John Major was an honourable exception – and John Major suffered for it at the hands of the The Sun.  Of course there were no written agreements between any senior politician and the rulers of the press.  It was just that they were all good friends and the political leaders knew what their friends’ views were (on Europe for example, on immigration, on anything that might cause inconvenience to the extremely wealthy) and bore them in mind when formulating party or government policy.  They were also, of course, well aware of which policies would and which would not produce positive headlines in the Sun!

            It is sometimes claimed that the newspapers have little effect on the way that people vote.  I simply don’t believe this is true.  The newspapers do influence public opinion, and can do so without publishing a single word that isn’t true.  Out of the thousands of newsworthy events that occur every day, most are probably politically neutral.  Of the ones that aren’t, the editor who wishes to succeed in his profession gives those that support the owner’s views, headline and ‘feature article’ treatment.  News stories that oppose those views are either ignored altogether or tucked away half-way down an inside page.   When did you last read a positive story about the European Union, about Green Energy or about the contribution that immigrants make to our economy in the Sun, the Daily Mail or the Daily Express?   Remember that the Sun, arguably the most noxious of the three, has over seven million readers – the largest readership of any daily in the UK.   Of course a sizeable proportion of those seven million believe every word they read – and vote accordingly.   

            Lord Leveson in his report, touched on the way in which newspaper proprietors and their senior staff may influence politicians but, as far as I am aware, offered no solution. I don’t believe that very wealthy individuals, who need not even be British citizens, should be able to control such a powerful means of moulding public opinion. Perhaps a national newspaper or regional newspapers, could be run by an organisation similar to the BBC, which (since it is criticised from both the left and the right) probably gets the balance of its news bulletins and discussion programmes about right.

            I wouldn’t like to see national newspapers under the control of politicians.  But they are at least answerable to us at election time.  I would prefer that to their being controlled by a foreign cosmopolitan billionaire, who is answerable to no-one but himself and owes no loyalty to Britain or to British traditions and culture.

The British Red Cross Society

          A few months ago Ingrid Zeibig, a German friend of mine, sent me a photograph that brought vividly to the forefront of my mind events of nearly seventy years ago when I spent eighteen months as a prisoner of war in Italy, followed by a further eighteen months in Germany.  Particularly in Italy, where I was in a large POW Concentration Camp in northern Italy I learned what constant nagging hunger meant and what could be its consequences.

       
           Now, my doctor would probably tell me that I am overweight. Then my face fell in, my ribs protruded, and my weight fell day by hungry day. Scarcely a week passed without one of my fellow-prisoners dying of hunger related disease.  During that time we had the opportunity of having our photographs taken and sending home to our parents or wives.  My mum took one look at mine and tore it up.  She couldn’t bear to look at the emaciated scarecrow I had become. What kept us alive and never completely devoid of hope during that dreadful time, was the delivery to the camp of food parcels from the British, or sometimes the Canadian, Red Cross Society.  Each parcel contained tins of meat or fish, dried or condensed milk, margarine, a tin of jam or honey, tea or coffee, sugar and biscuits.  We were supposed to get one each, every week, but in Italy delivery was very spasmodic and sometimes we’d go for weeks without a parcel.  Then, when they arrived, the Italian guards insisted on opening each parcel and piercing every food tin so that its contents had to be consumed almost immediately.  We all believed that this was done out of spite and envy but, on reflection; I suppose it was to prevent our saving food to eat if we escaped!

           

There’s Ingrid with a genuine World War II Red Cross Food Parcel originally intended for a hungry POW!  I could practically see – and taste – the contents.

In Germany things for me (though by no means everyone had the same experience) were much better.  I was at a small working camp. Our guards weren’t bad chaps, our rations were better (they realized that they wouldn’t get much work out of us if we weren’t better fed!), the Red Cross parcels came regularly and were distributed unopened. And, of course, when you’re working with food, as we often were, you don’t go hungry!  I have tried always to support the British Red Cross and have often thought of those food parcels and how pleased we were to see them.  The photo that Ingrid sent me was of her with one of those parcels!  She was visiting Colditz Castle (now it seems to be a museum) with a friend, and the parcel – just as I remembered them from my POW days - was among the exhibits.

            I received that photo some months ago but I was reminded of it last week when I learned that the British Red Cross was again distributing food parcels to the hungry – but this time to the hungry in our own country. And Freedom from want was one of the ‘four freedoms’ for which we thought we were fighting in World War II! How shameful that one of the world’s wealthiest countries – that can afford to give tax hand-outs to its wealthiest citizens and patrol the world’s oceans with nuclear submarines - has an underclass that depends on Food Banks and Red Cross Parcels for survival, that this winter will have to decide whether to eat or heat, and spends its coppers ‘having fun’ with the national lottery in the forlorn hope of escaping from soul-destroying poverty to extreme wealth!

           And top politicians have the effrontery to claim that we’re all in this together!

           

             

           

           

             

Week 3.10

Tendring Topics…….on line

The Vandals!

I have been familiar with the effects of vandalism for many years. I have seen young, newly planted street trees broken off and destroyed, windows smashed, public toilets wrecked – apparently with a sledge hammer – beach huts and public shelters set on fire, and telephones (that could be needed for some life-threatening emergency) torn from the public phone box in which they were installed.

When I was Tendring Council’s Public Relations Officer I publicised with some enthusiasm, the council’s reward scheme for those who provided information leading to the prosecution of vandals. I made certain that the very few occasions on which this reward was paid out were well publicised. I often wondered what on earth could be the motive for vandalism. Why and how could anyone derive pleasure or satisfaction from defacing something that was beautiful, destroying or disabling something that was useful, or desecrating something that others considered to be sacred? Theft, fraud and even homicide seemed positively reasonable by comparison.

Vandalism had rarely affected me personally. In the pre-mobile phone age I had, on occasion, been annoyed when I found a public phone box out of order because of it. I had been displeased when I had found a public convenience closed for the same reason. But nothing of mine had ever been vandalised. I had no reason to suppose that I would ever be the vandals’ target.

I was wrong. A low brick wall marked the front boundary of my property in Clacton’s Dudley Road. It had been provided when the bungalow was built in 1953 (three years before Heather and I had bought it and moved in) and had been showing signs of its nearly fifty-seven years of use. The top course of brickwork had weathered and was probably due for replacement. However, it was perfectly serviceable when I departed from Clacton on Christmas Eve. When I returned home five days later, the top few courses of one section of the wall had been knocked off and were lying in my front garden.

Left – the wall as it was before Christmas. Photo taken about 18 months ago. The top course of bricks is looking distinctly weather-beaten!
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It was no big deal; not worth claiming on the insurance. I asked a builder friend if he would fix it and he promised to do so directly the temperature dropped below freezing. Sadly, that wasn’t the end. On Sunday night, 10th January and again on Monday night, 11th January, the wall was again attacked, finally leaving barely a quarter of the original wall standing.

Its replacement is covered by my ‘Age Concern’ home insurance – which is just as well, as clearance of the site, removal of rubble and construction of a new wall or other boundary is unlikely to cost less than £1,000. As I write I am considering whether to replace it with another similar wall (which might well be subject to immediate vandal attack!) or some kind of a wooden fence. The latter, I think, might be less attractive to vandals and if any parts of it were damaged they would probably be easier to repair or replace.

Right – the wall as it was on Tuesday 12th January. The rubble had already been cleared from between the two concrete posts in the foreground

As I am claiming on my insurance policy I had to notify the police. A very pleasant young police officer visited me and, in a friendly chat, apologised for the fact that there really wasn’t much possibility that the culprits would be brought to book. I had already known that to be the case and, rather to my surprise, I realized that I didn’t particularly want them to be caught and ‘taught a lesson’. I think it likely that all they would learn from such a lesson would be to take greater care not to be caught next time.

It would be nice to be able to claim that I forgive them, as I assure God that I do every time I recite Our Lord’s Prayer (‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us’). It wouldn’t be quite true though. It isn’t so much that I forgive them as that I can’t be bothered to judge them. I think that I feel quite sorry for them. What sad and empty lives must be led by young people whose pleasure in life comes from destroying, defacing, or damaging things that give other people service or pleasure. Towards what a joyless, purposeless and loveless adult life and old age they are heading!

Essex Works (wonders – thanks to other people’s efforts!)

'Essex Works' is the bold claim to be found on all Essex County Council published material. You'll see it on their leaflets and on their, quite wexpensive, tv adverts. A few weeks ago I wrote enthusiastically in this blog about Essex County Council’s ‘Telecare Home Safety Service’. This service was intended for ‘vulnerable adults who would like to feel safer, more protected and independent in their own home, particularly perhaps for ‘older, infirm or disabled people’.

The 'Telecare Home Safety Service' of the Essex County Council provided, according to need, a personal alarm that enabled the user to summon immediate help if he or she were suddenly ill, fell over or had some other emergency while at home or in the garden; a bogus caller button by the front door for use when a stranger tried to gain entry to the home; a smoke detector; a fall detector; a flood detector; and a ‘movement detector’ that would verify and record the presence of an intruder or alternatively detect prolonged inactivity. What was more the service required was available on twelve months free trial to those over 85.

I am less steady on my feet than I once was and, if I do fall, am unable to get up unaided. The personal alarm system would obviously provide an answer to some of my problems. At eighty-eight I possibly wouldn’t need it longer than the twelve months trial period. If I did the monthly charge of £16.47 wouldn’t make a serious impact on my financial resources. I filled it in the form, posted it off to the County Council and awaited developments.

As I waited I felt just a little remorseful about some of the less-than-kind things that I had written about the County Council and its hierarchy in this column. I had, for instance, said that I thought that the County was a stratum of local government that could well be dispensed with. I had urged that all Essex District and Borough Councils should be accorded unitary status and, within their own districts, should carry out the tasks entrusted by central government to county councils. There was every reason to believe that they would do so more economically and more effectively. Tendring Council, for instance, had been declared by the Audit Commission to be the best performing council in Essex while the County Council’s performance had been designated only as ‘adequate’.

Perhaps I had been wrong and, at least in providing the Essex Telecare Home Safety Service, the County Council was performing a valuable countywide service.

Here is the front of the brochure publicising the Essex Telecare Home Safety service

My written request was attended to with commendable speed. An appointment was made by phone and, at the time and date arranged, a very friendly and helpful lady appeared at my front door to explain and install what I understood to be the County Council’s service. It transpired though that the service had nothing whatsoever to do with the County Council. I had been a little surprised when the lady had turned up in a Tendring District Council vehicle. In conversation it soon emerged that she was, in fact, a Tendring District Council employee and that the service for which I had asked was not a new, or even an old service of the Essex County Council. It was, in fact, the long-established Tendring Careline, founded and run for at least the past twenty years, by the Tendring District Council.

It is indeed a very worthwhile service and I am glad that I have had it installed in my home. An unobtrusive ‘Lifeline Home Unit’, functioning rather like the ‘router’ of a wireless broadband installation, is connected to a power point and to a nearby telephone socket. The user is issued with a pendant having a large red activating button, that is worn round the neck at all times (after an hour or so you forget you’ve got it on). In an emergency anywhere within 50 metres of the Lifeline Unit, pressing the red button will alert the operators at base. The Unit then acts as a radio station with which you can converse and which will set into motion whatever is needed to help you.

On the very back page of the County Council’s publicity brochure all the district and borough councils are listed with a little notice stating Essex County Council – working in partnership with local service providers to support independence in your own home. Well, that’s some sort of an acknowledgement of the work of district authorities, I suppose. If you are interested though, I suggest that you phone Tendring Careline at Clacton Town Hall 01255 222727 email: careline@tendringdc.gov.uk Don’t bother with that expensive and self-satisfied ‘middle-man’ in Chelmsford.

My belief that, in Essex at least, the County Council is an extravagant, uneconomical, and unnecessary tier of local government has been reinforced!

Disaster in the Caribbean

My own worries about my garden wall, my concerns about the future of democratic government in this country, even my occasional worries about my friends and family, pale into insignificance before the appalling disaster in Haiti. How sad it is that the world’s worst natural disasters always seem to afflict the world’s very poorest communities, whose members have to struggle for survival during the best of times!

The Haiti earthquake rivals the south-east Asian tsunami in its catastrophic effects. I find the depiction of human misery, despair and desolation in tv news bulletins almost unbearable to watch. How much more shattering they must be on the spot and in reality!

Over the Christmas/New Year period I have received an unprecedented number of appeals from thoroughly deserving charities in desperate financial straits due to the recession. Most I have had no alternative but to ignore. I do intend though to give as generously as I possibly can, to either the British Red Cross Society or to Christian Aid for the Haiti Disaster Relief Fund.

I hope that all readers of this blog will be prepared to do the same.