Week 17/08

                               Tendring Topics -  on line

 

Hard-up Tendring

 

            It must have come as something of a shock to affluent residents of Frinton and to the 'county or professional folk' living in or around the villages in our rural areas, to learn from the daily 'Coast Gazette' on Monday 21^st April, that their desirable residences or stately homes were situated in the most deprived local government district in Essex.  Whether they would have felt better for knowing that without their presence in the area we would have been even higher up the 'most deprived district' table is open to question.

 

            This assessment comes from the Government's recently published 'English Indices of Deprivation'.  This shows Tendring as being 103^rd out of the 353 most deprived areas in the UK compared, for instance with Colchester as the 224^th and Chelmsford the 312^th.  Outside our county, Ipswich, which I still think of as my hometown despite having lived in Clacton for over half a century, is even higher up the list than us, at 99^th!  This is definitely one of those tables in which it is better to be nearer the bottom than the top!

 

            This revelation suggests that Tendring's (and Ipswich's) residents have a more-than-average interest in the current debate about the abolition of the lowest band of income tax simultaneously with the reduction in the general rate in the pound of this tax.  I had hardly expected the government to reinforce quite so blatantly the point I have tried to make in earlier blogs, that our whole social and economic system is geared to ensure that the less money you have, the less you're likely to get and the more you will  to have to pay for almost anything that you need. 

 

            It seems though that this latest act of robbing the poor to help the rich (Robin Hood in reverse!) has proved too much for the heirs of Wat Tyler and John Ball, the Chartists, the Tolpuddle Martyrs and the Jarrow Hunger-Marchers.  A rebellion among New-Labour's own supporters that could be neither stifled nor quelled has forced concessions from the Government for at least some of those seriously affected by the Budget.  The exact nature of these concessions has yet to be revealed but their promise has been enough to deflect a back bench revolt.  I wish that I could feel that this partial U-turn has been prompted by a late realization that a grave injustice had been done to vulnerable people – and not simply because it is hoped that the change of policy will minimise electoral disadvantage!

 

            One thing that strikes me about the whole business is how little Members of Parliament seem able to anticipate the consequences of their actions.  The proposals that have caused the uproar were clearly set out in the Budget that was debated by the whole House.  Yet there was little evidence of outrage from members until the beginning of the new financial year when the Budget's measures began to take effect. Then, of course, MPs began to receive anguished letters from their constituents and realized that there was more to supporting or opposing the Government's policy than cleverly scoring political debating points.  Real hardship was being caused to real people – real people moreover who had votes!

 

            I'm glad that those who will be most seriously affected by the Budget seem likely to receive at least some kind of compensation. I doubt if I personally would have been very much affected one way or the other.  My income isn't above that magic level of £18,000 a year at which one could expect to benefit from the income tax changes.  On the other hand, it isn't so far below it that I would have been likely to suffer from any small increase in taxation. I have no debts, my mortgage has long since been paid off, I have no dependents, and I don't have to meet the cost of getting to and from work every day. Also of course, one of the decidedly mixed blessings of being nearer 90 than 80 is the steadily decreasing number of opportunities there are to spend money on 'selfish pleasures!'  Nowadays I don't have to think too much about 'resisting temptation'.  Temptation has lost interest in me!

 

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                 St. George's Day – and other Anniversaries

 

            Robert Browning wrote, in a poem that every school child learns (or did learn in my day!) 'Oh, to be in England, now that April's there'. Chaucer considered that April was a good month to venture out on pilgrimage and it must surely have been in that month that the author of the Biblical 'Song of Songs' declared, 'Rise up, my love, my fair one and come away.  For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.  The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land'.

 

            It's true that the author of the 'Song of Songs' didn't live in southern East Anglia and that in the Middle East the departure of winter and arrival of spring is possibly a little more dependable than it is here.  However, fickle as it may have been this year, April, with its rapidly changing weather patterns, its occasional warm sunshine and heavy showers, is surely the most English of months.  It is wholly appropriate therefore that today (yes, 'I'm typing these words on 23^rd April') should be the festival of England's patron saint – the day on which we don't have to think of ourselves as being primarily part of a Special Relationship or of Nato or the EU or even of the United Kingdom but, just for twenty-four hours, we can be – as our first Queen Elizabeth put it - 'mere English'.

 

            It must be said that there was nothing very 'English' about St George.  He was, by all accounts, a Greek legionary in the Roman army, born in what is now Turkey, who was martyred in Palestine during a period of Christian persecution under the Emperor Diocletian.  However, I have often thought that, as with many saints and other famous people, the legend is ultimately of no less importance than historical fact.  My abiding image of St George is of a gallant knight boldly slaying an evil dragon - and there is no shortage of dragons (the dragons of greed, selfishness, hatred, fear, injustice, poverty and ignorance) to combat both in the world and in England today. 

 

            'I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, till I have built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land'.  Goodness, I keep forgetting that I'm really too old these days even for mental fight!

 

            It is surely also appropriate that Shakespeare, the writer whose works most clearly typify England (and are known and revered in every corner of the civilised world) was born on 23^rd April and, so it is believed, also died on that day.

 

 23^rd April has also been a significant date in my own life.   It was 62 years ago today that, after seven years in uniform, I was finally discharged from H.M. Forces – and was married (to the girl I had met seven years earlier – on the day that World War II began) just four days later, on 27^th April.  It was also exactly 29 years ago today that my younger son Andy and daughter-in-law Marilyn, were married.

 

            G.K.Chesterton, early twentieth century poet, essayist and author of the 'Father Brown' detective stories was an enthusiast for St. George and for the observation of his feast day.  However, a satirical poem of his entitled 'Empire Day' (for which he felt a good deal less enthusiastic) began:

 

                  The Day of St George is a musty affair

That Russians and Greeks are permitted to share.

 

- and I, for one, am happy enough to share it with them.  It is certainly a day that, for personal as well as patriotic reasons, I am unlikely ever to forget.

 

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More Privatisation by Stealth?

 

            What are we to make of the revelation, headlined on the front page of yesterday's (St. George's Day's) Clacton Gazette, of the creation of a limited company, Tendring Regeneration Ltd., financed by £1.26 million pounds of taxpayers' money (our money!) to launch regeneration projects throughout the Tendring District?

 

            It is, in fact, difficult to make anything very much of it because although the first meeting of its Board of Directors took place on Tuesday of this week (22^nd April), this meeting, unlike those of the Tendring Council and its Committees, was held in private.  It seems that a number of Tendring Councillors, including some who are members of the ruling 'majority group' had no idea that it was taking place.

 

I had imagined that we had elected the members of the council to deal with any regeneration that our district needs.  Surely they, and their fairly-generously-paid senior officers are capable of formulating and discussing such schemes in the open. It would be nice too if we residents had an opportunity to say what we think of these schemes before they start to swallow our money.

 

            Mind you, the new company won't be actually doing a great deal of regenerating for the moment.  First, so David Lines, Council leader and a Director of Tendring Regeneration Ltd. is reported as saying 'the company will set about fundraising to make sure it will be able to continue its existence, before identifying regeneration projects to work on'.  They hope to start work on regeneration projects in the autumn.

 

            Councillor – and Director – David Lines says that company law compels the Board meetings to be held in private. 'The fail-safe is an annual report back to the council, talking about finances and particular projects, showing the progress made and the targets'.   I don't think that if Tendring Council decided to hold all future council and committee meetings in private – but promised that they would produce a report on their activities at the end of the year, the press and the public would consider it to be much of a 'fail-safe'!     

 

            The new regeneration company sounds to me suspiciously like 'Realise Health Ltd' that has now taken over the provision and management of new hospitals and health care within the Colchester and Tendring Districts. If you want to  assess their performance – just pop over to Dovercourt and check on the structure and catering facilities of the Fryatt Memorial Hospital!

 

            I hope that I won't wake up one morning to find that Tendring Regeneration Ltd is busily 'regenerating' my corner of Clacton.  I have an idea that I, and probably most of my neighbours, would much prefer it to remain as it is.

 

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A Welcome U-turn?

 

            One of the most difficult things for any public authority to say is:  'Sorry – we may have got it wrong.  We'll look at it again'.  Private firms don't find saying those words all that easy either!

 

            Tendring Council therefore are to be congratulated on having done just that with regard to the bus passes recently issued to over 30,000 pensioners in our district.  These passes now give free travel on any regular bus service in England but, on weekdays, they are valid only after 9.30 a.m. – not after 9.00 a.m. as the previous passes had been.

 

            This has provoked fierce protest, particularly from pensioners who had regular early hospital or doctor's appointments, those who needed to get to Colchester early because it would be just the first stage of their journey elsewhere – to Ipswich for instance - and those who saw half-empty buses in use on our roads between 9.00 a.m. and 9.30.              

 

            Now the Council has promised to reconsider their decision and hope that it may be possible to restore the original starting time.  I hope so too.

 

It should, mind you, be born in mind that while 9.30 a.m. was a silly starting time in our district it wasn't necessarily so elsewhere.   In London and – I have no doubt – other big cities, many employers have staggered the hours of work of their staff to try to ease the crush and congestion during the 'rush hour'.  On my occasional visits to the capital I have seen many buses crowded and with 'standing room only' at any time up to 9.30 a.m. as they transport people to work. Under those circumstances it would, I think, surely be unreasonable for pensioners to add to the congestion by expecting free travel.

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