Week 52 2013

                   Tendring Topics……..on line

The Grandparents of Jesus

Some twelve years ago my wife Heather and I wrote ten monologues purporting to be by witnesses of the birth of Jesus and its aftermath.  Since then they have been used in church and Quaker events and some of them have been published in The Friend, the Quaker weekly journal. Sadly Heather died in 2006.  She and I had been married for sixty years and had grandchildren of our own.

Below are our ideas of the recollections of Jesus’ grandparents which I thought might be appropriate for the ‘Christmas Edition’ of Tendring Topics….on line to be published on the internet on Christmas Eve 2013. I wish a Happy Christmas and a New Year of Peace and Hope to all blog readers!

                                                                                        

                                                         Heather and I

The Grandmother’s Tale
                          

There is no mention of Mary’s parents in the four Gospels.  Tradition, and at least one apocryphal gospel, name them as Joachim and Anne or Hanna, so that is what Heather and I did.


 'Joachim, that’s my husband, always insists that sufficient faith, hope and love will see you through any crisis.  That may well be so.  Neither of us has ever been short of love but I do know that we have needed every ounce of all the faith and hope that we could muster to see us through the last six years.

We never did see that angelic visitor!  Our Mary saw the angel all right. I have no doubt about that now.  So did Joseph, thank God. Mary tells us that the angel also appeared to some shepherds in the hills above Bethlehem when the baby was born, and later warned her and Joseph to flee to Egypt with baby Jesus to escape that wicked King Herod’s wrath.

 If only that angel had called on us – how much heartache, mistrust and desperate worry we would have been spared!  Joachim says that we may have been left out to test our faith.  It certainly did that!


 Can you imagine how we felt when Mary – then just sixteen! – calmly announced that she was pregnant.  What’s more, she insisted that her fiancé Joseph wasn’t responsible (if he had been, it would have saddened us, but would at least have been understandable).  Her son, so she said, would be the child of God’s Holy Spirit, and would prove to be the long-awaited Messiah, the salvation of Israel.


 Well, Mary had always been a thoroughly truthful girl, but we simply didn’t believe her.  If she had been your teenage daughter, would you have?  We knew, of course, that God’s holy messengers did sometimes visit humankind, but surely not to an ordinary Galilean girl like Mary; certainly not to a small out-of-the-way place like Nazareth.


  Despite Mary’s assurances I suspected Joseph.  We sent for him right away but it was quite obvious from his astonishment and dismay that he was entirely innocent.  He was broken-hearted poor chap.  He’d have liked to have believed Mary’s story but – like us – he just couldn’t.  He was keen though to save her from shame and disgrace.  Would it be possible, he wondered, for her to be sent off to a distant relative to have her baby?  We’d all have to sleep on it.


  Sleep!  Neither Joachim nor I had much sleep that night – nor, I imagine, did poor Mary sent off to her room in disgrace.  I’m ashamed to say that my first thought was how I’d manage to face Naomi, Rebecca, straight-laced Susannah, and my other friends and neighbours when they knew.  Goodness knows, I’d had sneers enough over the fact that I had been able to give Joachim only one child – but I had managed to hold my head high over that.  This would be far, far worse.


 I was inclined to blame poor Joachim for our troubles.  He’d always been something of a radical and had given Mary a lot of ideas that I thought were quite unsuitable for a young girl in her station in life.  He remained silent, utterly dejected. I knew that he could hardly believe that our Mary was capable of wrong-doing.


  We dozed off just before dawn but were awakened by a hammering on the outer door.  It was Joseph – a transformed Joseph.  He wanted to beg Mary’s forgiveness for not having believed her.  He too had had an angelic visitation in the night which had left him in no doubt about her virtue and truthfulness.  When could he and Mary be married?


That changed the situation entirely!  I was still inclined to be a bit suspicious.  Joachim though had no doubts whatsoever and was absolutely delighted.  He was looking forward to his grandson – the Messiah – raising a mighty army and freeing Israel from foreign bondage.


  We held a family council and decided that the best thing that could be done would be to send Mary off to stay with her cousin Elizabeth.  She too was preparing for an unexpected baby but, of course, she had been married, and childless, for years.   While there, she and Joseph would be quietly married (not the kind of wedding that I had hoped for, but that couldn’t be helped) and, in due course, they would return to Nazareth as a married couple.


   And that’s what happened.  There may have been a few sideways looks from some of the neighbours when Joseph and Mary returned as man and wife – but no-one made any open comment.

  Then, of course, came the next bombshell.  Caesar declared that everyone must return to his hometown to be counted for tax purposes.  Joachim was furious.  Rome interfering again with our way of life! Nazareth was our home but Joseph had originally come from Bethlehem – way down south near Jerusalem – and that’s where he and Mary, now heavily pregnant, had to go.

  We watched them, with their donkey, trudge down the south road towards Jerusalem until they were dots on the horizon and finally vanished from our sight.   And that was the last we were to see of them for five long years.


 

  Yes, for five long years we had no firm news of Joseph and our Mary.  We didn’t even know whether they were alive or dead or whether Mary had had her baby.  If only that angel had called to reassure us during that dreadful time!


 There were lots of rumours, of course.  A neighbour who had to go to Jerusalem to be counted said that he had heard that Mary had had a fine baby boy – and that the birth had taken place in a cattle shed of all places. I didn’t believe that for one minute. There were stories of heavenly visions being seen near Bethlehem at the time that we knew the baby was due.  Then we heard the dreadful news that that wicked Herod (he was worse than the Romans!) had sent his soldiers to slaughter all young babies born in and around Bethlehem.  Some though, it was said, had escaped. We clung to our hope.


 A travelling carpet seller from Egypt said that he had seen, and had spoken to, a Jewish refugee couple about Mary and Joseph’s age with a young child.  He couldn’t remember their names but his story raised our spirits.


 Then came the news of Herod’s death and finally, just two months ago, trudging down that same road along which they had departed, came Joseph with our Mary  and our new five-year old grandson Jesus.  They had prospered in Egypt and all three were fine and well.


  Words can’t express our relief and delight that they had been returned to us safe and sound.  Every day we thank God for his great mercy towards us.  All grandparents dote on their grandchildren but, however many we may have, Jesus will always be very special to us.


  Joachim is quite convinced that he’ll grow up to be a great military leader who’ll sweep away the Romans and restore the land of Israel to its people.  Somehow though – I doubt it.  I think that God may have other plans for him.



The Grandfather’s Tale

Joachim’s experience of the Nativity of Christ was, of course, exactly the same as Anne’s.  However, Heather and I were grandparents ourselves and we felt that the reactions of the grandfather might well be very different from those of the grandmother.  And so, as you’ll read, they were. 

    If you have ever had a teenage daughter, and especially if she is or was a well-loved only child, you’ll have an inkling of what Anne and I felt when we learned that our sixteen year old daughter Mary was pregnant – and that the father wasn’t Joseph, to whom she was engaged to be married.  It will only be an inkling though unless, of course, you too live in a society in which stoning to death is the statutory penalty for what would have been called adultery.


 We were devastated – and so was Joseph, the prosperous local builder to whom she had been betrothed.  The few minutes in which we broke the news to him seemed to add twenty years to his age.  He genuinely loved our Mary and didn’t want to see her publicly shamed, let alone punished with death.  We just couldn’t accept Mary’s story that she was guiltless; that one of God’s holy angels had told her that her child was to be the long-awaited Messiah, the saviour of Israel. I even wondered for a moment if it could be a cruel joke aimed particularly at me – everyone knew how I longed for the coming of the Messiah to free us from Roman rule.         


The next morning saw our despair change to elation.  Mary’s story had been true.  Joseph too, had been visited by the angel, who had told him the same story.   He had been commissioned by the Almighty to guard and watch over the young mother with her holy child.

  

Anne was still a bit doubtful, but for me everything clicked into place.  I realized why it was that our Mary had been chosen for this honour.  As she was our only child and it had seemed unlikely that Anne would have another, I had tried to educate her and bring her up as though she were a boy.  Mary had all the womanly skills of course – Anne had seen to that –but I had also given her a thorough grounding in the Holy Scriptures and in the literature, history and aspirations of the people of Israel.



 She was even something of a poet herself. Have you read the poem that she wrote to thank God for the great honour he had conferred on her by choosing her to give birth to the Messiah:  ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my saviour’? I’ve no doubt at all that it was I who inspired those bits about putting down the mighty from their seat and exalting the humble and meek; filling the hungry with good things and sending the rich empty away. She was obviously the right girl – the only possible girl in the whole land of Israel – to bear and bring up the Messiah we all awaited.


 We bundled her off to her cousin Elizabeth and she and Joseph were quietly married.  Then they settled down again in Nazareth where they prepared for the coming of Mary’s holy child.


I might have guessed that Rome would put its oar in and try to wreck everything!  In order to wring our hard-earned money out of us more efficiently, they decided to hold a census.  Everyone had to return to his home town to be registered.  Anne and I come of families that have lived in Nazareth for generations but Joseph, poor fellow, came from Bethlehem, way down in the south.  It was there, together with our Mary, that he had to go to register.


 I railed against the wickedness of Rome and swore that my grandson would avenge this affront to his parents – but it was all no good.  They had to go. When Anne and I watched them head southwards, little did we dream that we wouldn’t see them again for over five long years.


 Those years seemed to be unending.  Hope and love kept Anne going but I had a firm conviction that God would never let his chosen one suffer permanent ill.  Against all the odds I remained firm in my faith that one day they would come home again, safe and sound.


 And, as you know, my faith was justified.  Mary and Joseph came home safely with Jesus, our new grandson – the child destined to be the hope of Israel.  They have shared all their adventures with us.  We know how our grandson, God’s Messiah, was born in a stable of all places.  We were told of the homage of the shepherds and of the Magi with their wonderful gifts.  We shuddered when we heard of Herod’s treachery (the puppets of Rome are even worse than Rome itself!) and of the headlong flight into Egypt where, thanks to God, they prospered until news of Herod’s death had meant that they could safely return to their own land.


 Our grandson Jesus is now nearly six years old – strong, active and intelligent.  He has a great future. Mary and Anne don’t agree with me – and Joseph is inclined to take their side – but I have no doubt that in fifteen or perhaps even ten years time (how old was David when he slew Goliath?) he’ll raise a great army, sweep the Romans from our shores and punish the miserable collaborators who have supported them.  I’m looking forward to seeing him, ‘put down the mighty from their seat, and exalt the humble and meek’

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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 32 2011 16th August 2011

Tendring Topics……on line


A Generation without Faith, Hope or Compassion!


St Paul, in his letter to the members of the newly formed Christian Church in Corinth, memorably wrote that there are three abiding and overriding virtues, Faith, Hope and Compassion* and that the greatest of these is Compassion, without which even our most worthy action or activity is valueless. Watching, on the tv screen, the rampaging mobs of young people, at first in London and later in other English cities, burning, destroying and looting other people’s goods and properties, it struck me how singularly lacking in all three of those virtues the members of those mobs seemed to be.

Faith? It would surprise me if there was a single member of those mobs who would have described himself as a committed follower of any of the world’s religious faiths. Nor I think, were they committed atheists (I reckon that Richard Dawkins is, intellectually, a bit out of their depth!). I don’t think either that they have a fervent political faith, a rage against authority like many that took part in riots in the past. These rioters ignored secular symbols of power such as Town Halls, Public Offices, and Police Stations, to vent their violence on departmental stores, sports outfitters and electrical and electronic goods retailers that were worth plundering. Their motive was greed - the acquisition of useable or saleable items – trainers, jewellery, electronic equipment and so on.

Then, there is Hope. That is something that we all need. It was what kept me alive and sane during the three long years that I was a prisoner of war. Dante knew what he was doing when in his Inferno he posted ‘All hope abandon ye who enter here!’ at the entrance to Hell. I reckon that most of those young rioters had abandoned theirs. Ill educated and undisciplined, they had little chance of obtaining worthwhile employment and a secure future. Government policies and government cuts had made that ‘little chance’ even smaller. They were the straw that broke the camel’s back; the fuse that ignited the powder keg of resentment and hatred. The riots were doubly welcomed by those who considered themselves to be disadvantaged. They provided them with an opportunity to hit out at a society that they felt had dealt with them unfairly, and of obtaining simply by helping themselves, some of the worldly goods they had seen flaunted on their tv screens.

As for compassion; there was little enough compassion in the minds of those who looted and then burned to the ground decades-old family businesses that had survived the air raids of World War II, and more recent enterprises developed perhaps by hard-working immigrants struggling to build up a support their families.

It is one thing to diagnose a problem; yet another to suggest a remedy. Perhaps some of their ‘elders and betters’ could begin by setting the younger generation a better example. It couldn’t have helped the moral development of the rioters to discover that a great many (many more than were actually prosecuted) of our MPs and at least one ‘Noble Lord’ had fiddled their parliamentary expenses, thereby robbing the rest of us, who pay those expenses with our taxes. It couldn’t have helped for them to know that a succession of Prime Ministers and other leading politicians of both main political parties, had courted the favours of an international enterprise that was bribing our police and spying on the private lives of British citizens. Had the culprits not been caught I have little doubt that both lots of wrongdoing would still be with us today. This surely suggests to the young that the one commandment that they need to obey is Thou shalt not be found out!

If we want Great Britain to develop into a land of which we can all feel proud, the government must work towards narrowing the yawning gap between the wealthiest and the poorest people in our country, and between the least and the most privileged. Can you even imagine riots such as those that we have experienced, happening in countries like Sweden and Denmark where the gap between wealthy and poor is much narrower? Have you noticed, by the way, that there has been no comparable rioting in Scotland and Wales despite some of their cities (Glasgow for instance) having a reputation for lawlessness? Could it be because they both have truly democratically elected assemblies that really do represent their whole nation?

Then again, it is no good haranguing parents to spend more time with their children while, at the same time, encouraging both parents to be in fulltime paid employment. It is no good expecting parents, tired from a full day’s work, preparing a meal and doing other jobs about the home, to spend any leisure time that may be left them playing with their children and furthering their education.

Finally – and I think that this is the most important of all – we have got to be prepared to tell young people that some activities, using drugs, indulging prematurely or promiscuously in sexual activity, stealing, gang-fighting, shop lifting, bullying younger kids and so on are not just unwise, dangerous, antisocial and bad for one’s health but wrong (wicked or sinful if you prefer) and that there is a ‘right’ and a ‘wrong’ that applies to followers of every culture and to adherents of every religious faith and of none.

We might even try to instil into the minds of the young the Golden Rule that you should always ‘Treat other people in the same way that you would like them to treat you’. I am told that that rule, or something very like it, is implanted in every religious tradition. I know it from Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said that it was a summation of all the moral law of the Old Testament. If our forebears had tried to observe that rule rather more often during the past two thousand years, the world today would be a much happier place. Today could be a good time to start!

*The King James Bible says ‘Faith, Hope and Charity’. Most modern translation of the Bible say ‘Faith, Hope and Love’. I think that ‘Charity’ still has a slight taste of Victorian Workhouse ‘gruel’. Human love can be jealous and selfish. I think that ‘compassion’ is closer than either to what St. Paul meant.


That Dreadful Deficit!


If there is one message that the government has been absolutely determined, and largely successful, in impressing upon us all it is that Britain has an enormous fiscal deficit that simply must be reduced or eliminated.

Since it is indisputable that we have a large national debt, it must surely follow that someone has lent us all that money. Have you ever wondered who those manipulative money-lenders, those latter-day Shylocks, could possibly be? Harold Wilson, I remember, used to tell us about the financial machinations of ‘the gnomes of Zurich’. Today, if you were to ask a Daily Mail, or a Daily Express reader you would probably be told that the schemers of Brussels are most likely to be guilty. It was, so they would probably say, all part of a cunning plan to ensure that the malign European Union ruled Britannia!

In fact it seems that those nefarious international loan sharks live much closer to home than either Zurich or Brussels. They are, in fact, we ourselves! A reader’s letter in The Friend, a Quaker independent weekly journal, helps to explain the situation. Below are some extracts from his letter:

The national debt is owed to private individuals and is what constitutes their savings. Eighty percent of public borrowing is owed to UK citizens. The interest payments on that debt are not lost to society but will go to those citizens – and their lucky grandchildren………..


……….The UK government is emphatically not in the same position as a household or business. It is the issuer, not just the user, of its own currency and therefore cannot go bankrupt. The UK is fundamentally different to Greece and Ireland as a result.


In a recession, households and businesses, quite rationally, try to save money. This means that others lose income and possibly their jobs. It makes no sense for the state to add to the problem by reducing its spending at the same time………………..


………As the Quaker and Nobel-prize-winning economist William Vickrey said, ‘There is no real justification for a requirement that a budget of any sort should be balanced, except as a rallying point for those who seek to hamstring government.’ All this was understood decades ago by Keynes and the generations of economists and leaders he influenced. Sadly, such understanding does not lead to policies that give short-term benefit to the very rich, and so will now rarely be found in the press, tv or government.


The letter was written by Paul Doherty of Heswall Quaker Meeting who also comments that those who would like to find alternative views on how our monetary system works, could read about modern monetary theory in Warren Mosler’s The Seven Deadly Innocent Frauds of Economic Policy, a fascinating insider’s account.

I can’t get away from that deficit!


No, I can’t get away from that deficit no matter how hard I try. I have just been referred to – and have read on line – an article in the Daily Telegraph by Janet Daley who is reckoned to be an expert in economics. She is occasionally to be heard pontificating on the BBC. She is no fan of President Obama and recently wrote an article claiming that, as an African American he is, quite literally, only half African and only half American!

That should have warned me, but I read on. She says that we simply ’can’t afford’ our welfare state and our free national health service. She believes that the welfare safety net that was established by my generation 66 years ago (long before she was born!) should be dismantled and that we should revert to the everyone-for-himself-and-devil-take-the-hindmost system that prevails in the USA – and from which President Obama has tried, it seems in vain, to drag them. If you want to read it yourself try using Google to find Janet Daley, Daily Telegraph. The contribution in question is dated Saturday 6th August and is entitled ‘If we are to survive the looming catastrophe….’

I believe that that health and welfare safety net that offered everybody in the United Kingdom the Freedom from Fear promised by President Roosevelt (I bet Ms Daley would have had no time for him either!) was one of the proudest achievements of Clem Attlee’s post-war Labour Government that I am glad my vote helped to office. Funny thing – we had just come out of six years of total warfare which had left our country in ruins and many of us seriously injured in mind and/or body, with tens of thousands of homeless and (although I don’t know the figure) a national debt that must have been sky-high. Yet, we could afford it then; possibly because we had the will and determination to do so and because, in those days, we had a Labour Government that didn’t rate the interests of multimillionaires above the clearly expressed will of the people.

I really think that Ms Daley would be happier back in her native USA especially as the Republicans (reinforced by the truly Neanderthaler Tea Party movement!) appear to have defeated an attempt by the Democrats to make the really wealthy pay their share towards the reduction of the USA’s deficit.

We can afford the Social Security and NHS Safety Nets if we really want Britain to be a fairer society and are all prepared to contribute towards that end. What we can’t afford are the super-wealthy who avoid paying their fair share of taxation, and successful British Companies like Boots who – as I pointed out a few weeks ago – ‘locate’ the headquarters of their companies in overseas tax havens, to reduce or eliminate altogether their tax obligation to Britain.

I have long urged an overhaul of the Income Tax system to ensure a more equitable distribution of the nation’s wealth. I am amazed to learn that David Cameron is considering a change to the income tax system – but it is to help the wealthy, by reducing the 50 percent rate of tax on the taxable income of those with the highest incomes, ‘to increase competitiveness’. Words fail me!