Week 12 2014

Tendring Topics……..on line

The Scottish Referendum

            The date of that referendum that will decide whether or not the Scots will remain in the UK or become an independent sovereign nation is getting nearer and nearer.  I think that the top politicians of our main political parties, once certain in their own minds of an overwhelming NO vote, are now a little less sure of the result.  Why else did they arrange for the head of BT to publicly announce his disquiet at the possibility of Scottish independence (a pity that he isn’t even British)?    Then there was the all-party announcement that an independent Scotland couldn’t hope to keep the pound sterling as its currency, would have to make a fresh application for EU membership and would find the process long and difficult, and that many financial institutions would probably relocate south of the border.

            Had I been a Scotsman and resident in Scotland I have little doubt that I’d have been an enthusiastic YES voter.  It is clear to me that public opinion north of the border is strongly opposed to virtually everything that many supporters of the Coalition Government stand for – payment for medical prescriptions, university tuition fees, indirect taxation that penalises the less-well-off, bedroom tax, and giving up our membership of the European Union.  Nigel Farage may get a triumphal reception in England but his one excursion into Scotland was brief and inglorious. How many Conservative and Lib.Dem. MPs are there north of Hadrian’s Wall?  How refreshing it must be to realize that a simple yes vote could shake off that Cameron/Osborne yoke for ever.  And, of course, I find Alec Salmond more honest and straightforward, and more convincing than any of that lot at Westminster.

            But I’m not a Scotsman and I live in East Anglia.  Consequently I rather hope for a NO vote in the referendum because I value the successful alternative course of action that the Scots display before us, and the fact that the Scottish vote makes it unlikely that David Cameron and his ilk will have a permanent majority in the UK parliament.

            I have just received what seems to me to be a very balanced view of the situation from a regular blog reader who is also a successful business man with interests on both sides of the Scottish border.  

I am now convinced that what the Scottish people want is autonomy, not separation.  It really is surprising that they want to keep the £ and the BBC and the Queen.  , It was wrong of Cameron to rule out that third option from the ballot paper.  All they want, is for the wealth which Scotland generates to be spent by the Scottish government, to raise their own taxes on whatever they consider to be appropriate, and spend Scottish taxes on whatever they think is right for Scotland – even if that means extending the welfare state.  They should also be seen as a “Partner”, not a “Regional council” on foreign affairs, EU policy etc. Currently it seems to me there is absolutely no consultation at all with them on National issues and, as a result, decisions are constantly made which almost everyone in Scotland disagrees with – but many in Scotland could finish up dying for.

I think when you are in Scotland, it is much clearer that this is a vote against “Westminster” – an expression they constantly use; not against Manchester, Newcastle or Liverpool, but against the political elite from both parties who have run the whole of the UK from a South-Central perspective for decades.  I think people in England feel either slightly offended that the Scots want to do their own thing, or else are completely uninterested – let them do what they want -  and don’t realise that it isn’t really a rejection of the “English people” or its traditions or way of life, but of the Westminster political system.  Maybe there should be wider support for that point of view, because the majority of people north of Milton Keynes and west of Shrewsbury think the same.  You wouldn’t believe the venom with which the staff of our East Durham customer regard the Tory government, with memories of pit closures still very raw

Actually I don’t believe that they will vote for independence, but if they do, I think that really will be the Cameron legacy. He played hard-ball, took a gamble and broke up the UK in the process.

I just hope, that if the vote is close, as I expect it will be, politicians will realise that they cannot just go back to business as usual and ignore the feelings of 2 - 3m people who may vote yes

I wrote the above on Saturday 8^th March.  Today (Monday 10^th) I have heard on the tv that former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has suggested much the same idea as my blog-reading correspondent.   Mr Brown is a Scotsman and I have to assume that, as a politician, he has a pretty good grasp of Scottish public opinion.

Perhaps then, as a southern Englishman who has nothing but good will for the Scots, I should be hoping that the No vote will prevail but by a sufficiently small majority to make ‘that lot at Westminster’ appreciate they’ll have to grant Scotland greater autonomy, and consider Scottish opinion before making pronouncements and decisions about foreign policy (including relations with the EU) and defence.

 Ukippers – ‘They’re dangerous, not just a laugh’, says article in ‘The Times’ .

            I have warned in this blog of the similarities between the rapid growth of Ukip during the past year or so, and that of the Nazi Party in Germany in the late 1920s and early ’30s.  Could Nigel Farage be a sanitised and Anglicised version of Adolf Hitler – and every bit as dangerous?  A well-researched article by Rachel Sylvester in The Times (still authoritative though now part of the News International Empire) suggests that he may be.  Here are some extracts from it:

It’s easy to sneer at Ukip. David Cameron called them “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists”, Michael Howard dismissed them as “gadflies and cranks”. Nigel Farage’s barmy army looks like a one-man-pint-in-hand-band, combining golf club bonhomie with shock-jock prejudice — reactionary, swivel-eyed, out of touch.


Although the country is struggling at the edge of recession, Ukip has no economic policy and its leader has disowned his entire 2010 manifesto. Of the party’s 21 MEPs elected since 1999, almost half have defected, resigned, been suspended or gone to jail. The Ukip headquarters has been described as “Carry On Politics” — ill-disciplined and unprofessional. Even the leader’s wife, Kirsten, has described the party’s operation as a “freak show”. These rebels with a cause seem to revel in their eccentricity: at Ukip’s recent spring conference in Torquay there was fruit cake on offer to delegates at the door!

 This is not just harmless fun, a Monster Raving Loony Party in pinstripes. There is bigotry behind the comments blaming the floods on gay marriage and suggesting that women are sluts if they do not clean behind the fridge. There is cynicism and hypocrisy lurking below the surface, with MEPs happily riding first class on the Brussels gravy train even as they express their disgust at the House of Commons expenses scandal. They stay in smart Strasbourg hotels and dine in fine restaurants, slurping Château Margaux at taxpayers’ expense, while condemning the waste of money by the EU. The party is also facing a European Parliament investigation into allegations that it improperly diverted public money to pay its staff in London. With a higher profile comes greater scrutiny and there is a bad smell around the Kippers.

I have spent the past two months investigating Ukip with Alice Thomson and it is clear that these anti-Establishment insurgents are guilty of appalling double standards. There is also a clear streak of nastiness running through the party. And yet, I can’t help feeling that it would be foolish and dangerous for the mainstream parties to ignore the Faragistes. It’s not just that the insurgents could steal their votes at the European elections in May, almost certainly forcing the Tories into third place and possibly beating Labour to the top spot. Nor is the issue that Ukip is expanding its base in local government, raising the prospect that it could soon be involved in council coalitions, wielding actual power.

What really matters is that the rise of Ukip exposes deep social and economic divisions in Britain. It points to a profound sense of alienation among certain sections of the population. Mr Farage may be a flawed character, more knave than fool in my view, but he is like the canary in the mine who is picking up on the poison gas of class and wealth inequality. His party is full of idiots, but its success is a serious warning to the political establishment and the “metropolitan elite” that includes the media.

It is striking — but no coincidence — that, according to YouGov polling for The Times, Ukip is the most working-class party, with 52 per cent of its supporters coming from the C2DE social groups, compared with 46 per cent for Labour, 43 per cent for the Tories and 32 per cent for the Lib Dems. Its voters are also the least well educated of any party apart from the BNP — 52 per cent of Ukip backers left school at 16 or earlier.

Mr Farage is completely wrong in his analysis of the problems the country faces and the solutions he proposes. His party is cynically exploiting vulnerable people and playing on their worst instincts and fears. But the rise in Ukip reveals a deeper truth that cannot be laughed off or ignored. Britain is still two nations.

            It is only weeks now to the elections for the European Parliament.  Funny, isn’t it – that those who moan about the undemocratic nature of the EU Executive in Brussels and the Council of Ministers, are strongly opposed to increasing the powers of the European Parliament, the one unquestionably democratic European institution.  If you value freedom and democracy, turn out and vote in that election – but do not vote for UKIP!

       

Week 21 2013

Tendring Topics…….on Line

‘It wasn’t your fault – Someone else was to blame!’

            That’s the message that we all like to hear when catastrophe strikes, whether it affects us alone or a whole community. It’s a principle that makes the fortunes of the ambulance chasing lawyers whose no win/no pay adverts fund day-time commercial tv. When such a catastrophe or a series of catastrophes affect a whole nation, astute politicians make certain that we hear it. They can usually find someone else, a convenient scapegoat, to take the blame.

            Thus it was in Germany in the 1920s and ‘30s. Defeat in World War I had been followed by the world-wide ‘flu epidemic that claimed more victims than had the recent conflict.  The German Empire had collapsed, the Kaiser had abdicated and fled into exile, politically the country was in chaos, and economically in ruin.  There was uncontrolled inflation, widespread unemployment, homelessness and starvation. Folk were totally disillusioned by the apparent impotence of the government and the traditional political parties.

            There was just one rising politician who gave the German people a message of hope.  Germany’s intellectual élite thought that Adolf Hitler, the posturing little Austrian painter with his Charlie Chaplin moustache, was just a joke and his followers nothing but ‘fruitcakes’ (or the German equivalent).  The country’s leading businessmen helped finance him. Their fortunes were threatened by the revolt of the common people. They believed that they could control him and that he and his followers could defeat the socialists and communists whom they saw as their principal enemies.

            Hitler told the German people what they wanted to hear.   They were in no way to blame for the mess in which they found themselves.   Their brave soldiers hadn’t really been defeated in the Great War.   They had been betrayed; stabbed in the back by Germany’s internal enemies – the international financiers, the politicians, and the Jews.  Vote for the NSDAP (the National Socialist German Workers Party or NAZIs).  He and his party’s gallant storm-troopers would curb the financiers, get rid of the parasitic politicians and the Jews, and create a great new German Empire (the Third Reich) that would dominate the world.

            Enough Germans believed that message to give the Nazis a majority in the Reichstag – and, having gained power, they made sure (or so they thought) of securing it ‘for a thousand years’.  The rest is history, in which I and millions of others played tiny and insignificant roles.

            There are parallels between Germany in the 1920s and ‘30s and the UK today.  We haven’t been defeated in war but military adventures in the Middle East have impoverished and weakened us.  Our economic and political situations are nothing like as dire as those of between-the-wars Germany.   They are serious though.   We have narrowly missed an unprecedented ‘triple dip’ recession. Our credit-worthiness has been down-graded. There are two and a half million unemployed, and the number of homeless people sleeping rough in the streets is rising, as is the number of families relying on charity hand-outs from ‘Food Banks’ to keep their families alive..  We are all, except for the very rich, feeling the pinch.

            Most significant of all, we have lost faith in our traditional politicians and in their political parties.  We don’t really think that the present millionaire-friendly government is going to solve Britain’s problems (their continual bleat about the terrible mess they inherited is beginning to wear a little thin as the months and years pass) and we very much doubt if New Labour would do much – or even any – better.  There was a time when Labour’s objectives were pretty clear; the creation of a classless democratic socialist society in which poverty and homelessness had been abolished and the gap between rich and poor narrowed. After ten years of New Labour rule in which the gap between rich and poor widened it has become clear that their only real objective is now much the same as that of their opponents – to get elected and to hang on to power at all costs.

            But now – just as in Germany in the ‘30s - we have an anti-politics political party with a charismatic leader who reaches  above the heads of more conventional politicians to their disillusioned former supporters; and to those who have never before taken any interest in politics.  Nigel Farage, leader of Ukip (United Kingdom Independence Party) has a very English charisma.  He’s that very likeable - and very persuasive – fellow that one might meet in a well-run pub. He is always ready to explain complex economic and political issues in plain language that anyone can understand.  He’s ‘one of us’, enjoying a pint and a fag, and having no time at all for those who claim to know better than we do, how we should live our lives.

            What’s more, he’s found foreign scapegoats who, so he claims, are responsible for all the UK's political and economic ills.   Brussels is the hub of a web of evil called the EU whose sole purpose is to ruin the UK and everything in which we true Brits believe.  No-one, listening to Nigel Farage or any other spokesperson of Ukip would imagine for a moment that the European Union is an organisation of which the United Kingdom is an influential member and that it has a democratically elected Parliament in which there are Ukip members. 

           

The other factor contributing to the UKs downfall is, according to Ukip, the thousands of foreign immigrants who pour into this country from Europe and every other part of the world taking our jobs and our houses and enjoying our social and health services.  Withdraw from the evil EU and stop all immigration, in the first instance for five years (Oh yes, and allow smoking again in pubs, stop building wind farms and scrap all that ‘health and safety’ nonsense)  and all Britain’s problems will be solved.

            I think that, like Hitler, Nigel Farage has found a recipe for electoral success.  I am glad that I am most unlikely to see and experience its outcome, and be able to say, I told you so!’  Being very old isn’t all loss!

‘

PS    I note that Nigel Farage’s magic doesn’t work in Scotland.  The rough reception he received there has led him to the conclusion that Scots Nationalists harbour a hatred of England and all things English.  I think it more likely that their antagonism is directed not at England but at Nigel Farage and his deluded disciples. If I were twenty or thirty years younger I’d be thinking of relocating north of the border!

Some birthdays!

          I have had some somewhat mixed experience of birthdays in the past.  My 20^th birthday, for instance, was spent on guard duty in Montreal Park, Sevenoaks, where 67^th Medium Regiment, R.A. was camped under canvas while waiting for orders to go overseas.

Twentieth birthday – a break from guard duty.

           

My 21^st was spent in the Libyan Desert waiting for Rommel’s Afrikakorps to attack, and the next two, which I prefer to forget, were spent as a PoW in Italy and Germany.  My 24^th birthday (on 18^th May 1945) was a very happy one though I received not a single birthday card or present.  It was the day, just ten days after the end of World War II in Europe, on which I stepped through the front door of my home in Kensington Road, Ipswich after having been overseas for four years and a PoW for three of them.

Regular blog readers will know that my 90^th birthday was a very special one. I went with members of my immediate family to celebrate it in Zittau, the small town in eastern Germany where I had once been a PoW but now had good friends .We were given a civic welcome and a champagne reception by Mayor Arnd Voight, treated to a special performance of a local piano-accordian orchestra and I hosted a celebratory evening meal to which my family and I  invited our German friends and the Mayor and his wife and other local notables.

 90^th birthday; Here is the Piano-accordian orchestra. I am on the left in the shadow. In the background on the right can be seen the Lenten Veil in the history of which I played a tiny part 

           

        As my 92^nd birthday loomed ahead it seemed that there was a distinct possibility (I will put it no stronger) that it might be my last.  I thought that I would like, on my birthday, to thank and express my appreciation to those who have helped and supported me since my wife’s death seven years ago.  There were my two sons and daughters-in-law, Pete and Arlene and Andy and Marilyn.  There were my grandchildren; Chris living and working in Taiwan, Nick, living mostly in Brussels and his Belgian girl-friend Romy, and granddaughter Jo, working as a social worker attached to the Renal Unit of a large Sheffield Hospital.  Then there was Ingrid Zeibig, originally from Zittau but now living in Bayreuth, a good friend  for some ten years, her English partner Ray and her Austrian god-daughter Jenny who spends a good deal of time with her.  There was Heather’s thirteen-years-younger sister Margaret, Dr Volker Dudeck, former Direktor of Zittau's town musem and his wife Julia, and two Clacton friends who had been a great support and help to me. I invited them all to a celebratory lunch at the Bowling Green Restaurant and pub at Weeley a few miles from Clacton, at 1.00 p.m. on Saturday 18^th May. My sister-in-law Margaret and Dr and Mrs Dudeck were already committed elsewhere but the others all accepted. 

            The Bowling Green is planned with a number of semi-private areas, some suitable for a party  like ours – or larger, and others offering a degree of privacy for just two or three.  It was almost as though we had a room and two tables to ourselves, though with no doors for the staff to negotiate between us and the kitchens.

The 'oldies'  -  Fortyish to ninetytwo

      It was a very successful occasion.  There was a wide á la carte menu.  The cooking was excellent and the service efficient and friendly.  Ingrid had arranged for members of her family and others who knew me, to record their birthday good wishes on a tape that we played on a tv screen provided for us.  The few words of Ingrid’s 101 years old grandma and her little nephew (aged 5) and niece (aged 7), were particularly moving.  She had also obtained  a message from Fritz Michel who in 1944 had manned the telephone of the Hitler Jugend headquarters next to our PoW barrack room.  A clandestine swap (of which I don’t think either Hitler or Churchill would have approved!) of some of our jazz records with some of the Hitler Youth members’ German folk and dance records had been arranged!  

Ingrid’s English partner Ray, played a guitar, and Ingrid a recorder to accompany sixteen year old Austrian Jenny singing  Lili Marlene, equally popular with both British and German forces in North Aftrica, and Regen Tropfen, die am dein Fenster klopfen  (raindrops that fall on your window) a popular German Tango of 1935 that had been one of the records we received in exchange from the Hitler Jugend way back in 1944.  It was a wonderful birthday celebration enjoyed equally by the British, Belgian, German and Austrian participants; a great pity some of the Europhobes of Ukip weren’t there to share the experience.!

The young'uns - sweet sixteen to thirtytwo 

                      (younger grandson Nick took the pictures so he doesn't appear on them)

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