Week11 2014

Tendring Topics…….on Line

Echoes from 1982

          On 10^th July 1982, over forty years ago, bombs planted by the Provisional IRA exploded in London’s Hyde Park and Regent’s Park killing eleven soldiers, members of the Household Cavalry, and seven of their horses.  Echoes of those explosions have travelled down the years to 2014 – to make press headlines and to cast a little light on a feature of the Good Friday Agreement, that was apparently unknown to thos now responsible for governing that troubled province of the UK.

            John Downey, a former IRA member, had been arrested and was about to stand trial on suspicion of implication in those bomb outrages, but was released on the orders of the Judge when he produced a letter from the Northern Irish Constabulary assuring him that he was not ‘wanted by the police’ for any offence committed during the ‘troubles’.  At first it was suggested that this letter had been a one-off error made by the Northern Irish Police but it later became known that some 180 similar letters had been sent to other suspected republican terrorists ‘on the run’.  It was a promise amounting (at least in the recipients’ minds) to an amnesty.  It had been sent to republican suspected terrorists only and not extended either to ‘loyalists’ or to the British soldiers involved  in the ‘Bloody Sunday’ event in Londonderry.

            Peter Robinson, Northern Ireland’s First Minister, who has the almost-impossible job of holding together an uneasy power-sharing government of loyalists and republicans, claims that he had known nothing of these letters. He is said to have been ‘incandescent with rage’ when he heard of them.  He threatened to resign his post unless there was an immediate judicial enquiry into the whole matter – and David Cameron has agreed that there should be one, reporting its findings at the end of May

It has been suggested that the letters were promised to Sinn Fein by Tony Blair in order to ensure their compliance, without involving others involved in the Good Friday agreement, They were kept secret, rather like the contents of the cosy chats between Tony Blair and President Bush that took place before a majority of members of the House of Commons were deceived into endorsing the illegal and disastrous invasion of Iraq.  

It could be that it was only by means of that distinctly one-sided agreement that the present uneasy peace in Northern Ireland was secured.  I ask myself though whether a good conclusion can ever be achieved by dishonest means.  Some time ago I commented in this blog that making Tony Blair the United Nation’s ‘special peace envoy’ to the Middle East was rather like making one of the Kray brothers a Chief Constable.  Nothing has since happened to alter that opinion.

‘Why don’t they eat cake?’

            If, during the final decade of the twentieth century, you had asked an acquaintance or friend their opinion of Food Banks, they would probably have thought you were deranged.  Banks deal with money, not food. We had yet to experience the brave new world of the 21^st century!   You might have received a more positive answer in the USA because Food Banks, providing basic sustenance for the hungry poor, had been established there from 1967.   They were ‘wholesalers’ rather than ‘retailers’ though – collecting and storing donated food items and sending them, in bulk, to approved charities for distribution to those in need.

            European countries, including the UK, generally had better national social services than those in the USA and the need for Food Banks didn’t arise until nearly four decades later – in 2006.  Now they are the United Kingdom’s fastest growing voluntary service, with over 400 such banks nation-wide and growing every week.  In 2013 they fed nearly 347,000 people!  The number of applicants has grown as the Government’s welfare cuts have taken effect.  To obtain help, applicants need to get a voucher from a professional such as a local authority social worker. On presenting the voucher to the food bank they are given sufficient food for three days.

           

            Most Food Banks are co-ordinated by the Trussell Trust and are associated with Christian Churches, in accordance with Jesus Christ’s declaration that we should treat other people as we ourselves would wish to be treated.  It is very heartening that the Bishops of the Church of England and Roman Catholic Church, together with the leaders of the Free Churches, are giving their enthusiastic support, while at the same time criticising government policies that have created the need for the food banks.   Some fifty percent of the food distributed is donated by members of the public.  Some is given by private enterprises such as supermarkets and many Food Banks are supported, in one way or another, by the local authority of the district in which they are situated.

                                                   

                                                         A cartoon from the ‘Observer’

           

In my own town of Clacton-on-Sea (which includes the Brooklands area of Jaywick, said to be the UK’s most deprived area) the Food Bank is run by the Salvation Army with the support of other Christian traditions in the town including, of course, Clacton Quakers of which I am a member.

            The need for Food Banks has increased as the Chancellor’s attacks on the meagre incomes of the poor have begun to bite, though the government insists that this increase is simply because ‘scroungers’ have discovered in them a source of free food and that ‘there is no robust evidence of a link between the increase in demand for Food Banks and the welfare reforms’. It has even been suggested that some recipients of food parcels have sold on their contents!   How robust, I wonder, does evidence have to be to convince those who don't wish to be persuaded.  The fact that food parcels are dispensed only to those presenting a voucher from a welfare professional, is surely a deterrent to ‘frivolous and fraudulent applicants’.

            I have just watched a very striking programme on the tv about Food Banks and the valuable service they provide.  To provide ‘balance’ a number of denigrators of Food Banks were interviewed, including former Cabinet Minister Edwina Curry.  I’d be very surprised if any one of them has ever felt the pangs of real hunger.  Some of their comments made Marie Antoinette’s alleged suggestion that if the poor of Paris couldn’t get bread ‘they should eat cake’ seem positively liberal and benign! 

The Price of Postage Stamps

Like me, you may have thought that that massive increase in the cost of sending mail that we endured last year (First Class minimum postage 60p, Second Class 50p!) was the last we’d have to put up with for a year or two; especially as privatisation, which took place just a couple of months ago, was supposed to be going to be giving us a better, more efficient, service.

We were wrong.  Postage charges are going up again - from 1^st April which is not an inappropriate date!   First class stamps are to go up to 62p (an increase of 3.3 percent) from that date, and second class ones from 50 to 53p (an increase of 6 percent).   I’m glad that I bought enough of those attractive Madonna and Child Christmas stamps to see me through several months of the new financial year.  They’ll prove to have been quite an investment, though nothing like that of the investors who bought shares in Royal Mail at the ridiculously low price of 330p a share.  They have seen their investment almost double to £6.00 a share since they made their purchase.

It is easy to forget that whenever a public service is privatised its main purpose changes from serving the public to satisfying the shareholders!

Spring is here!

A fortnight ago I published a picture with my blog, of a few daffodils around the eating apple tree in my garden, just coming into bloom in late February.  Now in early March, as you can see, they are all in full bloom. 

 Spring 2014 really is here!  

 These daffodils have a special significance for me.  From the kitchen window of our bungalow, my wife Heather watched them grow, bloom and wither, year after year, It was where those daffodils bloom that, nearly eight years ago, I scattered her ashes after sixty years of happy marriage. I hope that when the time comes my ashes too may be scattered there.

 

 

         

Week 25.10

Tendring Topics…….on Line

World Cup Fever

It isn’t very often that I read a newspaper article that I wish I had written myself. This was certainly the case though when I read in the Coastal Daily Gazette a feature article by Assistant Editor James Wills (one-time editor of the Clacton Gazette) expressing forcefully his views on the current World Cup Fever.

James Wills, who says that he is a football fan himself, writes that ‘England has already descended into some sort of mass hysteria – the symptoms of which are a desire to become temporarily patriotic, drink copious amounts of booze, and for men to thump their chests chanting “EN-GER-LUND”

‘During the 2006 World Cup, Home Office data showed on average there was a 25 percent rise in domestic violence reports on the days of England games, with one in four offenders being found to be under the influence of alcohol. ‘What a brilliant testament to our nation – watch the game, get drunk and slap your partner’.

Joining in (and no doubt hoping to cash in on!) the mass hysteria are major companies like Nike and Adidas, Mercedes (despite being a German firm!) and supermarkets, who simultaneously campaign for the introduction of higher prices for alcohol, and desperately promote ‘World Cup booze specials!'

‘Do people really have an insatiable desire to eat Pringles’, asks Mr Wills, ‘because they have changed their name to Pringooooals to flog a football promotion? Perhaps we are missing out and we should change the name of the paper to the ‘Goal-chester Gazette’.

He goes on to say that, ‘We can forget the fact, reported on Wednesday, that one in eight children under five in Niger is likely to die of starvation in the next four weeks, because we are more concerned about Lesley King’s knee injury……..Closer to home Colchester MP Bob Russell has been campaigning in the Commons about child poverty. Apparently the UK has one of the worst levels of child poverty in the developed world and one of the worst in Europe, below Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. But who cares about that? We rank above them in the Fifa football ratings. EN-GER-LUND!

‘The country may be in the middle of an economic public debt crisis, but we can still afford to pay our Italian manager £6 million a year. ENG-ER-LUND!

(I hadn’t realized that that was the England Manager’s salary – and we worry because a handful of civil servants and top council officials receive about £200,000 - more than the Prime Minister!)

James Wills concludes, ‘I sincerely hope that we do win, just because it will bring an end to those appalling ’46 years of hurt’ clichés. The fact is that we haven’t won since 1966 because we weren’t good enough, which is only right and proper because, as our economy, transport infrastructure and almost everything proves, not being good enough is what we are world beaters at. EN-GER-LUND!

There’s nothing much that I can add to that. I thought that I was pretty good at vituperative prose but I take off my hat to Mr. Wills!

The first time that I heard ‘England’ used in that way with three syllables, was under very different circumstances. It was in January 1942 and the German and Italian garrison of Wadi Halfaya (Hellfire Pass) on the Egyptian/Libyan border had just surrendered to us. A group of disconsolate German prisoners were trying to keep up their spirits by singing the German submariners ‘anthem’ with its rousing chorus.

Und jetzt wir fahren! Und jetzt wir fahren!
Wir fahren gegen EN-GER-LAND!

(Now we’re marching! Now we’re marching!
We’re marching against EN-GER-LAND!

Six months later I was a POW myself and knew exactly how those German prisoners had been feeling. Today, as I survey the St. George’s flags displayed wherever I go, listen to the breathless tones of the sports commentators, and reflect on the fact that, in the midst of a financial crisis affecting us all, thousands can spare the time and the money to watch football games half a world away from home, I know just how James Wills was feeling as he wrote that article. For goodness sake, football is only a game!

Whose oil spill? Whose fault?

In last week’s blog I made the point that BP, responsible for the oil leak currently threatening the Gulf Coast of the USA, is only nominally a British firm. A substantial proportion of its shares are owned in the USA and elsewhere.

A recent article in The Independent revealed that not only are a large number of shares held in the USA but that many members of the American Congress, including those leading the enquiry into the disaster, are substantial share holders. Between them, they own $14.5 million of stock in the oil and gas industry, among which are at least $400,000 shares (probably more!) in the three companies involved in the oil spill – BP, Transocean and Anadarko Petroleum.

Fred Upton, top Republican on the Energy and Environment Subcommittee, has nearly $100,000 invested in BP, Senator John Kerry, who sits on the Senate Commerce Committee, has assets totalling at least $6 million in a dozen oil concerns, including BP and Royal Dutch Oil, while his wife Teresa has in trust up to $750,000 of BP stock. The House Republican leader John Boehner, holds BP stock worth $50,000!

Research (via Google) reveals some interesting facts about the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and about the oil well that it was tapping.

The oil well is at a depth of 35,000 feet, and is the deepest well of its kind ever discovered! It is 5,000 feet deeper than the design specification of the oilrig.

An enquiry into the cause of the disaster is in progress. I think it very unlikely that it was the result of a deliberate act of malice, or the carelessness, stupidity or laziness of the rig’s crew. Knowing that they were working at or beyond the rig’s recommended capacity, they would surely have been taking extra, meticulous care.

Perhaps, in order to save time and money, ‘management’ decided to cut corners and ignore precautions that should have been taken. It is possible that drilling at that extreme depth should not have been undertaken at all, or undertaken only with specialist equipment that just wasn’t available on the site.

It must never be forgotten that the prime purpose of any private enterprise is not to serve the public or improve the environment, but to enrich the bank accounts of the shareholders. Delays cost money, specialist equipment costs money. It could be that the current catastrophe arose from an unwise desire to serve what seemed to be the best interests of BP’s shareholders, including of course, those among them who are members of the US Congress.

Among the Cleanest?

I am an enthusiast for the Tendring District. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else and I recommend it for holidays to my friends both in this country and overseas. Our seaside resorts have their own unique qualities that complement each other, offering everything that most people seek on holiday. In addition they are conveniently close to historic Colchester and to the lovely ‘Constable country’ of the Stour Valley.

I am sure that our beaches thoroughly deserve the European Blue Flags of excellence that they have been awarded and I wasn’t a bit surprised to learn that Clacton-on-Sea had been rated among England’s top ten holiday resorts.

I must say though that my loyalty and credulity were strained to the utmost by the report that our Sunshine Coast had been rated within the top ten cleanest places in the country, coming ninth and being beaten in our region only by Maldon, which came sixth. My reaction was not dissimilar to that of Anne Harper, who has run a ladies wear shop in Jackson Road for forty years. She is reported as saying, ‘If we are ninth, God only knows what the rest of the country is like……..The other day when I came in to work, there were cans and pizza boxes in the street – it was absolutely filthy. If there are almost 350 areas worse than us I really do despair’

I sometimes find drink cans and plastic ‘fast food’ containers (often still half-full!) casually dropped over my front garden fence and, driving along the footpath of St. Osyth Road on my mobility scooter I all-too-often have to negotiate my way through broken glass that threatens my scooter’s tyres.

Perhaps whoever decided that we were in the top ten made his or her inspection shortly after the streets had been cleaned. I have been impressed with the Council’s street cleaning service. It is good to see a man with a brush at work rather than a street sweeping vehicle that doesn’t touch the footpaths and, because of parked cars, can’t get to the gutters where drink cans, crisp packets and fast food containers tend to gravitate. Usually though, it doesn’t take long for litter to accumulate again!

Outrageous? Heroic?

Possibly neither. He may have simply been very uncomfortable!

I am referring to the football fan, who ‘burst into the changing room and confronted the English players’ after their less-than-brilliant World Cup performance against Algeria.

It could be that angry confrontation was the very last thing on his mind. He claims that was in urgent need of the toilet and had simply lost his way.

As Esther Rantzen used to say, ‘That’s life!’ Perhaps we should be thankful for the fact that there’s rather more bathos in the world than either heroism or outrage!

Apologies still needed!

I am glad that our Prime Minister made a full and unequivocal apology for the events in Londonderry on 'Bloody Sunday', 1972. The killing of unarmed civilians was inexcusable, even allowing for the fact that there was a 'shooting war' in progress at the time and that the British troops had been ordered into Londonderry's Bogside, a 'no go' area for troops where those who entered could routinely expect to be fired on by IRA snipers. Once firing begins it is difficult to know who is firing at whom and I have no doubt that some soldiers genuinely believed themselves to be under attack. Nevertheless the incident was an appalling tragedy and a blot on the record of the regiment involved.

I note that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness both accepted and welcomed David Cameron's apology. Perhaps, in turn, they might care to make a similarly uneqivocal apology for the hundreds of equally innocent civilians killed by the IRA at that time. There is little doubt that they were far more personally associated with those killings than David Cameron was with those on Bloody Sunday.

A fateful day.

I hope to post this blog tomorrow evening (22nd June). By the time you read it you will know the terms of the Chancellor’s emergency budget – and how they will affect you and your family.. I shall be looking to see if it really will cause pain to all of us as promised, or whether – as usual - the seriously wealthy will escape without even minor discomfort.

Hot on the heels of the Budget will come the make-or-break England v. Slovenia football match on Wednesday that will determine whether England's team goes on to the next round of the World Cup contest or returns to the UK in ignominy. Surely we’re not going to suffer ‘a double whammy’?

It looks as though I shall have plenty on which to comment next week!