Week 44 2014

Tendring Topics……..on line

The Ukippers!

            I was not surprised (though I was disappointed) that Douglas Carswell now a Ukipper, retained his seat in parliament with a comfortable majority at Clacton’s recent by-election.  Douglas Carswell had undoubtedly been a popular MP and in the few weeks before the election we had been deluged with literature telling us what a wonderful chap he was.  There was door-step canvassing, cold-calling on the phone and a couple of well-attended public meetings addressed by Nigel Farage, Ukip’s leader, as well as by the successful candidate.

            Despite all this it seems that some Clactonians were a bit confused even up to and beyond polling day.  One resident is reported as having said ‘Yes, I voted for Ukip this time – our Conservative MP has done nothing for years!’

            Did you see BBC’s Panorama feature on Nigel Farage and Ukip last week?  One thing that did surprise me was to learn how many people had held senior positions within Ukip and had apparently been close friends of its leader, until there had been a falling-out and they had parted with some acrimony.  I wonder if the apparent close friendship between him and Douglas Carswell is similarly fated.  I was also astonished to learn how many thousands of pounds Farage had claimed from the EU in expenses – and how rarely he had bothered to attend the EU parliament. 

 I wasn’t particularly surprised at a revelation of his lack of common courtesy. I had noted the rudeness of all Ukippers in  the European Parliament in standing up and deliberately turning their backs on the  playing of the European Anthem but I hadn’t realized how very rude, boorish and (he’d probably laugh at the word) ungentlemanly Nigel Farage himself can be on occasion. It was really embarrassing to watch him on tv, deliberately and without provocation insulting the European President, an older man than Farage and more distinguished than he will ever be.   

I had hoped that our MP, Douglas Carswell, former Conservative now Ukipper, might prove to be quite different in that respect.  I certainly hadn’t associated him with lack of courtesy – though he didn’t apparently have any qualms about displacing the recently democratically elected UKIP parliamentary candidate for the Clacton Constituency, when he decided to defect from the Conservatives and contest the seat as a Ukipper.  The elected candidate, Mr Lord, a UKIP county councillor and a local farmer, didn’t take kindly to the usurpation.  He resigned in anger from the Party and from the county council.     

Sir Bob Russell, Colchester’s Lib.Dem. MP was mildly surprised when the Chief Whip, Michael Gove, phoned him on Saturday 11^th October to say that Mr Carswell had invited him to be one of his sponsors when he made his debut in the House of Commons as a Ukipper.  Sir Bob told a Gazette reporter, ‘He held me in high regard as an Essex MP although I have expressed critical words about him and Ukip’.  However, when Sir Bob arrived at the House of Commons on Monday 13^th October he learned that there had been a change of plan. Former colleagues Sir Peter Tapsell and Zac Goldsmith were to accompany Mr Carswell into the chamber.  Sir Bob withdrew, though not before commenting that it showed, ‘astonishing pomposity’. 

An unfortunate muddle caused by mistaken underlings?  Perhaps, or is our born-again-as-a-ukipper MP a quick learner who realized what his new loyalty demanded of him?   

What of the future?

          A friend of mine is convinced that the current popularity of Ukip and of Nigel Farage is fleeting; that by the time of the general election next May electors will have realized where their true loyalties lie.  Ukip’s glory, and that of Nigel Farage will fade away and it’ll be a straight fight between Conservative and Labour.   I very much hope that that is so, because I believe that Ukip and its leader are dangerous.

            Meanwhile Nigel Farage is convinced that the tidal wave of public opinion in support of Ukip is unstoppable. He is already making plans for action when Ukip holds the balance between what we think of as ‘the main parties’.  In the meantime he’s delighted that there is a proposal that he will be asked to take part in at least one (he’d prefer two!) of the pre-election political leaders’ debates. It may well be that that could prove to be his downfall because although Farage performs brilliantly before a friendly audience I’m not at all sure that he’s capable of answering convincingly, hostile or even neutral questioning on either the details, or the broad sweep, of Ukip’s policies and the direction in which they would take the UK.   

            I find it extraordinary that the debates will be between the leaders of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties with the leader of Ukip taking part in at least one of them. Why hasn’t Natalie Bennett, the leader of the Green Party been invited?  The Greens are offering a real alternative to the tired old policies of the Tories and Labour.  Ukip doesn’t offer an alternative – their programme simply fulfils the secret wishes of the extreme right-wing of the Conservatives as Labour defectors are likely to find out if ever Ukip gains real power.

            The Green Party stands for a more equal Britain, with a National Health Service in public hands for the benefit of the many – not a source of profit for the few; for free education and affordable homes for all. They oppose welfare cuts and believe that public services should be in public hands.  Come to think of it, that’s what we returning servicemen and women thought we were getting when we elected Clem Attlee’s government in 1945.   In those days, of course, we didn’t realize the importance of replacing fossil fuels with renewable sources of energy, another Green priority.

            And the Greens are growing. Like Ukip, they have just one member in the House of Commons but in the European parliament they are a force to be reckoned with. Did you know that 1.2 million people in the UK voted Green in May this year – 150,000 more than voted for the Liberal Democrats.  In our own Clacton by-election the Green Party Candidate – with minimal expenditure on his campaign, pushed the Liberal Democrat candidate into ignominy in fifth place! Yet Nick Clegg is offered a place in those pre-election debates and Natalie Bennett isn’t.   I voted Conservative in that by-election because I thought that the Conservative candidate stood the best chance of denying victory to Ukip.  And I think he might have had the local Conservatives campaigned with the same energy and enthusiasm as the Ukippers.

            Should I still be around for next year’s election I shall vote Green.  The Green candidate is unlikely to be elected in Clacton-on-Sea but every vote cast for him will add to the total number of Green votes nationally.  If you’re disillusioned with the traditional political parties and are seeking an alternative – don’t vote Ukip.  You’ll regret it if they ever do rule Britain.  Vote Green!

Dear Blog readers…..

          I took early retirement from the local government service in 1980, a few days before my 59^th birthday. I then embarked on a new career as a freelance writer.  Among many other things I contributed ‘Tendring Topics’ to a local newspaper every week for 23 years.  It was a weekly comment mostly on local and regional affairs though occasionally I wrote about the wider scene.

            In 2003 a new editor wrote to me saying that Tendring Topics was no longer required.  I was summarily dismissed.  I was very hurt at the time, as I had acquired a large and appreciative readership.  However, like so many apparent disasters in my life, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  Very shortly after that my wife, whose health had been deteriorating, fell and broke her hip.  She never regained her ability to walk and during the next two years she became more and more disabled.  During those two years I didn’t write a word, read a newspaper or listen to the news on tv or radio.  I was her full-time sole carer and really had neither time nor inclination to do anything else.

            On 12^th July 2006 my wife’s life came to an end.  She was 82, I was 85. Three months earlier we had celebrated our 60^th wedding anniversary and had received a congratulatory card from the Queen.  Her death left a gaping, and aching, hole in my life that I attempted to fill with activity.  My grandsons helped.  Christopher, the elder, arranged for me to have a Flickr site on which I have posted hundreds of photographs (www.flickr.com/photos/ernestbythesea)  Nick, my younger grandson, is a computer expert and now runs his own successful international Digital Travel Publicity Consultancy (www.se1media.com)   He organised at first my blogspot (www.ernesthall.blogspot.com ) and later my website (www.ernesthall.net) on both of which I have published week by week Tendring Topics …on line  for the past seven years.

            I am now 93 and am feeling my age.  I fear that my writing has become stale and repetitive and I often find myself consulting Google for information that, even a few months ago, had been stored in my head.  I don’t propose to stop writing the blog altogether but I won’t be publishing it regularly every week.  Nor will I feel that I have to write quite such a long blog as has been my custom.  I will continue to support the causes that I think are important: nuclear disarmament; a United Europe; narrowing that yawning gap between the rich and the poor; proportional representation in parliament; a comprehensive reorganisation of the taxation system so that all of us – rich and poor alike – pay  an equal percentage of our gross income  as income tax or, as I prefer to think of it, our annual subscription to British citizenship - and I shall continue to promote my Christian/Quaker Faith!   I thank all blog readers for your interest in my ideas.

week 19.10

Tendring Topics……..on Line

Maja – in May

I mentioned in January that one of my most welcome Christmas presents had been a pictorial calendar from my friends, Andreas and Konnie Kulke of Zittau. They had provided and pasted in the photographs that illustrated it. All were pictures of their then three-year-old daughter Maja and/or her little brother Tom, born last September .

I have a particularly attractive picture to look at this month. It is of little Maja happily getting ready for bed and clutching her well-loved teddy bear. The teddy bear is a friend of mine too. I bought him as a gift for Maja, at the International Rail Terminal at St Pancras last July, while I was waiting to catch my Eurostar train to Brussels the first lap of my journey to Maja’s home in Germany’s most easterly town. It was to be my third and almost certainly last visit to Zittau. since World War II.

The teddy bear is wearing the uniform of a Yeoman of the Guard of the Tower of London (the beefeaters) and Maja decided that his name was Bobby.


What would be your immediate thought if you saw the newspaper headline above? It was in the Daily Gazette on Wednesday 28th April. Perhaps you did see it, so you’ll know the answer to that question.

Could it be that I was the only Gazette reader who didn’t instantly understand what the headline writer was trying to say? Quite possibly; because I have realized for some time that if it is possible to read more than one meaning into any written statement I will unfailingly go for the wrong one. Perhaps that is why I have had a modest success at writing books about domestic hot and cold water supply and waste drainage for ordinary householders. I knew how easily I could misunderstand written instructions or descriptions – so I made certain that my narrative couldn’t possibly be misconstrued.

Be that as it may, I have to confess that when I first read that headline I had an immediate mental image of perhaps two or more intrepid members of the clergy, wearing their customary dark grey suits and clerical collars and armed with furled umbrellas, leading a fearless commando of repentant burglars and pickpockets in a daring raid over the rooftops to ‘take out’ a high rise centre of sin and iniquity.

It was a momentary vision only. Then I realized that ‘lead’ in this context was a noun and not a verb and that it rhymed with ‘fed’ and not ‘feed’. The humdrum and rather depressing true meaning of the headline became obvious. No wonder non-natives complain that English is a difficult language to learn.

7.00 pm 11th May 2010. It’s all over – except that it isn’t, quite!

Of course, by the time you read this blog, it may be. Today the political situation is changing almost minute by minute.

An unusual feature of the general election that we have just endured is that it disappointed almost everybody. The Conservatives surely hoped that Labour support would crumble and that David Cameron would make a swift and easy passage to No. 10 Downing Street. Labour supporters believed that public fear of swingeing Conservative cuts would enable their Party to cling to power, though probably with a reduced majority. Those of us who voted Lib.Dem, buoyed by the opinion polls, thought that our Party would have sufficient seats in Parliament to be able to negotiate with either of the other two Parties from a position of power.

None of that happened. No Party secured an overall majority. To some extent the Liberal Democrats are in a strong negotiating position. This is weakened though by the fact that they actually have fewer seats than before, and that the total number of Labour and Lib.Dem. MPs, although greater than the number of Conservatives, doesn’t add up to that elusive overall majority.

The Lib.Dems. and Conservatives are discussing possible co-operation, it seems with success. I didn’t see how they could realistically form a coalition government unless the Lib.Dems were prepared to discard some of their cherished policies; in particular, their attitude to the European Union, their insistence upon electoral reform, including some form of proportional representation, and their intention to use the taxation system to create a fairer society. Retaining them would make coalition with the Conservatives impossible. Dropping them would surely enrage many loyal supporters. It now (6.30 pm on 11.5.10!) appears that they have squared that particular circle!

They might have agreed to co-operation short of a coalition, in return for some compromises on the part of the Lib.Dems. This solution at one time seemed to me the most likely outcome.

While negotiations between the Conservatives and Lib.Dems were still ongoing we learned that serious talks are also taking place between the Lib.Dems. and Labour. Presumably to facilitate these talks, Gordon Brown was stepping down as Labour Party Leader. Were these talks serious I wonder, or could Nick Clegg be playing ‘hard to get’ and encouraging the Conservatives to think again about some of his demands that they are finding difficult to accept?

The one permutation that has not, as far as I know, been considered is that of co-operation, perhaps a coalition, between New Labour and the Conservatives. Why not? There is less difference between New Labour and Conservative policies than there is between both of those policies and those of the Lib.Dems. Both Parties offer much the same solutions to the nation’s ills, differences being in emphasis and timing rather than substance. David Cameron wants ‘change’ but only a change of government – not a change in the voting system, the economic system, foreign and defence policies, and policy towards the rest of Europe. I reckon that if the Conservatives and New Labourites could forget some of the nasty things they have said about each other in recent weeks, they’d get along famously.

The Daily Gazette reports that our re-elected MP, Mr Douglas Carswell, doesn’t think that the Conservatives should seek Lib.Dem co-operation but should go it alone, forming a minority government. Well, that is at least an honest and straightforward solution. Since no one can possibly be eager to experience another election in the near future, such an administration might last longer than appears likely at first glance. Before forcing a vote of ‘no confidence’ the opposition would probably wait until the government had pushed through enough unpopular (though quite likely essential) measures to ensure that it didn’t get re-elected! That’s politics for you!

It now seems likely though that some time later this evening, we shall be told that agreement has been reached between the Conservatives and the Lib.Dems and that a formal coalition government will be formed. If this is true (there could be yet another surprise awaiting us!) I look forward to learning the details and will no doubt comment on them next week.


Look on the Bright Side!

Do you remember Pollyanna, that fictional little American girl who, even in the direst situations, was always able to find ‘something about which to be glad?’ Earlier I said that almost everybody had been disappointed by the outcome of the recent General Election. I certainly was. What, I wondered, would Pollyanna have discovered that should have gladdened my heart?

There were one or two things. I was very glad that Bob Russell, Colchester’s Lib.Dem. MP, had not only held his parliamentary seat but had increased his majority. I was glad too that the very first Green Party MP had been elected to the House of Commons to represent the Pavilion Ward of Brighton. Conversely, I was delighted that not a single UKIP or BNP candidate had been elected though, of course, a number of MPs (including our own in Clacton) were not opposed by UKIP as it was considered that they shared UKIP’s Europhobia.

No, the General Election was generally very disappointing – but it wasn’t all loss! I am sure that Pollyanna would have been very glad about that!