Preaching again this morning.
The drive out to two small village Churches in the countyside outside Carlisle was pleasant. The back road has been re-opened after the flood defences have been built but I went the long way round.
It gave me a chance to think about what I would say.
The challenge was how to respond to the challenge in the Gospel: Matthew 6 vv 33'Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness'.
The obvious thought was to develop a hermeneutic of the Big Society building on Polly Toynbees' article in the Guardian on February 21st.
As the Carlisle country side rolled past I reflected on the article: 'David Cameron' introduced 'his preview of the long-delayed white paper on public services' ... 'For the first time he explains the full scope of his ambition to roll back the boundaries of an overweening state'.
Toynbee comments 'This is indeed the eureka moment for the country. Nothing like this was ever breathed before the election'.
According to Toynbee the veil has been ripped away. The narrative is no longer we must do this because Labour spent all the money. We're doing it to replace the overweening state; but the Big Society is not an alternative it is not even a substitute, it is an ill thought out adventure in making public policy, it is presented as a silk purse but it is a sow's ear.
Some years ago I bought a book of Graffitti, one example in particular from 1947, in Norwich I believe it was, caught my eye:
Repent for the kingdom of Bevan is Nigh!
We need an equivalent for today's messianic visionaries in the Tory party.
Rejoice the Kingom of Bevan is to be abolished!
But no-one will rejoice other than a few Tory MP's and folk who have grown up in the upper echelons of society protected by inherited wealth, private education and privilege.
Given that most of the world holds up the Welfare State as an example of governing with the interests of the whole society at heart, why has this coalition Government decided that it should be abolished? What does it hope to gain? And, more critically, what will we have to fear?
The Welfare State is not just about Benefits. The whole structure of British post-war society, including Taxation policy, Pensions, Health, Education, Care for the Elderly and Disabled were bound up in what we meant by welfare. Welfare was for me, a working class kid from inner city Manchester the escalator by means of which I was able to rise above my station, my class of origin was working class but over time I became middle class and enjoyed the benefits of a self-sufficient life, now as a pensioner, I dread the future.
That great social reformer William Beveridge once described : squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease, as great evils and the welfare State was in large part instumental in eradicating them within a generation.
But now it is to be broken up, privatised and that privatisation will in effect become compulsory, everything will and can be tendered for.
The Welfare State is to become the Big Society. But the Big society is by no means the kingdom of heaven and it is certainly not the Kingdom of Bevan. In Matthew 6 vv 33 33 Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, or as some translations have more preferably, Justice; so people need to demand the fairness that is missing, as a Government that wasn't elected, presses forward with policies that were not in either of the coalition parties manifestos.
Justice is the missing ingredient in the Big Society.
Where is the justice or righteousness in depriving communities of child care or elder care? Where is the justice in allowing the numbers of young people not in education or training to increase exponentially? Where is the justice in reducing housing benefit and creating more homelessness? Where is the justice in creating unemployment and then standing back and waiting for the private sector to miraculously create more employment?
If you are young or old, if you have a family or are single, if you are disabled or in poor health, the end of welfare will herald the end of fairness and opportunity, trading security for insecurity and confidence in the future with fearfulness about what will be.
The big society is not the kingdom of heaven it is legerdemain, smoke and mirrors, tricks played with words.
Sunday 27 February 2011
Friday 25 February 2011
25th February 2011
Amazing night last night in Castle Carrock in the re-furbished Duke of Cumberland.
Music by Billy Johnstone and Hadrians Union. Hadrians Union is a combination of Stew Simpson on Guitar and Vocals, Stew writes the material, great songs and playing which were enhanced by Danny Harts fiddle playing. A great night which went by the name of Music in the Hat and as there was no cover charge the Hat was passed around and we were invited to pay what we thought the music was worth. I tried to be generous.
But it was as a friend commented, a real hand to mouth existence.
During the interval I got into conversation with another friend, who like me, had been a vicar before moving into a 'day job'. He commented that as a vicar he had a number of community activities which he has continued to do as a volunteer.
Certainly when I was a Vicar, I found that it was almost impossible to untangle, what was part of my 'job' and what was 'voluntary' work on my part. As a vicar I was appointed to a 'living' and given a 'stipend' and simply got on with doing what needed doing and doing what was needed.
It made me reflect a little on the meaning of the word 'stipend'. When I was first ordained an older priest told me that a 'stipend' set you free from the need to make a living. It was I came to realise, one of the privileges of being a Vicar, that you could undertake to offer time and attention to work that that needed doing, you had time for people, time for conversations, time for reading and thinking, as my friend commented, you were even 'paid' to make a retreat.
Some of the same privilege exists now in that, whilst I no longer have a stipend, I have a pension which in some ways is the same thing or at least has the same effect, I have an income which means that I don't have to earn my living and am free to undertake what is needed both to keep me involved and occupied, but also to return some of the social indebtedness that I have accumulated over the years.
For young musicians, passing the hat around to make ends meet and to continue to allow them to make music and express themselves creatively a 'stipend' would make an enormous difference.
And why not?
Today's news announces a huge increase in the number of young people not in Education or Training. As a society, as manufacturing continues to remain stagnant, as unemployment increases, as job opportunities disappear with the cuts announced by the absentee Chancellor what could possibly be wrong with offering people a 'stipend' rather than unemployment benefit thereby releasing people of all ages to become more creative and to be more creatively enagaged in the communities, (Big Society?)without the implicit judgement that they are somehow workshy or malingering. After all how many young artists and writers, how many first novels have been written whilst the young author existed by signing on?
Such an approach could release an amazing explosion of creative energy and demonstrate how much imagination and creativity has been repressed or ignored. It could even stimulate the economy through the creative industries. A stipend could set a person free to be a musician, a writer,an artist a volunteer worker, to give time for socially useful activity,to travel, to further their education or just to be, to thrive, to deepen friendships and grow as people.
Could it be afforded? well if we can give one individual £9.5M as a reward for work in that mysterious avocation known as 'financial services' why not afford £95 a week as a stipend to release people into creative freedom and enterprise.
Watching my friends perform last evening I was struck by how much creativity, talent, work, energy, investment of personal resources had gone into making the peformance happen I only hope that what went in the hat was an offering worthy of the music and all that it represneted.
In the conversation another friend, now retired, asked how my retirement was going, difficult at first I ventured, not for me he said, I realised within days that I was born for it.
In my first parish I was talking to an elderly lady about a person who had recently died, he was a gentlemen she said, I asked what he did? Did? she replied, he didn't do anything, he was a gentleman!
The obsession with work, and the distinction between employment and unemployment is a fairly recent one. During the churches most creative and evangelical period, the clergy were not 'employed' they were 'office holders', they did not have a job, they had a 'living', they were not paid a wage, they enjoyed a 'stipend' which set them free from the need to earn a living.
Perhaps in a wealthy, post industrial economy in the 21st Century some of these 19th Century ideas could be re-applied to ensure that society can develop in a spirit of fairness, equality, emancipation and openess to the possibilities of creative enterprise.
Perhaps we just need more gentle persons?
Music by Billy Johnstone and Hadrians Union. Hadrians Union is a combination of Stew Simpson on Guitar and Vocals, Stew writes the material, great songs and playing which were enhanced by Danny Harts fiddle playing. A great night which went by the name of Music in the Hat and as there was no cover charge the Hat was passed around and we were invited to pay what we thought the music was worth. I tried to be generous.
But it was as a friend commented, a real hand to mouth existence.
During the interval I got into conversation with another friend, who like me, had been a vicar before moving into a 'day job'. He commented that as a vicar he had a number of community activities which he has continued to do as a volunteer.
Certainly when I was a Vicar, I found that it was almost impossible to untangle, what was part of my 'job' and what was 'voluntary' work on my part. As a vicar I was appointed to a 'living' and given a 'stipend' and simply got on with doing what needed doing and doing what was needed.
It made me reflect a little on the meaning of the word 'stipend'. When I was first ordained an older priest told me that a 'stipend' set you free from the need to make a living. It was I came to realise, one of the privileges of being a Vicar, that you could undertake to offer time and attention to work that that needed doing, you had time for people, time for conversations, time for reading and thinking, as my friend commented, you were even 'paid' to make a retreat.
Some of the same privilege exists now in that, whilst I no longer have a stipend, I have a pension which in some ways is the same thing or at least has the same effect, I have an income which means that I don't have to earn my living and am free to undertake what is needed both to keep me involved and occupied, but also to return some of the social indebtedness that I have accumulated over the years.
For young musicians, passing the hat around to make ends meet and to continue to allow them to make music and express themselves creatively a 'stipend' would make an enormous difference.
And why not?
Today's news announces a huge increase in the number of young people not in Education or Training. As a society, as manufacturing continues to remain stagnant, as unemployment increases, as job opportunities disappear with the cuts announced by the absentee Chancellor what could possibly be wrong with offering people a 'stipend' rather than unemployment benefit thereby releasing people of all ages to become more creative and to be more creatively enagaged in the communities, (Big Society?)without the implicit judgement that they are somehow workshy or malingering. After all how many young artists and writers, how many first novels have been written whilst the young author existed by signing on?
Such an approach could release an amazing explosion of creative energy and demonstrate how much imagination and creativity has been repressed or ignored. It could even stimulate the economy through the creative industries. A stipend could set a person free to be a musician, a writer,an artist a volunteer worker, to give time for socially useful activity,to travel, to further their education or just to be, to thrive, to deepen friendships and grow as people.
Could it be afforded? well if we can give one individual £9.5M as a reward for work in that mysterious avocation known as 'financial services' why not afford £95 a week as a stipend to release people into creative freedom and enterprise.
Watching my friends perform last evening I was struck by how much creativity, talent, work, energy, investment of personal resources had gone into making the peformance happen I only hope that what went in the hat was an offering worthy of the music and all that it represneted.
In the conversation another friend, now retired, asked how my retirement was going, difficult at first I ventured, not for me he said, I realised within days that I was born for it.
In my first parish I was talking to an elderly lady about a person who had recently died, he was a gentlemen she said, I asked what he did? Did? she replied, he didn't do anything, he was a gentleman!
The obsession with work, and the distinction between employment and unemployment is a fairly recent one. During the churches most creative and evangelical period, the clergy were not 'employed' they were 'office holders', they did not have a job, they had a 'living', they were not paid a wage, they enjoyed a 'stipend' which set them free from the need to earn a living.
Perhaps in a wealthy, post industrial economy in the 21st Century some of these 19th Century ideas could be re-applied to ensure that society can develop in a spirit of fairness, equality, emancipation and openess to the possibilities of creative enterprise.
Perhaps we just need more gentle persons?
Tuesday 22 February 2011
22nd February 2011
...... getting started slowly after the weekend.
In fact I spent most of yesterday thinking that it was Saturday but in fact it was the Monday of half term and the week began with Bowling. Robert Putnam's book Bowling Alone was a reflection on the increasing individuation of society. He noticed that people spent less time in groups, bowling or hanging out with friends or at Church or whatever. The social cost of this increasing isolation was that society becomes less social to the point that a previous Conservative Prime Minister was able to say that 'there is no such thing as society'.
So in one leap we seem to go from no society to the Big Society.
Certainly there was a lot of social interaction in the Bowling Alley on Monday and it seemed a pretty cool place to be hanging out especially with a group which in our case spanned three generations, whilst the newest addition to the family relaxed in the peace and quiet of home, the rest of the gang hurled bowling balls down the alley hoping for a strike whilst the grandparents cheered them on.
I left the Bowling in full swing and went out to buy a key ingredient for our supper (Feta Cheese the soubriquet of a middle class supper dish as recommended by Lindsay Barham in The Times) and met a well known poet in Lidl:
He greeted me as he entered the store
Amongst the bargain hunters by the door
Was he, I wondered, searching for a bargain sonnet
Or possibly a reduced price Haiku
Of eight and a half syllables or less
I recognised him instantly even though
I have lost weight and am thinner
Buying pasta and Feta Cheese for our dinner
He the published writer and me the blogger
Both of us in Lidl, poets of the people, in touch
with our feelings, the inner man and such
Sunday, the real Sunday rather than the day before the Saturday which was really a Monday I went fishing. Rather like the famous quote about second marriage, fishing is definitely the triumph of hope over experience.
On Sunday the fish were having a whale (sic) of a time leaping out of the water, splashing, rising to flies, and resolutely ignoring our best efforts. However we presented the fly, however elegant the cast, however tempting the flies and lures we tied and no matter how many times we cast onto the nose of the fish, they resisted the offer we made. I became convinced that out there somewhere there was a practical joker who was playing with a motor controlled fish in the lake and that what we were seeing was a battery driven fish, Billy Bass, surging through the water just out of reach, tempting us with the almost fishy possibility of the day. So even before the season has begun the landing net remained dry. It was just as well there was Feta Cheese and Pasta for supper.
Having now realised that this is not a long weekend but is in fact half term I am hoping to go fishing again. But this time I have decided to take no chances and am hoping to persuade a couple of young fishermen to accompany me, they always seem to catch something and should be able to guarantee some success, even if its only allowing me to land their fish in my landing net.
The rest of the week ahead seems to offer a lot to look forward to from lunch with friends and a chance to compare notes between grandparents, and football and music in the hat, a pub concert with an invitation to pay what you think the concert is worth, then a first meeting of the co-op party in Gateshead before services on Sunday which neatly brings me back to the Saturday which was really a Monday, Bowling alone and the 'Big Society', by a Gospel insisting that we 'seek first his kingdom and his righteousness' the kingdom of right relationships which is described by the Gospels as the Kingdom of God, simply outclasses the limited vision of the politician by a country mile. Get it right, love your neighbour and look out for each other and there will be no need to 'worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself'.
In fact I spent most of yesterday thinking that it was Saturday but in fact it was the Monday of half term and the week began with Bowling. Robert Putnam's book Bowling Alone was a reflection on the increasing individuation of society. He noticed that people spent less time in groups, bowling or hanging out with friends or at Church or whatever. The social cost of this increasing isolation was that society becomes less social to the point that a previous Conservative Prime Minister was able to say that 'there is no such thing as society'.
So in one leap we seem to go from no society to the Big Society.
Certainly there was a lot of social interaction in the Bowling Alley on Monday and it seemed a pretty cool place to be hanging out especially with a group which in our case spanned three generations, whilst the newest addition to the family relaxed in the peace and quiet of home, the rest of the gang hurled bowling balls down the alley hoping for a strike whilst the grandparents cheered them on.
I left the Bowling in full swing and went out to buy a key ingredient for our supper (Feta Cheese the soubriquet of a middle class supper dish as recommended by Lindsay Barham in The Times) and met a well known poet in Lidl:
He greeted me as he entered the store
Amongst the bargain hunters by the door
Was he, I wondered, searching for a bargain sonnet
Or possibly a reduced price Haiku
Of eight and a half syllables or less
I recognised him instantly even though
I have lost weight and am thinner
Buying pasta and Feta Cheese for our dinner
He the published writer and me the blogger
Both of us in Lidl, poets of the people, in touch
with our feelings, the inner man and such
Sunday, the real Sunday rather than the day before the Saturday which was really a Monday I went fishing. Rather like the famous quote about second marriage, fishing is definitely the triumph of hope over experience.
On Sunday the fish were having a whale (sic) of a time leaping out of the water, splashing, rising to flies, and resolutely ignoring our best efforts. However we presented the fly, however elegant the cast, however tempting the flies and lures we tied and no matter how many times we cast onto the nose of the fish, they resisted the offer we made. I became convinced that out there somewhere there was a practical joker who was playing with a motor controlled fish in the lake and that what we were seeing was a battery driven fish, Billy Bass, surging through the water just out of reach, tempting us with the almost fishy possibility of the day. So even before the season has begun the landing net remained dry. It was just as well there was Feta Cheese and Pasta for supper.
Having now realised that this is not a long weekend but is in fact half term I am hoping to go fishing again. But this time I have decided to take no chances and am hoping to persuade a couple of young fishermen to accompany me, they always seem to catch something and should be able to guarantee some success, even if its only allowing me to land their fish in my landing net.
The rest of the week ahead seems to offer a lot to look forward to from lunch with friends and a chance to compare notes between grandparents, and football and music in the hat, a pub concert with an invitation to pay what you think the concert is worth, then a first meeting of the co-op party in Gateshead before services on Sunday which neatly brings me back to the Saturday which was really a Monday, Bowling alone and the 'Big Society', by a Gospel insisting that we 'seek first his kingdom and his righteousness' the kingdom of right relationships which is described by the Gospels as the Kingdom of God, simply outclasses the limited vision of the politician by a country mile. Get it right, love your neighbour and look out for each other and there will be no need to 'worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself'.
Friday 18 February 2011
18th February 2011
There is a loop around the fields at the back of my daughters house, it follows an old track leading up to the disused railway line, called The Dandy' which proved too steep for Stephenson's Rocket to gain proper traction. Eventually an inclined plane was installed whereby the heavy wagons full of Coal and Zinc descended from Tindale to Brampton dragging the empty wagons back up to the smelting works and mines. Once upon a time the area was heavily industrialised, there was a foul miasmic mist from the smeltings and permanently smoking fires from the smelting. It was likened to hell itself.
The grandchildren today discover 'treasures', old bottles, clinker and crystals.
Now on a sunny day it is heavenly by comparison, a bright sun, wildlife thriving, Salmon running up the stream to spawn, alive with grouse, pheasant and rabbits the dogs love to chase. So today, whilst my daughter was occupied with the new baby I walked the dogs. They run and run through the fields, chase the scent trails of rabbits and just chase to their hearts delight. And today the moles were announcing spring with their tunnelling.
Today it is an RSPB preserve.
It goes to show, no matter how much damage we do, the earth has a remarkable capacity to recover. The story is one of nations, civilizations, cultures, Conspiring over time to destroy themselves and recover in a repeating pattern of hubris and nemesis.
So it is with Goverments and Bankers. Greed is Greed however it is justified. Mrs. Thatchers 'trickle down theory' of wealth percolating throughout society as long as the rich were left free to make money as it was spent it would trickle down through the economy benefitting each layer was shown to be both false and untrue. It soon became clear who got the pies, who avoided the taxes and who got the bonuses.
As then so now, this Tory led, learner Government, will dig deeper for the hubris that will in time overwhelm it and it will be replaced and as the Liberals are now all but unelectable, it will likely be a government formed by the labour party. But hubris will be waiting as it did for Gordon Brown. So now we need to learn the lesson, once and for all, that has been spelled put by Wilkinson and Pickett in their crucial book 'The Spirit Level' that if we want a happier, healthier, stronger society, one that is more at ease with itself, than we need to be legislating for greater equality. See www.equalitytrust.org.uk.
A new grandchild causes you to ask some pretty fundamental questions: How will she benefit from the latest bonus announcement by a leading bank?
Almost always the answer is not at all and as The Spirit Level points out, neither will the banker in question, unequal societies have more crime, more social unrest and people have shortet lives than in equal societies. Equal societies are better for all of us, equally.
Where is the pleasure to be gained in the bleak urban sci-fi landscape where the banker leaves the security of the underground car park in his secured living compound to drive through the dangerous streets to the so called security of the guarded underground car park beneath his office to take the private lift to his desk?
The landscape of this part of now rural Cumbria was both bleak and foreboding now it is simply breathtakingly beautiful. Places can change, people can change and as Martin Luther King, quoted in the Spirit Level' observed, 'the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice'
God is, S/he is as S/he is in Jesus so there is hope.
The grandchildren today discover 'treasures', old bottles, clinker and crystals.
Now on a sunny day it is heavenly by comparison, a bright sun, wildlife thriving, Salmon running up the stream to spawn, alive with grouse, pheasant and rabbits the dogs love to chase. So today, whilst my daughter was occupied with the new baby I walked the dogs. They run and run through the fields, chase the scent trails of rabbits and just chase to their hearts delight. And today the moles were announcing spring with their tunnelling.
Today it is an RSPB preserve.
It goes to show, no matter how much damage we do, the earth has a remarkable capacity to recover. The story is one of nations, civilizations, cultures, Conspiring over time to destroy themselves and recover in a repeating pattern of hubris and nemesis.
So it is with Goverments and Bankers. Greed is Greed however it is justified. Mrs. Thatchers 'trickle down theory' of wealth percolating throughout society as long as the rich were left free to make money as it was spent it would trickle down through the economy benefitting each layer was shown to be both false and untrue. It soon became clear who got the pies, who avoided the taxes and who got the bonuses.
As then so now, this Tory led, learner Government, will dig deeper for the hubris that will in time overwhelm it and it will be replaced and as the Liberals are now all but unelectable, it will likely be a government formed by the labour party. But hubris will be waiting as it did for Gordon Brown. So now we need to learn the lesson, once and for all, that has been spelled put by Wilkinson and Pickett in their crucial book 'The Spirit Level' that if we want a happier, healthier, stronger society, one that is more at ease with itself, than we need to be legislating for greater equality. See www.equalitytrust.org.uk.
A new grandchild causes you to ask some pretty fundamental questions: How will she benefit from the latest bonus announcement by a leading bank?
Almost always the answer is not at all and as The Spirit Level points out, neither will the banker in question, unequal societies have more crime, more social unrest and people have shortet lives than in equal societies. Equal societies are better for all of us, equally.
Where is the pleasure to be gained in the bleak urban sci-fi landscape where the banker leaves the security of the underground car park in his secured living compound to drive through the dangerous streets to the so called security of the guarded underground car park beneath his office to take the private lift to his desk?
The landscape of this part of now rural Cumbria was both bleak and foreboding now it is simply breathtakingly beautiful. Places can change, people can change and as Martin Luther King, quoted in the Spirit Level' observed, 'the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice'
God is, S/he is as S/he is in Jesus so there is hope.
Wednesday 16 February 2011
16th February 2011
Tuesdays child is full of grace. An open letter to a new Grandaughter.
What will the future offer you our newest grandaughter? It is so important to be optimistic. We want the best for you, health, happiness, a future, a career, a loving relationship and to grow old without want or fear.
Not everyone can take these things for granted. Certainly not in poorer parts of the world. certainly not in places where nature turns against people and where life is a struggle against the environment.
But for you a child born into a rich, western democracy it should be possible to look forward positively to a future free from what a saintly man called William Beveridge once described as the great evils: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease.
Thank God that in the main these evils have been conquered and that you will be able to take for granted, clean water, sanitation, an education, good health care, a job at the end of school and college, a career, and a comfortable old age.
But there is so much more to being human. It is true that ensuring that life is comfortable is necessary, but it is only a first step.
What I hope for you and all my grandchildren is a future where you can dream your dreams and celebrate your achievements and live surrounded by music, culture, art and poetry inspiring the marvellous creative spirit that inspires and shapes you as a human being.
It is true that the world we are gifting you is both better and worse than the one we inherited. There is much for grandparents to be proud of and in particular I believe that life is now so much freer and more hopeful as a result of the many changes that happened in one decade, now called 'the sixties'.
Before 1961 we used to watch life in Black and White, Dixon of Dock Green was really Dixon of Dock Grey, now we watch TV and the wider world in colour. Before 1961 we used to get new clothes for the Whitsun walks now we can change our look whenever we choose. Before 1961 children could be 'seen but not heard' now your voice and opinions are sought and valued. In the grey days of the 1950's the watch word was austerity but life now offers so much more and can be embraced and enjoyed to the fullest, if you can imagine it, you can achieve it.
But then there is global warming of course, the weather is worse, wetter and windier, or do I just remember the long summers of my school days as being warmer and sunnier? There is still poverty, the five evils still stalk the land both here in the western world, and across the globe and people continue to battle against them, in Asia and Africa and the Middle East. War continues to rear its ugly head most recently in a place called Iraq and it continues in Afghanistan, these are places I suspect that ten years from now you will still be learning about in school and seeing on the TV news. Terrorism threatens the stability of the world we are bequeathing to you and tragically religion continues to be the cause of the worst expressions of terrorism. How God's children can hate each other so? is a question I cannot answer but perhaps one day you and all those other children born this year will find a better answer than we have.
What will the future offer you our newest grandaughter? It is so important to be optimistic. We want the best for you, health, happiness, a future, a career, a loving relationship and to grow old without want or fear.
Not everyone can take these things for granted. Certainly not in poorer parts of the world. certainly not in places where nature turns against people and where life is a struggle against the environment.
But for you a child born into a rich, western democracy it should be possible to look forward positively to a future free from what a saintly man called William Beveridge once described as the great evils: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease.
Thank God that in the main these evils have been conquered and that you will be able to take for granted, clean water, sanitation, an education, good health care, a job at the end of school and college, a career, and a comfortable old age.
But there is so much more to being human. It is true that ensuring that life is comfortable is necessary, but it is only a first step.
What I hope for you and all my grandchildren is a future where you can dream your dreams and celebrate your achievements and live surrounded by music, culture, art and poetry inspiring the marvellous creative spirit that inspires and shapes you as a human being.
It is true that the world we are gifting you is both better and worse than the one we inherited. There is much for grandparents to be proud of and in particular I believe that life is now so much freer and more hopeful as a result of the many changes that happened in one decade, now called 'the sixties'.
Before 1961 we used to watch life in Black and White, Dixon of Dock Green was really Dixon of Dock Grey, now we watch TV and the wider world in colour. Before 1961 we used to get new clothes for the Whitsun walks now we can change our look whenever we choose. Before 1961 children could be 'seen but not heard' now your voice and opinions are sought and valued. In the grey days of the 1950's the watch word was austerity but life now offers so much more and can be embraced and enjoyed to the fullest, if you can imagine it, you can achieve it.
But then there is global warming of course, the weather is worse, wetter and windier, or do I just remember the long summers of my school days as being warmer and sunnier? There is still poverty, the five evils still stalk the land both here in the western world, and across the globe and people continue to battle against them, in Asia and Africa and the Middle East. War continues to rear its ugly head most recently in a place called Iraq and it continues in Afghanistan, these are places I suspect that ten years from now you will still be learning about in school and seeing on the TV news. Terrorism threatens the stability of the world we are bequeathing to you and tragically religion continues to be the cause of the worst expressions of terrorism. How God's children can hate each other so? is a question I cannot answer but perhaps one day you and all those other children born this year will find a better answer than we have.
You will become in time a new generation and it is my hope for you that you will find ways to restore compassion to the centre of human life and ensure that young people and women are more respected than they are now.
So things are better, you can be more optimistic than when I was born in the shadow of a war that had ravaged Europe and into a world where opportunities were limited for people born into what was called the 'working class'.
I was lucky, I managed to get myself into college and I have worked in a job that it has been a privilege and now in retirement I am relatively well off. So it is my hope and prayer for you and all my grandchildren that you go on to live a happy fulfilling and rewarding life and that where possible you take responsibility for making the world a better place than the one you have inherited from me and my generation. I can only say in our defence that we tried .................
Monday 14 February 2011
14th March 2011
The papers are full of 'the Big Society' what is it? can it be defined? is it just a way of softening the cuts? how can it be better presented? will it define David Cameron's premiership?
Watching the City Derby on Saturday I found myself thinking about the Big Society. Now here's a thing, look at what is represented on the pitch, how many nations? Sir Alex is a Scot, Roberto Mancini, Italian, the players representing a variety of nations. There was a uniting of nations on the pitch. The game was played in front of a crowd of seventy five thousand and a quick look around revealed the coming together of supporters from the City of Manchester representing its wide ethnicity and diversity. This was a big society. Watching on TV from around the world hundreds of thousands who, immediately that Rooney scored the winning goal, were sending a tidal wave of facebook messages. And the goal expanded the big society even further as it appeared to be both impossible and touched with a genius from another galaxy.
I have started to write about it a couple of times but so far everything I have written just seems to repeat what others are saying and there's little point in that.
But I continue to feel uncomfortable with the idea which seems to me to have arrived direct and undigested from an Eton social studies class via the Bullingdon Club.
The first thing to say is that most people seem to think that it is simply a cover for the cuts, big society, small government. That it is about volunteering, or social enterprise or even Academies and handing NHS commissioning directly to GP's
My misgivings lie deeper than the immediate impact the idea has. I am also deeply wary of the role of Philip Blond the so called 'Red' Tory in promoting the idea of the big society insofar that he appears to be attempting to make some connection between philosophy and theology and the idea of caring conservatism.
This weekend I was visiting with family in Bradford. Friday I went along to the swimming baths with my son in law and granddaughter, Saturday watched the match and sat down to eat a curry in the evening. In between times there were games, conversation, parties and my grandson wore his 'I love Genova' T Shirt.
Then on Sunday we went across to Cartwright Hall to see an exhibition called connect. The idea is an exhibition connecting people and places.
Sitting in front of David Hockney's Le Plongeur I suddenly realised what is wrong with the big Society. It is in fact a small idea. It serves to make Britain great again by making the world smaller. It is an anglophone idea.
But the exhibition in Bradford, with it's connections between people and places the world over, defines what makes Britain. From the sculpture of the Alpaca and the Mohair Goat in the entrance hall to Salimi Hashima's Zones of Dreams the visitor is reminded again and again of people. places, connections and that we are part of a fluid, interconnected, dynamic and constantly changing world.
This government, with its resistance to fully joining Europe despite being part of Europe, its limits on migration despite immigration being a key to creating future wealth and its emphasis on borders and boundaries being protected and secure, is not promoting a big society at all.
The notion of a truly big society must be one in which individuals and communities are open and accessible, one in which security comes from the respect we show each other, one in which freedom is a given.
A truly big society will possess both global vision and local application.
Watching the City Derby on Saturday I found myself thinking about the Big Society. Now here's a thing, look at what is represented on the pitch, how many nations? Sir Alex is a Scot, Roberto Mancini, Italian, the players representing a variety of nations. There was a uniting of nations on the pitch. The game was played in front of a crowd of seventy five thousand and a quick look around revealed the coming together of supporters from the City of Manchester representing its wide ethnicity and diversity. This was a big society. Watching on TV from around the world hundreds of thousands who, immediately that Rooney scored the winning goal, were sending a tidal wave of facebook messages. And the goal expanded the big society even further as it appeared to be both impossible and touched with a genius from another galaxy.
I have started to write about it a couple of times but so far everything I have written just seems to repeat what others are saying and there's little point in that.
But I continue to feel uncomfortable with the idea which seems to me to have arrived direct and undigested from an Eton social studies class via the Bullingdon Club.
The first thing to say is that most people seem to think that it is simply a cover for the cuts, big society, small government. That it is about volunteering, or social enterprise or even Academies and handing NHS commissioning directly to GP's
My misgivings lie deeper than the immediate impact the idea has. I am also deeply wary of the role of Philip Blond the so called 'Red' Tory in promoting the idea of the big society insofar that he appears to be attempting to make some connection between philosophy and theology and the idea of caring conservatism.
This weekend I was visiting with family in Bradford. Friday I went along to the swimming baths with my son in law and granddaughter, Saturday watched the match and sat down to eat a curry in the evening. In between times there were games, conversation, parties and my grandson wore his 'I love Genova' T Shirt.
Then on Sunday we went across to Cartwright Hall to see an exhibition called connect. The idea is an exhibition connecting people and places.
Sitting in front of David Hockney's Le Plongeur I suddenly realised what is wrong with the big Society. It is in fact a small idea. It serves to make Britain great again by making the world smaller. It is an anglophone idea.
But the exhibition in Bradford, with it's connections between people and places the world over, defines what makes Britain. From the sculpture of the Alpaca and the Mohair Goat in the entrance hall to Salimi Hashima's Zones of Dreams the visitor is reminded again and again of people. places, connections and that we are part of a fluid, interconnected, dynamic and constantly changing world.
This government, with its resistance to fully joining Europe despite being part of Europe, its limits on migration despite immigration being a key to creating future wealth and its emphasis on borders and boundaries being protected and secure, is not promoting a big society at all.
The notion of a truly big society must be one in which individuals and communities are open and accessible, one in which security comes from the respect we show each other, one in which freedom is a given.
A truly big society will possess both global vision and local application.
Friday 11 February 2011
Friday 11 02 2011
Heading down to Bradford this weekend to visit family and somewhat belatedly celebrate a birthday. Hopefully a pleasant weekend, spiced with the Manchester Derby on Saturday, will also involve sampling a Curry from our favourite restaurant Eastern Spice.
Doubtless we will raise a glass to multi-culturalism as we eat.
Bradford is also an interesting reminder of the history of that man currently in the news, The Right Honorable Eric Pickles.
Eric Pickles was of course leader of Bradford City Council. It is interesting to remind yourself of the controversy surrounding him in Bradford before he left having been elected as a Conservative MP.
Wikipedia offers a short biography of Pickles:
Served as leader of the Conservative group on the council ..... after .... the Conservative Party gained control by using the Conservative mayor's casting vote to become the only inner-city council to be controlled by the Conservatives.
Apparently Twitter and facebook are now being seen as public forum's and therefore presumably anything published is subject to the same legal constraints as any other publication in Newspapers and magazines.
Rather than being afraid of this recently reported ruling it is perhaps useful to reflect on how it coud help facebook to take a new role in the public discourse about the kind of society we want to become.
Both facebook and to a lesser extent twitter have become in recent times the 21st century equivalent of the 'public square', the place and the forum where ideas can be debated and the public discourse progressed. If that is right then it is essential that the discourse is conducted in a civilised and courteous manner.
But it is also essential that much valued and dearly held beliefs are robustly defended.
So I will journey to Bradford with the sense that it is a rare privilege to be living in a multi-cultural society, which is a part of Europe and is one in which the weakest and least privileged are defended and respected as fellow citizens.
In 1985 I returned from a semester in Cambridge, Mass., and journeyed to Yorkshire to visit a friend. Turning off the AI towards Doncaster I was stopped by the police and questioned about the purpose of my journey, my destination and who I was visiting.
Hopefully today's journey will be without incident.
Doubtless we will raise a glass to multi-culturalism as we eat.
Bradford is also an interesting reminder of the history of that man currently in the news, The Right Honorable Eric Pickles.
Eric Pickles was of course leader of Bradford City Council. It is interesting to remind yourself of the controversy surrounding him in Bradford before he left having been elected as a Conservative MP.
Wikipedia offers a short biography of Pickles:
Served as leader of the Conservative group on the council ..... after .... the Conservative Party gained control by using the Conservative mayor's casting vote to become the only inner-city council to be controlled by the Conservatives.
Whilst at Bradford, Pickles announced a ..... controversial ..... five-year plan to cut the council's budget by £50m, reduce the workforce by a third, privatise services and undertake council departmental restructures.
Wikipedia cites Tony Grogan's book The Pickles Papers which was written about this period in Pickles's life.
It is interesting to notice how the Bradford experiment appears to have informed the approach that he and this Tory led Government has adopted with regard to the future funding of local authorities.Apparently Twitter and facebook are now being seen as public forum's and therefore presumably anything published is subject to the same legal constraints as any other publication in Newspapers and magazines.
Rather than being afraid of this recently reported ruling it is perhaps useful to reflect on how it coud help facebook to take a new role in the public discourse about the kind of society we want to become.
Both facebook and to a lesser extent twitter have become in recent times the 21st century equivalent of the 'public square', the place and the forum where ideas can be debated and the public discourse progressed. If that is right then it is essential that the discourse is conducted in a civilised and courteous manner.
But it is also essential that much valued and dearly held beliefs are robustly defended.
So I will journey to Bradford with the sense that it is a rare privilege to be living in a multi-cultural society, which is a part of Europe and is one in which the weakest and least privileged are defended and respected as fellow citizens.
In 1985 I returned from a semester in Cambridge, Mass., and journeyed to Yorkshire to visit a friend. Turning off the AI towards Doncaster I was stopped by the police and questioned about the purpose of my journey, my destination and who I was visiting.
Hopefully today's journey will be without incident.
Wednesday 9 February 2011
Wednesday 9th February 2011
I have just finished reading the Melvyn Bragg trilogy about Wigton which follows Joe Richardson through the post war years to Oxford. It is a powerful and compelling story. Describing, in a deeply affecting way, the changes that have taken place since, the Soldiers Return. For me the story's success was in the way it reminded me as a reader of my own childhood and progress from working class roots through academia to life in the vicarage.
It was almost impossible to imagine as a child or teenager growing up in Manchester in the 1950's that in 2011 we might have such dynamic and interactive communication as facebook or twitter. Online communities extend the sense of what friendship might be and what potential there is for change.
I first encountered the concept of the internet at a conference in Mexico. I had never heard of a 'Home Page' until I saw an example projected onto a screen. The notion that you as an individual, your local community group or church could have an online presence with a Home Page, which would be the same, in effect, as The White House or The Disney Corporation was radical and potentially revolutionary.
Recent events in Tunisia and in Egypt have been credited to facebooks' power to energise an online community into taking action. It would seem that the vision shared at that conference of a levelling out of the playing field between Government's, Corporations and individuals might be possible.
That popular change might even be managed here in the UK would have seemed unlikely but recently posts on facebook and twitter, now determined to be in the public rather than private domain, have shifted from the Lol variety, toward some serious concerns being raised about the speed and direction of the social change being initiated and driven forward urgently and some would say recklessly, whilst others would
say ideologically, by this Tory led government.
It is deeply depressing to read about the whole sale dismantling of institutions and traditions that have been part and parcel of our social fabric in post-war Britain. The most recent announcement regarding abolishing the May Day holiday is a case in part. It is small minded, mean spirited, and clearly aimed at removing a holiday that is viewed as left wing.
Much worse is proposed and the recent posts have highlighted examples such as the changes to the tax regimes affecting off shore companies.
Essentially the false narrative propounded by the government regarding responsibility for the financial disasters of 2009 needs now to be consistently challenged and a new narrative rehearsed to reposition Labour as the party of fairness and justice.
It was almost impossible to imagine as a child or teenager growing up in Manchester in the 1950's that in 2011 we might have such dynamic and interactive communication as facebook or twitter. Online communities extend the sense of what friendship might be and what potential there is for change.
I first encountered the concept of the internet at a conference in Mexico. I had never heard of a 'Home Page' until I saw an example projected onto a screen. The notion that you as an individual, your local community group or church could have an online presence with a Home Page, which would be the same, in effect, as The White House or The Disney Corporation was radical and potentially revolutionary.
Recent events in Tunisia and in Egypt have been credited to facebooks' power to energise an online community into taking action. It would seem that the vision shared at that conference of a levelling out of the playing field between Government's, Corporations and individuals might be possible.
That popular change might even be managed here in the UK would have seemed unlikely but recently posts on facebook and twitter, now determined to be in the public rather than private domain, have shifted from the Lol variety, toward some serious concerns being raised about the speed and direction of the social change being initiated and driven forward urgently and some would say recklessly, whilst others would
say ideologically, by this Tory led government.
It is deeply depressing to read about the whole sale dismantling of institutions and traditions that have been part and parcel of our social fabric in post-war Britain. The most recent announcement regarding abolishing the May Day holiday is a case in part. It is small minded, mean spirited, and clearly aimed at removing a holiday that is viewed as left wing.
Much worse is proposed and the recent posts have highlighted examples such as the changes to the tax regimes affecting off shore companies.
Essentially the false narrative propounded by the government regarding responsibility for the financial disasters of 2009 needs now to be consistently challenged and a new narrative rehearsed to reposition Labour as the party of fairness and justice.
Tuesday 8 February 2011
Tuesday 8th February 2011
Today could almost be the first day of spring. It has stopped raining. The birds are singing. The Harley started first turn of the key. I even managed a short run to put air in the tyres and some fresh petrol in the tank.
But tomorrow rain is forecast and doubtless the depression will return.
Living with this government is like an ironic version of the Christopher Logue poem about Lao Tzu: Lao-Tzu meets a woman weeping, everything has gone wrong, her husband, son, daughter all face calamity and the traffic drives her mad. Why stay in this place? he enquires.
'O well', she replies, 'the government is not too bad'. If only that were true of this Tory led government.
After struggling with my hearing for a year or two and leaving my hearing aid at home when I visited Genoa I am trying an experiment and wearing it permanently.
Amazing! An aural revelation. I can hear again. It's the aural equivalent of what happens when you get your first pair of spectacles, a world in technicolour or in this case, stereo.
My hearing aid came via the NHS but for how much longer I wonder? And then what £10,000 for a private hearing aid?
Everything I have valued throughout my life is now being threatened or challenged whilst at the same time the head of Barclays tells us to, 'get over yourselves', whilst pocketing a £9M bonus, which is more than I have earned in my life as a Vicar and Charity Worker.
Between 1974 and 1978 I was a vicar in Salford, I was constantly amazed and impressed and really quite proud of the congregation who volunteered as samaritans, meals on wheels staff, WRVS etc etc this group of mainly retired people truly represented a society which was extended, community based and alive to the needs of others. They represented a caring and practical expression of faith in action, they did it because it needed doing, they cared and they recognised that their faith demanded it.
David Cameron should wake up to the fact that the Big Society is not a new idea and recognise with some sense of humility how much has been done over the years by ordinary folk making extra-ordinary efforts to live as 'good neighbours' wihtout needing to be 'encouraged' by the removal of benefits and an increase in taxation.
But tomorrow rain is forecast and doubtless the depression will return.
Living with this government is like an ironic version of the Christopher Logue poem about Lao Tzu: Lao-Tzu meets a woman weeping, everything has gone wrong, her husband, son, daughter all face calamity and the traffic drives her mad. Why stay in this place? he enquires.
'O well', she replies, 'the government is not too bad'. If only that were true of this Tory led government.
After struggling with my hearing for a year or two and leaving my hearing aid at home when I visited Genoa I am trying an experiment and wearing it permanently.
Amazing! An aural revelation. I can hear again. It's the aural equivalent of what happens when you get your first pair of spectacles, a world in technicolour or in this case, stereo.
My hearing aid came via the NHS but for how much longer I wonder? And then what £10,000 for a private hearing aid?
Everything I have valued throughout my life is now being threatened or challenged whilst at the same time the head of Barclays tells us to, 'get over yourselves', whilst pocketing a £9M bonus, which is more than I have earned in my life as a Vicar and Charity Worker.
Between 1974 and 1978 I was a vicar in Salford, I was constantly amazed and impressed and really quite proud of the congregation who volunteered as samaritans, meals on wheels staff, WRVS etc etc this group of mainly retired people truly represented a society which was extended, community based and alive to the needs of others. They represented a caring and practical expression of faith in action, they did it because it needed doing, they cared and they recognised that their faith demanded it.
David Cameron should wake up to the fact that the Big Society is not a new idea and recognise with some sense of humility how much has been done over the years by ordinary folk making extra-ordinary efforts to live as 'good neighbours' wihtout needing to be 'encouraged' by the removal of benefits and an increase in taxation.
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