Thursday 31 March 2011

1st April 2011

The Big Society is still being proposed as a way for a cash strapped nation to solve its problems, cure its woes and get everyone feeling good about themselves.

The trouble with the big society is that no-one seems able to accurately define it.

Good Neighbourliness? That might do. The charity that I worked for was quite big on the big society. One of the aphorisms of the founder was 'do something useful everyday and don't get found out'.

He founded a society in which everyone was committed to doing good by stealth, which was a problem over the long run because of course if no-one knows 'who dunnit' then no-one gives the credit for it being done or worse they sometimes claim the credit.

More than one volunteer speaking of their 'work' said I did it because I was a member of your charity but I did it on behalf of another charity so everyone thought that I was their volunteer.

Eventually the charity's members grew older and no younger people came up because they chose, quite sensibly to, volunteer for named charities with identifiable causes.

But alongside good neighbourliness there is also self interest.

I recall speaking to a community organiser in Birmingham who lived on the sixth floor of a tower block on an outer estate. It wasn't an especially poor estate and enjoyed a good reputation. Over supper we got onto the topic of why people help each other. His reasoning was that if he helped out in his local community centre, it meant that he was known and built up respect and trust with local people, he could then move about his estate freely and without fear.

As he put it; I can sit on my balcony in the evening with a glass of beer and watch the sun go down. Everything is peaceful and quiet and I have been partly responsible. It's a good feeling.

Helping build better communities gives us that feeling because neighbourliness is reciprocated leaving us better off as a result of the social capital we have built.

In the C18th an Irish clergyman called Jonathan Swift wrote a satire on Human Nature; Gulliver's Travels.

It is the story of Lemuel Gulliver, a ships surgeon who sets off on a series of travels.

One of the countries that he visits is very definitely a Big Society.

His ship is driven off course and he starts to run short of water. So he heads into land to find a stream so he can collect fresh water.

Something unnerves his fellow travellers who run off leaving Gulliver to be captured by a farmer who is 72 feet tall and who has a footstep of 10 yards.

The farmer takes Gulliver home for his daughter who whilst not 72 feet tall is a big girl who treats him like a doll. He is treated as a curiosity and exhibited for money.

Eventually he is is bought by the Queen of the country which is called Brobdingnag and becomes a favourite of the court.

I tried very hard to work out if Brobdingnag was an anagram but couldn't find one but you can make 194 words of four letters or more if you're challenged by that, no prizes, success will be its own reward.

The problem Gulliver has is that everything is simply too huge for him to use, chairs, beds, tables, plates are all enormous.

In this big society Gulliver fights giant wasps, is being carried to the roof of an enormous Castle by a monkey, and eventually seized by a giant eagle which drops him into the sea where he is, thankfully rescued.

So there it is the big society full of big people with enormous strides, but very scary for the likes of ordinary sized folks.

You should always be careful what you wish for ............ especially on the first of April.

31st March 2011

If you go down to the woods today get ready for a big surprise.

There may be For Sale notices being nailed to the trees just when you thought the woodland was safe.

It seems that the claims of the Chancellor about his 'Robin Hood' budget were a mistake because the woods are back on the market.

A case of 'No Wood, No Robin Hood'?

Living as we do in a fairly rural part of the North West we have a number of accessible woodlands close by where we live and we are regular visitors and enjoy the streams, the sight of deer and otters and the peace and quiet and in one woodland where the fishing rights are owned by an angling association of which I am a member I can fish for Brown Trout in the singing water.

One of the woods we visit is a private estate, the new owners recently created some local controversy by engaging in a wide ranging remodelling of the estate, some culling, coppicing, felling and earthworks. At the same time a number of signs were erected acknowledging the public footpath and the right of way but reminding people that they were on private land.

The hoo hah seems to have died down and all is quiet in those woods.

On the other side of the stream which divides the public woodland from the private there has been no maintenance undertaken, fallen trees are left lying, often across the paths making the wood less accessible. Of course it all comes down to money and there is little money for the parish council to invest when there are other demands on its limited budget.

Nearby another woodland, the remains of an ancient Beech Forest, is owned by the Woodland Trust. Here walkers can see the benefits of the Trusts public ownership of the woodland.

Here maintenance is routinely undertaken, but the woodland is left in a fairly natural state. There is gravelled path that allows for wheelchair access, a lovely picnic area next to the open water, where dragonflies can be seen in the summer and even a Barbecue are for a family picnic or a Teddy Bear picnic in the woods.

The woodland is pleasant to walk through at any time of year, and the seasons are beautifully differentiated because of the mix of deciduous and evergreen trees, spring sunshine or winter sun glinting on snow the woodland is a huge public resource which can be enjoyed for dog walking, quiet strolls, bird watching or for the children an dfor chancellors playing at Robin Hood.

It is possible to catch an occasional glimpse of deer and the silence is only occasionally broken by the sound of a woodpecker rattling his beak against the trunk of a hundred year old beech tree.

This ownership model seems to offer the best of both worlds, with woodland and the public benefit ting from both access and investment.

So it was a surprise to read in today's paper that woodlands are back on the agenda.

Even before the independent forestry panel, under the Chairmanship if the Bishop of Liverpool, has met Caroline Spelman MP the Environment Secretary, has been charged with raising a £100 Million by selling 15% of the woodland.

Reading the piece in the paper it does look as though the first priority is the £100M, after all the sale of the woods has little or no merit other than ensuring that money is raised.

But I guess things are more complicated. I know next to nothing about forestry management, I just like walking in Woodland and looking out for Red Squirrels. I am not at all sure what the politics of woodlands are, (probably more to do with the politics of the Badgers and those pesky squirrels?)I just hope that the Bishop of Liverpool can see the wood for the trees when his commission starts work.

But I imagine that part of the political emphasis is to see the Forestry Commission's joint role as owner and regulator, separated. Alongside this to find a way of blaming the Labour Party for overspending on forests and then make sure that what are called community and heritage woodlands are seen to be kept accessible whoever owns them or however they were acquired and then to slowly and silently dispose of the commercial forests.

There are plenty of woodlands for sale right now so one solution is go out and buy one, another solution is to join the campaign to save the woodlands we currently enjoy visiting but whatever we do look out for the bears because today is the day they're having their picnic ..............

Tuesday 29 March 2011

29th March 2011

Protests against the cuts are understandable.

Most families will be affected. Whether it is children's services, services for the elderly or take home pay or redundancy, in most families someone will be affected.

According to the commentariat Local Authorities are protecting their own services and cutting grants to charities. In my paper this morning there was a table showing fifty services which are to be axed as a result of funding being lost.

Some local authorities are attempting to be strategic, thereby saving money on their own in-house management by streamlining back office functions, rationalising buildings and office use and even sharing Chief Executives.

Such strategic thinking and acting is preferred to salami slicing services.

But it occurs to me to ask why has the coalition allowed a situation to arise whereby the painful decisions have been sent down the line to be made after the financial settlements have been announced?

Forgetting for a moment, the no fly zone in Libya, the Irish bail out, the Japanese Tsunami, education policy and pensions; the two main thrusts of the coalitions policy is to reduce the national debt and promote the big society.

Labour apparently agrees that the debt should be reduced, but more slowly and is in a double bind because really the big society is a big socialist idea rather than a Tory one, so it is for it but only if it is dressed up as a slightly different version.

But if you have a plan that is that simple then why has it been so difficult to co-ordinate your policies to enable the plan to be implemented?

Tory Governments have historically had a problem with big City authorities, which are usually but not always, Labour controlled. That's one problem. The other is the increasing size of the 'third sector' as the charitable world likes to be known. Professional charities, with huge budgets and hundreds of staff are not always sympathetic to Tory Governments and the feeling is mutual.

What we need is to move this debate outside of the political arena and indeed outside of both party and sector interests too.

I have been to too many meetings in my time as both a Vicar and a Director of a Charity where either the great and good of the charity world have sat at the head of the table and politicians have been wheeled in, or political meetings where the heads of Charitable organisations have been quizzed by politicians.

Meetings like this are usually confrontational and unhelpful.

The truth is that there is enough money and we are a wealthy enough country to run our children's and elderly services, educate our young people to degree level above and invest in the future of the countries social and infrastructures.

But to listen to the rhetoric of politicians you wouldn't think so.

Since the eighties the tinkering by both parties has resulted in frustration as power has shifted from the centre to the local and back again.

We need to ask what are we trying to achieve?

What do we need to make it happen?

Who should pay?

Who is better placed to deliver the services we want?

How can they be supported?

To simply start by stripping out the money, cutting the budgets and raising the taxes doesn't really help anyone plan or deliver the services we need to keep society functioning at its optimum level to support the people who need support and ensure that all contribute to what has been called the 'common good'.

Central Government has its responsibilities and they are clear, national security lies at the heart of that responsibility alongside investment in national infrastructure. This will be an increasingly crucial task as the power and influence of the BRIC countries increases.

Local Government should have a strategic role in ensuring that local community services are delivered, people and businesses housed and supported and young people educated to the highest standards. Some regional balance will be needed if the biggest of our Cities, London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Bristol are to take on the important regional role.

Charities can assist with some of this but always more effectively at the level of challenging people to become involved in their communities more locally.

The problem we have is a muddle that arisen from years of territorial battles with national government trespassing on local government territory, with the desperate attempt to impose an entirely artificial market economy and charities being viewed as a cheap alternative.

We need a national debate on what kind of society we want to become and how the common good can be achieved ...........

Monday 28 March 2011

28th March 2011

Popped into Brampton this morning.

Brampton in Cumbria is our nearest Market Town, the surgery is there, it has a cottage hospital, a charity bookshop, a number of charity shops and antique shops, a couple of good Butchers and a fantastic co-op. It is very close to Hadrian's Wall and as such is both a tourist destination as well as the largest town between Carlisle and Haltwhistle on the A69.

Brampton is a transition town. Fair Trade is a feature of life here. There is a community cafe in the community centre, a film club, a wholefood shop and occasionally Alan Bennett can be seen in the town.

Remnants of the Ninth Legion are reportedly still fighting the Picts just north of the Town and the new film Eagle of the Ninth should put hadrian's wall and Brampton firmly on the map.


The Moot Hall built in 1817 hosts both the Tourist Information Centre and a number of community Coffee mornings.

There is a Wednesday Market and a regular farmers market.

Today we quite fancied a coffee so we popped into Off the Wall, because Brampton is literally just off Hadrian's Wall (clever stuff this!).

The cafe has a face book page, see: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Off-The-Wall/105424000970 and last Friday our friends Stew and Danny aka Hadrian's Union played at the cafe, see: http://hadriansunion.com/ or look them up on facebook, http://www.facebook.com/#!/home.php?sk=group_199455846740191

It was a particularly nice cup of coffee because we shared the table with our daughter and our youngest and newest grandchild Evie. But £1.50 for a double espresso is not bad and I am told the cake was nice too (it is Lent after all).

But what was amazing and what this is leading to, is that the cafe was almost full, it was buzzing, and nearly all the customers (apart from our youngest daughter and our youngest and newest granddaughter Evie) were senior citizens and they were all feverishly tapping away on lap top computers.

It was clearly the morning of the silver surfers.

There they were drinking coffee and surfing away, facebooking, tweeting, buying stuff on the net, downloading all sorts of stuff ( I didn't ask)I don't know whether it was an organised course or whether folk were completing their census forms online or if it was a drop in or a session organised by the open university or just the council spending some unspent grant or council tax money before the end of the financial year, but it was great.

I did check to see if there was a spare lap top (there wasn't and it was also clear that people were pleased to see Evie because I am sure that even at three weeks old she could have given them a bit of advice as to how to send their e mails or how to set up a face book page, children are born with this knowledge these days.

The reason older folk find technology so scary is that they haven't learned the lesson of Matthew 18:1-6, 'Except you become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven' or in this case the kingdom of Bill Gates and Microsoft or if you're that way inclined, Steve Jobs and Apple.

The thing is children are fearless, they press and point and play and make mistakes and learn from them and press and point and play again until they get it right. And as a new book called The Rational Optimist is suggesting there is increasingly, a shared memory, a kind of social capital building, into which we all contribute and to which we all have access, in summary we are all standing on the shoulders of giants, which depending on your preference is a quote from Oasis or Sir Isaac Newton.

Social knowledge is the key not individual learning.

I think that silver surfers are great because, like me, they grew up in a time when only posh houses had telephones and a letter was the only way to communicate. Libraries were where you went to gain knowledge from the reference books that couldn't be taken out.

Imagine, a world without Wikipedia and Google! Now 'google' is a verb meaning: 'to find out or discover'.

The rate of change over the lifetime of older people today has been phenomenal and it is brilliant that they are not only moving with the times but moving ahead of them even Skyping grandchildren to natter or help with homework.

So let's hear it for the silver surfers of Brampton, clearly Off the wall in more ways than one .....

Sunday 27 March 2011

27th March 2011

Just filled in the Census Form online.

Certainly very straightforward and hardly invasive and there was a question about retirement, so the letter in The Times was wrong!

They do want to know whether and why you are not working or looking for a job. The demographic map is essentially a complicated one. Born, as I was, in 1945 I was part of a population bulge, the baby boomers who have put pressure on services all the way through, from Nursery, through school, university, work, housing and now retirement.

If provision is not planned then shortage becomes surplus before plunging back into shortage again.

As health improves people live longer so it is not unreasonable to expect people to retire later, by undertaking this snapshot of life in Britain on March 27th 2011 it is possible to start to plan sensibly for the years ahead.

Generally I think the Census information is very valuable the information is critical in both planning services and in ensuring that the demographics are being mapped into the future helping not only economic forecasting but practical things like education for young people and services for the elderly.

Obviously folk who are into genealogy also find previous census information invaluable in tracking down ancestors and checking whether there are any skeletons in the family wardrobes, or black sheep lurking in the background.

Maybe I am just a simple soul and certainly as we get older and start to shed some of the accumulated junk that we have gathered over the years, answering the questions becomes easier.

I guess if I had fancied heading down to Trafalgar Square or even Hyde Park yesterday I might have wanted to keep my head down or my hoody up and wouldn't have been too keen to answer all the questions. Just in case. Just in case what I don't know.

Years ago I managed to get into the newspapers in a pretty big Daily Mirror kind of way. I was named as Britain's first punk vicar. I was interviewed on Radio 4 and TV but after the initial excitement it became a bit much so I headed off to stay with relatives. Just after we arrived the 'phone rang and it was the BBC, did I wear an ear ring, No! Oh well that's too bad.

After a couple of days we driving back home heading North on the Motorway when we realised that we were being followed by a Police Car, I pulled into a services and the Police Car followed me in and parked next to me, before driving away the policeman in the passenger seat, gave me a mock salute.

It was unnerving. But they were just letting me know, so I knew that they knew. Now of course with the Internet they know so much more.

I remember a visitor we had in Newcastle years ago. We were heading down to the Pub for a quiet pint when we were stopped by someone filling in a questionnaire. I answered the questions about what shampoo I used or whatever and where I bought my razor blades thinking glad I don't have to do such a boring job in order to earn a living.

When it was his turn to answer I was amazed when my friend started by giving a false name, then a different address and then lapsed into a strange accent I had never heard before and then provided some fanciful answers to the questions.

As we walked away from the clearly utterly confused, questioner he muttered 'Can't be too careful, it'll all go in the dossier they keep'.

Wow! I thought, paranoid or what?

But of course 'they' do keep track, not big brother exactly but the amount of data out there, from information about bank details, Internet addresses, web-sites visited, shopping habits, mobile phone calls etc etc are all being maintained in order to keep track of where we are, what we are doing and why.

The big stores know a lot about us certainly more than can be gleaned from the answers to the Census, and can send detailed information as well as very targeted mail shots tempting us with things we need and things we might simply want (Maslow's hierarchy comes in handy at times!).

The last time I was in Italy I had a series of messages from various service providers and social networking sites essentially querying why I was accessing services from a different computer in a different location than usual.

The best was facebook asking me to name various 'friends' from their pictures I'm glad to report that I passed that particular test.

At one level it is quite reassuring but at another level the big society is being given an entirely new meaning.

Big Society is watching ........... and we know where you live!

Friday 25 March 2011

25th March 2011

Another beautiful day in Cumbria. We're watching the difference in the weather between here and Genoa as we get ready to take up the Locum Chaplaincy for Easter. It seems that Genoa is warmer (just) and (wetter) if the forecast on my weather app is correct.

Time will tell.

Meanwhile tonight we head East to Newcastle and The Sage in Gateshead to see Debbie Harry and the Jazz Passengers, can't wait, should be a great night.

It's all part of our Big Society, family, grandchildren, neighbours, the street, the local community and onwards and outwards to take in as much as we can, from prayers for Japan to sponsoring clean water in Sudan (that last from my Sermon preparation for this coming Sunday: a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, Will you give me a drink? (John 4 vv 7).

Apparently Chancellors are allowed to drink whilst delivering their Budget Speech, presumably water but who knows ..... perhaps a tot of one of those well known subsided beverages available in the commons bars?

Towards the end of his speech the Chancellor had a bit on the Big Society.

Apparently we should be judged not only on 'the strength of the economy' but on our 'compassion'. Try telling that to Asylum Seekers detained in Yarl's Wood.

But mainly the reference was about money which given that this was a Budget Speech seems fair enough. But some of the language was, to say the least somewhat lax, 'from the largest donations to the coins collected in the charity bucket'.

Bucket?

Not sure about that it somehow doesn't quite reflect what I think I am doing when I put my collection on the plate in Church, it somehow sneers a bit at what the bible calls the 'widow's mite' after all we don't want to be reminded of 'Bucket Shops' low cost tickets and cheap travel, or do we? charity on the cheap?

But it is worth remembering that story of the Widow whose giving was sacrificial versus the businessman whose giving was designed to impress.

Still Charities 'can claim up to £5000 a year without donors having to fill in any forms at all' and there will be special deals for 'works of art and historical objects' along with an 'encouragement to give 10% of your estate to charity'. All very worthwhile I guess.

But this 'hermeneutic' of the speech spotted two other interesting phrases, 'do the right thing for a charity and the Government will do the right thing by you' and 'a big help for the Big Society' notice the capital 'B' and capital 'S'.

Obviously what is proposed will help some charities and that is a good thing, but surely a big society is about more than financial help with the implied, bargain of do the right thing and the Government will respond in kind.

And what about the wide range of other activities that go on in families and communities?

To take an example close to my heart, what about those thousands of carers who give their time and energy to caring for less or differently abled family members? Admittedly there is a benefit called Carers Allowance but the carers allowance is both taxable and cannot be claimed with other benefits and pensions, including retirement pension.

According to Carers UK 'the value of carers unpaid support for their elderly, sick or disabled relatives, makes a contribution worth £87 billion a year', hardly a drop in the bucket, but that contribution 'is not properly recognised or rewarded'.

It would have made for a much more powerful rhetoric identifying both the compassion inherent in our society and the way that a Government can offer encouragement to ensure that compassion and care extend beyond what we might expect the state to do for us, to what we can do for ourselves. And to recognise or even reward that contribution.

The big society is simply the community in which we live. When I was a vicar in Newcastle I used to take a communion service every Tuesday and Thursday where we prayed especially for the City.

At each service I prayed for the 'the common good' it is an interesting phrase and one which this coalition Government would do well to reflect on, and ask, has this budget improved the common good?

Thursday 24 March 2011

24th March 2011

I was ordained in 1968. A friend of mine from the the same theological college was ordained into the same Diocese of Sheffield.

After a week or two we met up to compare notes. The usual stories about the odd people, the crazy questions and the parish meetings. Then my friend told me that on the previous Sunday he had been laying Lino in his bathroom when he suddenly realised that he was late for the evening service.

So grabbing his robes he rushed across to the Church, as he was processing in for the start of the service his Vicar asked what he was preaching on.

He spent the next forty minutes desperately trying to think of something to say. When the hymn before the sermon was announced he stepped into the pulpit and began his sermon. It was when he heard the words 'let Jesus help you iron out the bumps in the lino of life' that he realised he needed to put more time and effort into sermon preparation.

Today as I was riding across Caldbeck Commons on the Harley, as a contemporary horseback rider in a gasoline age, I found myself recalling that story whilst watching out for pot holes.

Pot holes are almost as dangerous to a motorcyclist as car drivers and white vans, they are all life threatening to one degree or the another.

As I negotiated the village of Hesket Newmarket with it's famous brewery and on under the shadow of Skiddaw and Blencathra, the combination of scenery, weather, the thump of the V twin and the winding road were unbeatable.

But the pot holes were to be avoided if a spill and a buckled wheel were to be avoided so at least part of the time I had to look at the road ahead and negotiate a safe path past the pot holes and the loose gravel.

Then I thought about yesterdays budget and for the life of me couldn't think what had been agreed or offered to me or anyone I knew that would make my life any better. The promise seemed to be that fuel had been put into the nations tank and the heir of an Anglo-Irish Baronetcy had offered to iron out the pot holes in the tarmac of life.

And how, I thought, can the Sherriff of Nottingham announce a 'Robin Hood' Budget?

So, with one eye open for pot holes, they hadn't all been filled in by six the previous evening, unlike fuel prices which went down and which will go up again, I began to wonder what, apart from Pot Holes, the budget had been about?

The commentariat seem to have developed an opinion overnight.

It was, apparently, about making sure that the Tories win the next election, well like the growth which hasn't happened yet, you can only observe, we'll see, either they will or they won't.

The other memory, borne out by reading the text, is that it was a valedictory address to Gordon Brown, who, whilst not named specifically 'gambled on a debt-fuelled model of growth that failed'.

It will be for others to comment on the technical details but we seem now to have embarked on another gamble, that the new austerity will result in growth. So far the evidence suggests that if there is to be growth then it is still some way off as the figures keep being revised.

Meanwhile as the Beatles sang in 1967:

I read the news today oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire


Well the good citizens of Blackburn have only had to wait forty four years but those holes are about to be filled in, but wait .... What? A campaign? Potholes? A national treasure? Historic? Really ..........?

Wednesday 23 March 2011

23rd March 2011

It is amazing how much better the sunshine makes you feel. What a glorious day it has been in our part of the North of England.

Hexham was bathed in warm sunshine as we strolled around the charity shops, sat outside in the sunshine to drink our espresso coffee's (what a pity it is not possible to make that a caffe corretto in Hexham) and then later walked along the River Tyne exercising both ourselves and the puppy.

Lunch had been taken in Wetherspoon's in Hexham, a pie and a pint, and had been affordable because of Wetherspoon's tight pricing policy that continues to make both a beer and a steak and kidney pudding affordable in these straightened times.

As we ate and drank, on the far wall of the pub, a TV showed the Chancellor making his budget speech. Nobody appeared to be watching. They were chatting amongst themselves, drinking or eating, or relaxing or waiting for the football.

It was a perfect British Pub lunchtime with plenty of craic, some joshing amongst the regulars and a warm welcome for anyone who had the price of an excellent pint of Holy Island Bitter Ale at less than two pounds a pint!!

Fantastic!

Almost cheaper than the diesel that I had filled the fuel tank of my car with earlier in the day!

So the heir to an Anglo-Irish Baronetcy delivered his budget speech whilst being listened to by his fellow MP's and ignored by the lunch-time crowd in Hexham. It was almost like watching wall paper, moving wallpaper, which was not necessarily inappropriate given the chancellor's family business.

It was, apparently, a budget for growth and jobs.

The measures were announced, a wee bit of help here, a wee tax cut there, a penny off fuel at 6 00pm (that was very precise) but with no mention of the fact that the rise in VAT had added three pence to the cost of the same fuel in January.

But the ending of the fuel escalator, was apparently being paid for by a tax on fuel producers linked to the price of a barrel of oil. On the way home I heard this described on the radio as a windfall tax, which is an interesting way of describing the effects of civil war in Libya! Certainly not a windfall if you live in Benghazi!

But back to the Budget, even the routine hike in tax on Alcohol and Cigarettes raised no eyebrows in this Wetherspoon's. Perhaps it was just expected or we were just resigned to it, hard to say, but even with the rise in taxes the Holy Island Bitter will still be under Two Pounds a Pint, so that's a relief. And the regulars gathered round the door to smoke seemed unperturbed at having to find another fifty pence a packet to indulge their habit.

The budget seemed in rather too many ways to be a non event but I am sure that the Conservative MP for Hexham Guy Opperman will be talking it up at his next constituency meeting.

This year living costs for an 'average family' would apparently have risen by two hundred pounds a year but when the increase in VAT is factored in, that rises to Four Hundred and Fifty Pounds. And according to the commentariat the budget has done little or nothing to change that.

But what is the 'average family'?

If you don't drink, don't smoke, don't drive a car, have a secure job, are planning to buy a new house and are a first time buyer, then this is the budget for you.

Pretty much for everyone else that doesn't fit into this average description of the average family then it is a fudge-it rather than a budget, delivered by the heir to an Anglo-Irish Baronetcy.

It will take time for all the implications to sink in fully, but it is hard to see how or where the benefits will be felt.

The back story to this budget is the tired narrative that it was Labour who overspent and frittered away the cash on luxuries like health, pensions, and support for young people. (Not to mention the financial services sector).

In the nineteen eighties I worked for two years with a Government Task Force. I started a Theology Co-op to attempt to bring the development of public policy in the Thatcher Government under the critical scrutiny of the bible.

We developed a hermeneutic of the Chancellors Speech which was critical of words and intentions that promised one thing and delivered another. I proposed that instead of tax breaks and grants and subsidies, we worked out how much the Task Force had to spend, divide it by the number on the electoral role and however much that came to, send each householder a cheque, a bit like premium bonds but without the Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment, just everyone getting the same share as announced by a Rams Horn in Leviticus 25.

They would spend the money on what they wanted, that would create demand, the money would circulate and business would be business for another forty nine years .....

Monday 21 March 2011

21st May 2011

Robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Over the years with a young family, on a Vicar's stipend, it became a way of life. I remember going to a cash machine to take out money on a credit card. Nothing unusual there you might say and you would be right. What was unusual was then going into the same bank in order to pay the minimum amount on the credit card.

I sort of gave the money circulation an extra spin every time I repeated the exercise. After all economists tell us the money supply and the rate of circulation of the money is key to the health of the economy, at least I think that's right? So it was a kind of public service.

Somehow over the years we muddled through.

And more than that we did very well, travelled extensively, had an annual holiday, ran various cars and motorcycles, brought up our children and then, when I changed jobs after our trip to the States, bought a house.

Muddling through is a very British thing to do.

It could be argued that we muddled through two world wars and we still are muddling through in Europe and with the deficit.

Apparently Stalin was quite non-plussed when Churchill announced that he was no longer leading the country because he had lost the election and his place at the conference table would be taken by Mr Attlee. Stalin of course didn't have elections to lose. He had his own ways of dealing with the opposition.

I imagine that Colonel Gaddafi has a similar problem with reality and of course democracy, unless his son has given him a masterclass in democracy and civil society.

The seamless handing over of power in a dictatorship from one generation to another has been called into question and the opposition, those calling for democracy, have launched an offensive and until the no-fly zone was imposed, seemed to be muddling through towards a free, democratic,transfer of power with the people replacing the autocrat as the ultimate determiners of what constitutes a good and satisfying life and what happens to the money.

If all you want is a slightly bigger share in the countries wealth and the right to elect a Government then surely that's OK, isn't it?

At least UN and President Sarkozy think so and every one else is going along with it.

But here in the UK we first have a budget and then we have to fill in the Census to find out how we are doing.

Well after a lifetime of work I am still muddling along and it would seem that most of what are variously called the squeezed middle, alarm clock Britain and Mondeo man (and his family) are just muddling along.

It now costs £150 to fill the fuel tank of my car (not a Mondeo!) with diesel which is a £40 increase since last September. But that's OK because inflation is 4%?

So we muddle on.

We muddle on by buying last years fashions in T K Maxx or charity shops.

We muddle on by staying in more and drinking blended whisky instead of single malts. Watching DVD's instead of going to the Cinema. We muddle on by turning the heating off and having an early night.

I'm sure we'll manage, we always have done!

Maybe the Budget will include a fuel regulator? Maybe there will be tax relief and pension increase or the Chancellor will imitate the Old Testament prophets and blow a Rams Horn in Westminster and all debts personal and public will be cancelled?

But once we know and I will be blogging on the Budget as you would expect, we can turn our attentions to completing the Census form and answering all the questions about who is staying overnight on the 27th, should I include Ruby I wonder?

Having answered all the questions we will continue to muddle on until we read the results when we will be told that it is now definite, and quite clear as the census has proved beyond doubt, that the nation is at it's happiest, when it is muddling along ..........

Saturday 19 March 2011

19th March 2011

The underlying theme of this Blog is the Big Society.

One of the things that contribute to making the Big Society, binding men and women together as co-conspirator's in the great game of life, is football.

Today, after playing badly, (again according to the commentariat) and being reduced to ten men following a Red Card, (was that because Sir Alex was banned from the touchline?)there were no red faces at Old Trafford, just Red Shirts celebrating along with the celebrations in our house because our team won and we edged ahead of Arsenal, who only managed a draw at West Bromwich.

Why does anyone become a football fan and how do you choose a team to support?

On the 6 February 1958, I was walking home from school, I was twelve years of age. I heard the news in fits and starts as it was shouted by people as they went about their business.

The black headlines outside the Newsagents and the paper sellers in the Street also told the story.

As yet there was little hard news and later that evening I had to travel back to Droylsden on a 19 Bus. At each stop the conductor would get off the bus and knock on a door to ask the latest news. A roll call of names was announced as the bus made its sad procession through the heartlands of Manchester United's heartland.

Next to me a a man began to weep.I had never before seen a man shed tears, these were after all the days when 'men were men and women loved them for it'.

It was heart breaking to hear the names called out. Roger Byrne, Eddie Colman, Tommy Taylor, Billy Whelan all died. Possibly the most iconic name Duncan Edwards, survived the crash, but died in hospital 15 days later.

Other survivors included Bobby, now Sir Bobby Charlton, Bill Foulkes and Harry Gregg the Goal keeper.

My Uncle Harold, was an avid Manchester United supporter, he was devastated by the news and the whole City went into mourning.

Apart from the players, Matt, later Sir Matt Busby, was badly injured, he had the last rites read over him on two occasions and he was in hospital for two months.

Altogether twenty of the forty four people on board the aircraft died in the crash, three survivors including Duncan Edwards dying later of their injuries.

The team was returning from a European Cup match against Red Star Belgrade, they made a stop in Munich for re-fuelling. It had begun to snow in Munich and the snow had drifted causing a build up of slush on the runway. During take off the aircraft lost velocity and crashed.

One of the many Heroes of that tragic night was Manchester United goalkeeper Harry Gregg who remained by the aircraft, ignoring the risk of explosion and his own safety he helped pull survivors from the wreckage.

At the time of the disaster, United were trying to win a third English league title after an 11 match unbeaten run, and they had won a place in the Fifth Round of the FA Cup.

I recall watching the Cup Final, against Bolton Wanderers on TV at my Uncles' house that year.

I remember Nat Lofthouse, the Bolton Centre Forward bundling Harry Gregg, who was holding the ball, into the back of the net and a goal being awarded. I learned some new words from my Uncle that day words that have stood me in good stead whenever I need to express myself forcefully.

For a team to have experienced such a tragedy and loss of gifted players with their inspirational manager unable to manage through a critical period of recovery, yet manage a creditable ninth place in the league and to beat Fulham in a replay to earn a place in the FA Cup Final was a significant achievement.

I date my own support for Manchester United to that day in 1958 when my City became a village and we all shared in the grief and pain and experience of loss.

After two league defeats United have returned to their winning aways at Old Trafford, optimism is renewed as they look to consolidate places in three competitions, at this rate Wembley will start to feel like their other, London, home ground ......

Friday 18 March 2011

18th March 2011

Went to bed feeling grim last night after watching Question Time when in a discussion about energy security nobody mentioned the fact that our coal mining industry was exported along with the gas, and I woke up feeling grim this morning.

Not in a 'it's grim up North' kind of way. But grim in a 'Must make make an appointment with the Doctor' kind of way.

So the day was rapidly cancelled, the Doctor had a space (presumably other people had woken up feeling OK or were just more determined) and off I struggled up the hill for my appointment.

Whilst I wasn't exactly told: You walked here so you must be OK, the message was clear: Fuss about nothing.

So back home to sit about feeling sorry for myself. I was given a prescription but as I don't like taking stuff I kept it in case I feel any worse, apparently I might do, and made myself a cup of Rooibosch Tea instead.

Rooibosch is a popular beverage obviously in South Africa but more generally and is held in high regard by the health-conscious.

There is no caffeine in the Tea and it has low levels of tannin.

So nothing harmful and nothing to give a false sense of well being. It is known to help with nervous tension, allergies and digestive problems. It is used in South Africa to alleviate infantile colic, assist with allergies, help with asthma and dermatological problems.

Marvellous, medicinal, curative tea is Rooibosch.

Let's hope it works for food poisoning, either a virus or something I have eaten apparently. Time will tell. If that doesn't work a hot toddy might be next it won't cure anything but I will feel better I am sure.

Well being is the key to success.

David Cameron has suggested that we have a 'gross national happiness' index that should be interesting.

The big society will become the big happy society. It will start to look like a series of children's books.

Here are the children in the playground, how happy they look.

Here are the grown ups at work, how happy they look.

Here are the unemployed and the NEET's that left school last year, how happy they look.

Here are the homeless, how happy they look.

Here are the Asylum Seekers heading home, how happy they look.

Here are the students marching in protest, how happy they look.

Here are the policeman kettling them, how happy they look.

And if we have a budget for growth next week the big society could well grow, so the big will become the bigger until it becomes the biggest society ever.

Couple that with the happiness index, and we are well on the way to becoming the biggest, happiest society ever.

Trouble is I am not sure that we are.

Writing in today's FT Samuel Brittan offers an interesting survey of growth plans in the UK over the decades since 1945. His conclusion is that since 1945 growth has averaged 2% a year.

So whatever outcome there is in George Osborne's budget next week, whatever de-regulation, encouragement, support measures or investment. Things are likely to carry on very much as they have done, throughout the period which has included, Harold Wilson's 1967 devaluation the monetary approach of Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Lamont's joining of the ERM, when he was advised by none other than David Cameron.

When I started a new job in 2000 my friend Peter sent me a laminated sheet with a quote on it which I took to heart.

Don't go for Growth, it said, go for Health, because in the normal scheme of things a healthy thing will grow naturally.

It was a kind of biblical, gardening in Eden, kind of metaphor. Just don't eat the apple and everything will be fine.

Well we did of course, and so everything wasn't OK. But if the Tory led coalition wants growth and happiness perhaps it needs to focus on more specific ways of making society healthy, with greater justice, more equality and Rooibosch on the NHS and then the growth and the happiness will follow naturally .....

Wednesday 16 March 2011

16th March 2011

To celebrate the increasing dignity of age we have decided that we should add our ages together, so today with another birthday arriving, we are declaring that we are jointly 129.

So Happy Birthday to us.

The menu for the Birthday supper has been planned with offal in mind. So a 'primo piatto' of Black Pudding and Apple, with Devilled Kidneys as the 'secondo corso' and Chocolate Pudding and Strawberries to end.

Of course the reference to the increasing dignity of age is made with my tongue pretty firmly in my cheek.

I haven't yet been publicly abused for just being old but the disrespect implicit in the lack of a box on the census form to say that I am retired, is pretty clear.

The economically useful are statistically significant and the Census wants to know who you are and what you are doing or seeking to do. But if you are retired then, quite simply, they don't want to know, you don't count.

You are simply economically inactive.

But if the reports in the papers are to be believed in fact we do count, we count because whilst we receive our income from a mixture of sources, generally occupational and state pensions and investment income, we pay tax on both kinds of pensions and then we spend the income received on goods and services, food and travel.

In fact pensioners contribute substantially to consumer spending in the UK and everyone benefits from that.

Added to that of course is the volunteering.

Over the years in a variety of roles I have been able to observe first hand the impact of older volunteers, not only in the UK but in Europe and in the States.

In the late eighties I went to New York with a group of charity workers from the UK. Our task was to observe and study volunteering in NY. I put myself down to work at a lunch centre for the homeless.

When our small group arrived at the centre based in a Church just off 5th Avenue, we were handed a ladle and an apron. Stand in line and serve the meal, was the instruction, with the additional comment, try and treat each individual as though it was Jesus himself coming in for lunch.

Wow!

At the end of service we met the Rector of the Church who advised us that the lunch programme, which the congregation regarded as its ministry, cost $1M a year.

The Church was falling down, it was too dangerous to hold Sunday Services, so they took place in the hall where the lunch was served, this was the 'sacred space' where each day's daily bread was broken and shared. This was the priority and he had been hired for his skills in fundraising, a $1M a year is some challenge renewed each January first.

But in my own parish ministries if you lifted up the church building and looked underneath, you would see a whole drama of activity as the congregation undertook their volunteer roles in a wide variety of activities which benefited the wider community.

Similarly in my work with the charity Toc H.

The average age of the membership was +75 years and my task was to attract a new generation of members. It was not easy. In fact we found ourselves increasingly drawn to a service provider model, funded through commissioned programmes often with short term funding.

But the aim was to rebuild the charity and make it fit for purpose in the C21st.

Whilst this rebuilding was working itself out, not with unanimous agreement from the wider membership, I was always conscious of the quite remarkable degree of activity still being undertaken by the membership; highlighted by the group who took older people on an annual summer trip the volunteers often being older than the people being taken away for the day.

Toc H operated on a model devised by its founder, The Revd. Phillip Byard Clayton known as 'Tubby'. This model was called the Four Points of the Compass and ran: Love Widely, Build Bravely, Think Fairly, Witness Humbly.

Sadly Toc H had, and still has, an old fashioned air to it founded in the First World War at a time when Europe was literally tearing itself apart. Clayton's vision was for the comradeship, fellowship and support that had been developed in Talbot House in Poperinge in Belgium being translated into an organisation which offered community service and support to all equally without regard to status or creed.

In the Britain of the '50's Toc H was probably the single largest volunteer organisation in the country, it's patron was the Prince of Wales and its annual meeting filled the Albert Hall.

Volunteering is only one aspect of how older people contribute to the good of society, many offer social care, family support, baby sitting, an endless list of works of supererogation.

It's a pity that the census didn't try to capture some of these pictures of how the so called big society is working in practice and whether it is wide, brave and fair and whether the vision is humble enough to accept that it has been going on for years.

Another Clayton aphorism was 'Do something useful every day and don't get found out' so maybe some older folk are just glad not to be answering questions in the Census questions that they fear may be used to make political capital out of their service.

Monday 14 March 2011

14th March 2011

Today my reliable weather app. informed me, the weather was better in Carlisle than in Genoa. We had unbroken sunshine whilst it rained in Genoa (although admittedly Genoa was a little warmer).

So what else could I do, I fired up the Harley and set out across the Lakes, Penrith first to check out the fishing gear in John Norris's and then across to Keswick across the A 66 which sounds a bit like Route 66 if you cough whilst saying it.

Then up to Cockermouth to make sure the flood had finally receded, it had and Cockermouth looked lovely in the warm, spring sunshine, even though the price of fuel at £1 40 a litre, was a bit pricier than on Route 66!

The on to Maryport and fish and chips, sitting overlooking the Harbour, the Solway and looking even further, the Galloway Hills, Gatehouse of Fleet and Kirkcudbright.

Just an amazing day, so home to play a soundtrack song, Lou Reed of course, what else, it was just a perfect day.

Riding through the lakes I found myself thinking about the email I had received that morning and contrasting it with a piece in the newspaper about the Big Society.

Apparently the vision of the big society is the vision of village life, half a century ago, when we all lived in villages, but now we live in elective villages which are shaped by the communities, clubs and associations we elect to join by becoming members.

Certainly as I rode through these villages in the Lake District, including the one I live in, it was easy to imagine that there has been a history of mutual support and neighbourliness, certainly in Cockermouth the community pulled together heroically in the aftermath of the floods, but against that, as we are reminded nightly as the inquest investigates the shootings, there was Whitehaven and the random killings along the West Coast.

It is also true that amongst the 'villages' that I have lived in two were in Newcastle and Birmingham, both big cities with a capital 'C'. But within those cities, Gosforth and Stirchley, were villages. The local shops were the village centres, where neighbours met, chatted, visited for coffee and socialised. Not dissimilar to the fellside village in Cumbria and without a nine mile round trip for fish and chips and with somewhat more than four channels on the TV.

At the heart of the idea of a big society is a view that something is wrong with society which needs fixing. First the Aunt Sally of broken Britain is set up and we are all shocked into believing the hype, even though for the vast majority of us, nothing is broken at all.

We are able to get up each morning and go about our daily business, challenged only by the deadlines imposed by work or what we have promised to do as part of our voluntary work, whether it is the WRVS shop, the Flower Rota, The Rotary Collection or the Parish Meeting.

So we move from broken Britain, through the squeezed middle via alarm clock Britain to the big society. All of us, the working, the unemployed, the retired, the homemaker, the disabled have to be slotted into a group and labelled so that the politicians can patronise us with their labels.

Well the Britain I live in as a retiree, is not broken, I am not being squeezed in the middle and I no longer have to set the alarm clock, so what do I know?

What I know is that there should be a new categorisation, shameful Britain.

Why do I say that?

This morning I received an email from a friend in Newcastle, the new communities we belong to are the social networks made possible through, email, facebook, twitter etc. I was asked to sign a petition. Normally I am petition averse, but when I read the attachments I was angered by what I was reading.

For the full story see: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/jeanine_kamba/
www.ipetitions.com

Or: save.our.sister1@groups.facebook.com.

As I rode through The Lakes I found myself asking again and again if we are being encouraged to join the big society, then why can't the political leadership set an example. Why can't we have a big, generous, welcoming society? A society in which the weak, those at risk, the vulnerable, those in fear of rape or death are invited to join in and feel safe?

The OED defines Asylum as 'shelter or protection from danger' here is a young woman, making a new life for herself with the support of an adoptive family, who has been forcibly detained by the British Government and who is facing deportation. It seems that her her life and well-being may well be put at risk.

Our big society is not for her?

Saturday 12 March 2011

12th March 2011

The tectonic plates have moved. The earthquake and tsunami that have devastated Japan are a shocking reminder of the vulnerability of human beings in the face of seismic events that are constantly reshaping the world.

The Japanese Government is constantly vigilant and has some of the strictest building codes governing the construction of both domestic homes, offices, commercial buildings and most scary of all, Nuclear Reactors.

Nevertheless in this age of instant information the news has streamed in faster than the Tsunami itself and the world is left reeling at the sights and sounds of a devastated Japan.

President Obama describes the Japanese as 'friends' which in its own way is as shocking as it is encouraging. The Japanese since Hiroshima and Nagasaki have entered the community of nations as competitors, think cars and motorcycles, but also as friends.

Japanese investment has led the way for economic development in both America and the West. A friend of mine commented on the proposed investment in the North East in the 1970's, 'It won't work here, we're not prepared to live in paper houses'.

In fact it did work and the Nissan factory is a great example of Japanese investment promoting a renaissance in the British motor industry.

Tectonic plates of a different kind are also shifting and repositioning themselves in North Africa and it was interesting to hear David Cameron talking about the danger to Europe's Southern border. Interesting because previous comments about Europe have rather challenged the political and economic sense of Britain remaining a part of the EEC.

The social and political tectonic plates that have shifted in North Africa have raised a demand for democracy, for the rights of women and for the perceived freedoms enjoyed in and by the West.

As nature continues to reshape the physical world, so other factors, from technology, the internet, social networking sites such as facebook and twitter, indeed blogging and the freedom to publish without political interference or editorial oversight, have encouraged a desire for political and socio-economic reshaping in order that the poorer economies are able to share the worlds wealth and the worlds freedoms more equitably, rendering previous obscene divisions of wealth unacceptable.

We live in an era of huge change, huge risk and huge danger. We have lived through the grey days of rationing following the ending of world war two, we have seen the renewal and remaking of society in the sixties, we have seen the economic collapses of the seventies and the steady rebuilding of the economy up until the financial crash of 2009 and through all of these changes it seems we have learnt nothing.

It's as though we believe that all of this change is as natural and uncontrollable as the weather or earthquakes or tsunamis. Good people do bad things for the right reasons but with the wrong outcomes, and by the same token bad people do good things for the wrong reasons but with the right outcomes.

It may be my imagination but recently when I have set out to drive into town there seems to be less traffic on the roads; buses, lorries, vans continue to go about their business but there are less cars, it's almost like a permanent school holiday, the price of fuel is making people think twice about filling their cars at £6 00 a gallon or £1 20 a litre and rising almost daily, to pop to the shops or set out on an idle expedition.

But it's also noticeable that there are fewer people in the shops, the town centre is less busy, it is easier to park and to get around.

It is difficult to interpret these indicators or even to know whether they are right and whether my interpretation of them is correct but they do seem to offer some unscientific evidence to the view expressed by Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT that 'cutting back on economic stimulus .. is .. an experiment in failed policies .. that will inevitably .. cost individuals more'.

There seems to be a genuine difficulty between trying on the one hand to balance the books nationally and on the other promoting the idea of a bigger and therefore more open and generous society.

The headlines properly focus on the natural disaster that has struck Japan and the continuing dramas being played out in North Africa. That is after all right in the context of an inter-connected world but we need to keep the British economic experiment under review as well.

Wednesday 9 March 2011

9th March 2011

Occasionally something comes back to haunt you.

In my first School, a Church of England Primary School, pupils were given scrap paper to write on until their handwriting and spelling was considered to have progressed sufficiently for them to be given an exercise book.

I was at that school for two years and when I left, age seven, I was still writing on scrap paper. Fortunately in my new school I was given an exercise book on my first day and made rapid progress learning the basic rules. One in particular was drummed into us by our teacher.

'i' before 'e', except after 'c'.

Yesterday I sat staring at the screen, having just written 'wielded' as 'weilded'. I knew something was wrong but simply could not see what, so I hit the send button and then it became clear I had broken a simple and long standing rule. Of course facebook no longer allows you to correct what you have written so there I am, exposed to the world as an illiterate.

Just as well it was facebook and not a spelling bee.

I can well imagine the wrath that such a simple spelling mistake would have incurred at school. Indeed I could well imagine that if I had been testing the grandchildren, an occasional part of baby sitting duties, on their spellings, I would have been hot on 'wield' and come down hard on 'weild'.

It is, perhaps, one of the few occasions when the facebook shorthand, LOL, would have been appropriate.

But I have noticed that I am not the only one for whom typo's are becoming more common and more bizarre. Recently I have seen on separate occasions and once in a newspaper advertisement, a reference to a complimentary therapist. I imagine that such a therapist's opening line would be, 'Come in, you look very well today, I especially like the way you have co-ordinated the separates in you wardrobe, and they do suit you'. I imagine that a complimentary therapist would be easy to get along with although, if they were too complimentary or their compliments became too glib, they could become irritating.

So: to compliment or to complement? They sound the same, almost look the same, but they are different words with different meanings and should not be confused, especially in an advert for a job. Who was responsible for proof reading the advert?

Either people approach the keyboard more casually, and/or standards are deteriorating rapidly as a result of the new technologies. Occasionally I read a facebook message that appears to have been written in a completely new language, one that I have never seen before and which could have been devised on a far planet or in a distant universe.

So I hang my head in shame. I knew that something was amiss, I failed to use the spellchecker, as I have just done, (of course it spotted and drew my attention to the error imediately); and I pressed the send button anyway, only to realise exactly what shocking sin of commission I had committed. To make the error worse I had used the word wield with regard to my grandchildren's pancake making exploits I hope that doesn't make them feel guilty by association, I take full responsibility.

As is sometimes noted in authors' prefaces and dedications, they take full credit for the success of the pancake party, the spelling failure was mine and mine alone! So back to the scrap paper for me ...........

Monday 7 March 2011

7th March 2011

Personally I have never found the sight of grown men shaking sticks at each whilst dancing around with bells sewn onto their trousers a particularly entertaining one. But I have to say that even when they are blocking the road outside a country pub I would have to defend their right to do so.

After all where would this country be without its eccentrics?

It would just be, well, boring. And that would never do. After all it is a tradition isn't it? Like warm, flat, beer poured from a jug, sausages and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. And because we are British we love our eccentrics and our eccentricities.

It's why we keep dogs even though we've given up hunting. Why we set out on Saturday's to do our hunter gathering in Tesco's and gather round bonfires on Guy Fawkes night.

I remember some great, eccentric traditions from my younger days growing up in Manchester, the Whit Walks marvellously parodied in the film East is East. The Easter Fair at Daisy Nook celebrated in song by the Oldham Tinkers, a band who are another great British tradition, the 'battles' between the kids from sacred heart and the protestant kids fro our school which were fought out in Sunny Brow park where the great battle apparently occurred between some one and some one else, history forgot to mention who but the Vikings were occasionally mentioned, which gave the Gore Brook and Gorton (Gore Town) their names.

Of course changing the Whitsun Holiday had an impact on the Whit Walks but the relative collapse of religion helped as well and at least keeping the holiday on the same day annually helped to keep track of when it should be.

Now, apparently, we are to lose May Day.

The Con-Dem Government simply, it appears, cannot bear having a holiday on Labour Day. So it is to be abolished. How mean spirited is that? And with the economy in ruins, not helped by the scorched earth policies being implemented how miserable, you would think that the PM should have bigger things on his mind.

Europe celebrates, Labour Day as does Russia, they even wheel out their tanks and missiles to remind us not to interfere. But we are to lose our Bank Holiday on the first of May and it is to be replaced with another day, possibly St George's Day or Trafalgar Day or some other suitably patriotic day.

If you want to be patriotic why not add another Bank Holiday to celebrate George beating up on the dragon or Nelson beating up the French and the Spanish at Trafalgar. Imagine the excitement when the traditional musicians and the Morris Dance choreographers have to devise some new dances, shaking their sticks and ringing their bells, with a hey nonny no as the Dragon shrinks back into its lair or the combined European navy sinks below the sea off Gibraltar taking the Euro with it, a great opportunity for the creative introduction of the telescope in dance!

It appears that the cuts and the need to keep productivity up means that we cannot have another day so there has to be a balanced score-card of bank holidays, lose one, gain one, but make sure you don't accidentally gain an an extra one.

There have been some great cause celebre's already in this parliamentary term, think of the privatisation of woodlands, but surely the Labour Party needs to develop a strategy for defending Labour Day, the loss of Clause 4 was to be regretted but it signalled modernisation, when modernisation was needed to show that Labour had moved on.

But the loss of a Bank Holiday celebrating the dignity of Labour and the millions of working people, my grandparents and most likely yours, if you weren't educated at Eton; whose labour made Britain great and whose lives were sacrificed in two Great wars is surely worth defending?

So Mr Milliband lets hear your defence of Labour Day and let's keep May 1st as a Public holiday.

Saturday 5 March 2011

5th March 2011

I always thought that when I retired I would write a book called The One Day a Year Gardener. When I lived in Newcastle I was just too busy to Garden so once a year, on Easter Monday, whilst everyone else rushed off to the sea-side I spent the day in the garden.

It was a razed earth approach to gardening.

After I had finished there were bare earth beds where before there had been weeds. The grass was cut to within an inch of its life and the trees cut back to the point of no return.

Only Napalm would have made for a more desolate environment.

Yet, within days there were stirrings as nature began its fight back and soon what was brown and bare, was green and fecund, the trees were in leaf and the pear tree flowering. in fact the only real disaster I have to report was the camomile lawn which I managed to destroy with my over enthusiastic approach to clearing the ground.

Today I ventured into a garden which has struggled through a terrible winter I managed to clear much of what has died due to the intense cold and the snow, which thankfully we missed, and was amazed to see that the camomile had survived, it must be a new tough strain of camomile.

These days of course, we recycle, so the green bin was filled to overflowing with dead leaves, dead plants and one small dead bird, although that might have been a cat rather than the weather.

I rather suspect that when we get back from our return visit to Genoa I may need another day to tackle the Ground Elder which is already flexing its considerable muscles and threatening to take over the newly bared ground.

Apparently Ground Elder was first introduced by the Romans as a salad plant, I haven't tried it I must confess and view it as an off comer to these parts, even if it has been here for 2000 years plus.

But of nature's resilience there can be no doubt.

Today's newspapers are full of fascinating stuff, as usual, but perhaps the most fascinating is what is happening in Libya, here a tragedy is unfolding as we watch, but the interconnections, the resignation of the Director of the LSE, the involvement of Blair and Mandelson in bringing Gaddafi in from the cold, Cameron making foreign policy on the hoof, deploying resources that only last week were scrapped in the defence review, the dramatic impact on oil prices that will of course soon be soon on the forecourts and most of all the Libyan people demanding an end to an unpalatable dictatorship and the regime that it has defended so brutally for years.

I suppose my reflections in the garden as I weeded and raked and loaded the recycle bin and planned for tomorrows sermon on the Transfiguration were informed by my strong belief that as T S Eliot ventured, quoting from Julian of Norwich, All will be well, All manner of things will be well. It is so important to view the world positively and to have hope for the future.

Nature is resilient and so are when we embrace the future with a certain optimism born of our faith in what human beings can achieve.

Friday 4 March 2011

4th March 2011

Today's news is hinting at splits in the coalition over multi-culturalism. Apparently Clegg is for it and Cameron against. Apparently the Big Society will be big on muscular liberalism but that is not enough for the Deputy Prime Minister who it seems wants multi-culturalism back at the heart of the Big Society.

Is it possible that on the horizon we may be seeing a split that will allow the voters a say in whether the shape and direction of society is leading to a fairer and more moral society not just a Big Society?

I imagine that Ed Milliband will have greeted the result of the Barnsley by-election with barely concealed joy. the Liberals losing their deposit and the Conservatives coming third to UKIP.

Barnsley is not really the new middle England but that result is brilliant and definitely gives the Labour Party bragging rights until the next by-, or hopefully general, election .

The candidate of course resigned a commission in the Army to fight the seat and whilst not being an identi-kit Barnsley or even Labour Candidate, brought some genuinely held and pretty radical opinions to bear not least in his published views on the Labour parties support for the armed forces and his first hand experiences of the health service as a result of personal tragedy.

The Big Society is struggling and is still in the incubation unit whilst the Prime Minister is rattling one of the very few Sabres he has got left over the future of Libya.

The situation in North Africa has yet to play out in its entirety some commentators are already forecasting the emergence of a successful economic revolution as oil wealth begins to benefit not just individuals and their families but the whole of civil society in the Arabian Peninsula. This of course does not necessarily take into account what may happen if an Islamic Republic emerges but the Islamic approach to money (not charging interest, stronger family inheritance, and not confusing price with value) could encourage a rapid increase in personal wealth amongst the population at large leading to a realisation of Gordon Brown's vision of an Africa in which internal markets result in increased demand for goods and services leading to greater personal wealth and friends.

At this stage it is a hard call to make.

We could in fact see an explosion in emigration with populations on the move seeking freedom and prosperity in the West, it is interesting to see how for so many people, as we realised to talking to people in Genoa, their ambition is to move to the UK.

Before the Big Society can be taken at all seriously it is surely essential that we sort out what we mean by the words we use. If a society cannot be open and welcoming to people wanting to make a better life for themselves and their families can it truly be described as 'Big'? If a society allows huge differences in wealth and prosperity to divide it between obscenely rich and scandalously poor, can it be called 'Big'? If a society allows a gulf to emerge in the overall health of the population, whereby class and geography can determine your health probabilities at birth, can it be called a 'Big'? If a society cannot find the resources to invest in its young people so that education is unequally rationed between those who can afford tuition fees and those who cannot, can it be called 'Big'.

It certainly seems to me that what I hear as the political debate unfolds is that the vision that drives the concept is itself small and partisan. For the 'Big Society to be re-discovered not invented, because we had a big society it was called the Welfare State and it was born of a vision that no longer in Britain would there be poverty, poor health or lack of education and that those with skills and energy and ambition were welcome to come and help build that society,the vision itself needs to be bigger that either Cleggs view of Multi-Culturalism or Cameron's muscular liberalism.

I have recently joined the Co-operative Party now there is a vision .............

Wednesday 2 March 2011

2nd March 2011

St David's Day seemed a good day to travel to Edinburgh to have lunch with my friend Michael.

A chance to catch up with what we were doing. What was occupying us. What initiatives and projects we were giving time to supporting.

It seemed that we were both keeping pretty busy despite being of a certain age.

As I walked through Edinburgh to Michael's office for our meeting I noticed how the streets that were once full of small shops and galleries were now full of restaurants, it seems that we have given up shopping for eating.

But there were some galleries still displaying the works of young artists and before catching the train back to Carlisle I bought a lovely papier mache figure of a brown trout.

I hope that it brings me luck when the season opens later this month. But I don't just while away my time fishing, (wish I could!)

Still I am sure that the young ambitious businessmen in the restaurant making their deals over their expense account lunches just saw two older folk having lunch but in today's FT an article based on research undertaken by SQW an economic consultancy made the strong assertion that over 65's boost society by some £30 billion annually.

This is made up of taxes, and we are both tax payers, so we tick that box, our spending and other contributions, again we paid for our own
lunches, although Michael generously treated me to mine, but I paid for the rail fare and car parking in the station, no expense account for
me to claim against!

The article goes on to make the calculation that against the £136bn cost of welfare overall the net benefit of the contribution of older people including their role as carers (another tick for us both), their volunteering (again a tick for both of us) and their contribution to charities (tick
again!) takes the total contribution of older people to society to £176bn.

So the elderly are pretty much a small to medium sized business in their own right and more crucially sit right at the heart of the big society.

Another friend asked my opinion about how the church should be contributing to the debate about the Big Society. when I was in paid work my advice cost about £500 a day now its pro bono (another tick!).

When I was appointed to work as the adviser to the Bishop of Newcastle in 1978 the issue was pretty clear, Unemployment: and I worked on that pretty exclusively taking up the related issue of poverty leading to Faith in the City in 1984.

So over a nine year period there was a pretty sustained focus which was I believe important in both gaining credibility and being able to build up a significant data-base.

Now with the emergence of the coalition Government it is difficult to see where the main policy focus is going to be other than the wholesale dismantling of the Welfare State, in its widest sense, which is now becoming clearer.

This was of course beginning under New Labour and gave opportunities to Charities to enter the market place but it is unlikely that even the big charities will be able to compete with Serco or Capita, so we will increasingly see wholesale privatisation of Welfare.

Despite this, the Churches in partnership with community organisations cannot and must not abandon the Public Square. This is what I was doing meeting Michael yesterday as we talked about the work we were doing, some paid for, some voluntary, some like this blog attempting to be part of the wider debate about what kind of society we want to see our children and grandchildren inherit.

But where best to deploy our energies? where best to focus? and which issue will be the touchstone that will allow the churches to influence the debate in the Public Square?

Methodology will be important and I would see the churches contribution to the debate arising from the pastoral experience of the clergy. A diocesan public policy committee should be strongly weighted in favour of parish priests, community workers etc and the contributions should always have a human element arising from pastoral engagement, this will be where the authority to speak will come from as the work of David Jenkins former Bishop of Durham always reminds us.

A re-active agenda will be a weak agenda, so the church should develop a clearly articulated view on a significant issue be it Education, The Economy, Foreign Affairs, Immigration etc. and you need to drill down into the sub-strata so that it is known to have real expertise in a key area of the debate.

Finally, there is a moral vacuum at the heart of the coalition, this is being effectively critiqued by social commentators. Health, Education, the rise in NEETS, changes in Welfare, Housing Benefits are all now biting deeply and can be seen for what they are. So a christian commentary on the morality of politics leading to a public statement from the Bishops helping people to understand what should be in their minds as they choose a Government, but not advising them on how to vote, could be a good start in building our way back to a fairer society with justice at the centre of our public policy.