24th September 2014

The indoor critic and I visited my daughter and her family this last weekend.

Because of access issues for the wheelchair and other constraints, these days we usually stay in a budget hotel by night and visit by day.

The dog needed walking and the children needed exercising.

So off we went to Poo Park.

We  called it Poo Park when we lived nearby.

Often when visiting our daughter I would exercise the dog round the park, every visit was an obstacle course, the grass, the paths and the verges were soiled with the mess left by the many dogs that were exercised in the park and not collected by their owners.

This was a park which was used by the local school as a football pitch, it was a park where children played on the swings, roundabouts and parallel bars.

As such it was a health hazard.

In the mornings children would hide in the bushes around the perimeter to smoke before the school bell called them in.

There were weeds, it was overgrown, it was smelly, you had to check your shoes after any walk and there were no bins if you scooped your dogs poop.

The park was managed by the local council and as the notices reminded you was subject to local bye laws.

I have been visiting the park for almost fifteen years and most visits have been pretty depressing.

Then, a couple of years ago a new person moved into the neighbourhood, he and his wife bought a house in Park View, opposite the entrance to the Park.

Slowly, beginning with a few daffodils, the person in question began to exercise some interest in improving the amenity that the park represents.

Over the past four or five years the general ambiance has changed.

In part because of the voluntary effort initially of an individual and then of the group that the person began to recruit to his cause.

Now on this most recent visit the improvements are really noticeable.

The surface of the paths has been relayed and extended right around the perimeter of the park, the grass is mowed (still by the council but it seems more regularly), around the verges, planting boxes have been constructed and planted with wild flowers, annuals, perennials and herbs, each bringing pleasing scents and aromas.

Around the football pitch new young trees have been planted and miraculously not torn down.

Some graffiti on the paths has been removed and the culprits identified and spoken to.

Litter bins and a supply of bags to safely remove dog litter have been installed.

The park has been awarded a plaque to celebrate the transformation.

I lift my hat to the individuals who have been responsible, they are genuine civic leaders.

The transformation of Poo Park to New Park is an example of Big Society in action.

Big efforts. Big difference. Big change. Big improvement.

Holding the local council and Government to account, creating a partnership in which public and private (volunteers) work together for mutual benefit.

As the leaders of the three main parties begin to bicker over the fall out from the Scottish referendum, as we imagine devolution, England for the English, Scottish MP's unable to vote on English Issues, new constitutional settlements and the West Lothian Question, it seems to me, that we need to move towards a new public/private partnership which encourages the kind of responsible citizenship that can in a few short years transform a public park, with modest effort, some local investment and with the local council playing its part fully with the essential support, both financial and political from central government.

We need to re-imagine and re-energise what it means to be active citizens, co-operating in the renewal and regeneration of our communities.

17th September 2014

There's something strange happening on Facebook.

Nearly every day I find a new question from a certain David Cameron telling me that he would like to know my views on a range of issues from the NHS to Immigration.

I find this strange for a number of reasons.

First, because David Cameron is not someone that I have befriended on Facebook.

Second, because neither have I befriended the Tory Party on whose behalf the questioner claims to be inviting my views.

Third, because no matter how I continue to ignore the request the next day and the day after come further requests to hear my views.

I haven't bothered to respond to these 'surveys' but suspect that they will be written in such a way that the outcome will support the con-den policy.

A  distorted version of what Americans call Mom and Apple Pie.

Take the survey on Immigration for example:

Labour, it states, don't agree with our policies on immigration, the five questions which follow are in fact heavily loaded to encourage agreement.

Unsurprisingly they also perpetuate unproven assertions which verge on the status of Urban Myths.

Hardworking taxpayers? (What's not to like? Except that the majority of immigrants are in fact hardworking tax payers)

Benefits tourism? (Where's the evidence that this exists?)

Bogus Colleges? (Again where is the evidence? Of course if a college is bogus? Wasn't Eton founded to educate poor children and is it not in fact still a Charity?)

Deport foreign criminals? (Duh?)

Immigrants should speak better English? (Try that one on the Costa Geriatrica, where everyone, except the Spanish, speak better English!)

Well Mr Cameron if you really want to know my views on Immigration, or anything else, for that matter, I would prefer it if you didn't pretend to be my friend on Facebook (Facebook please note that I am being stalked and take appropriate action!).

But my views on Immigration are as follows:

I enjoy living in and experiencing the richness of a multi-cultural society.

Most of the evidence that I see is that those who come to this country to improve their circumstances contribute significantly to the economic flourishing of British Society.

I find the anti immigration rhetoric of your con-dem colleagues and the new Tory Lite party led by Mr Farage to be as offensive to me personally as it is to people that I am proud to count as real friends, both on Facebook and in real life.

The greatness of the British Isles has been built on the fact that it was a big enough society to welcome not only my forebears (from Ireland) but countless numbers of people from across the world who have made their homes here and in doing so have helped not only our language develop and change but have enriched our fashion, our cuisine, our social fabric and our sense of ourselves and our self worth as a global nation.

That generosity of spirit and a Biblical commitment to welcoming the 'stranger in our midst' is part of our DNA as a nation.

Your questionnaires demonstrate to me that you were as serious about the 'big society' as you were about voting blue to turn green, and underscore why I was right not to vote for you in 2010 and why I won't be voting for you in 2015.

9th September 2014

Thinking aloud about the big society.

Today's news suggests that in nine days time, the UK might just become smaller.

Living just seven miles from the border between Scotland and England could make it more difficult to visit Scotland, no longer able to simply set out and drive to the Solway or to see a concert in Langholm or to shop in Gretna Gateway, just beyond the Blacksmith's Forge and Rory Stewart's Cairn, designed to celebrate the continuation of the Union(?).

There have been many thousands of words written about the campaign for Scottish independence.

Both for, and against.

It will be interesting when, after the vote has been counted, whether the outcome is a Yea or Nay, what the commentators and analysts will conclude?

If it is a Yes, will this be Alex Salmond's victory or David Cameron's loss?

It is certainly the case that the Prime Minister of the historic 'Unionist" Party will have, if the vote is Yes, be criticised for surrendering both the date, (2014 is the Anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, when the Scots won a decisive victory over the English) and extending the franchise to include young people who are over sixteen, effectively balancing the inclination of the over sixties to vote to stay within the Union.

It remains to be seen whether Mr Cameron's position will remain tenable in the face of a Yes vote.

Equally of course a No vote will also be a yes vote, but rather a yes to a fairer, more just society as outlined by various papers published under the broad title of Commonweal by the Reid Foundation, which effectively reject the role of capitalism and markets in driving the economy, which has been the effective policy of both Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher and George Osborne and which was heavily subscribed to by New Labour under the Leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

My instinctive response to the debate is to hope that the outcome is Yes.

My reasons for this arise in the main because what I think I see being acted out in the campaigning and the debating is a developing vision for a better society than is currently being exploited and explored by the Con-Dems in the UK.

For how much longer can we stand by and see the NHS privatised, the growth of food banks supplying essential food parcels for those who have been sanctioned by the DWP?

How much longer can we stand by and see the poor, the disabled, the young, students and pensioners pay the price for the failure of the banks?

How much longer can we stand by and watch as the private sector is subsidised and bailed out by Government, whilst pretending that marketisation is a success?

If the vote is Yes, surely it will create a serious review of current Government policy, of austerity, of welfare reform(?) of further privatisation of utilities and transport in what is left of the UK.

The debates are beginning not only in Wales and the North of Ireland but in the regions as Northern Cities begin to challenge the domination of London and public investment in the South of the country.

This debate is happening because the question at the heart of the Yes campaign has all along been what kind of society do we want to be?

Interestingly however, if the vote is No then the debate will not simply cease, that cannot happen and won't be stopped by building a Cairn at Gretna, because both Labour in Gordon Brown and the Tories in George Osborne have begun to propose a wide re-allocation of powers to the Scottish Parliament, suggesting in part, if not entirely, that the future for the United Kingdom, if it remains United will be a form of Federal Structure.

London will still be a powerful force within such a Federation, but it will have to state its case and argue strongly that its share of the cake, or the public purse should remain disproportionately large in relation to other Kingdoms, Regions, or Cities.  

Whether the fear that the loss of Scottish Labour MP's will make it impossible for the Labour Party to form a Government in England will be realised remains to be seen but again the decline of the Liberal Party, the rise of UKIP, the emerging Little England mentality, future relations with the rest of Europe may well mean that England will also have to engage with the question of what kind of society we want to be and to become.

Certainly the Yes Campaign's commitment to increasing immigration, a commitment that may well mean a Border Post replacing Rory Stewart's Cairn at Gretna (at least the stone can be recycled as building materials), then we will begin to see just how an open, liberal, fair society can be both welcoming and successful.

It might be a small country, it might even as one commentator observed, like Greece without the Sunshine, but it stands a pretty fair chance of becoming a real big society.

And, when the border is redrawn it might be if it's a small map and broad brush pen that Carlisle somehow finds itself included in that big society.