So this is the last Blog of 2015.
Here's hoping for a better 2016.
Storm Frank came and went, the rain rained, the wind blew and the storm defences alongside our stream, consisting of interlinked perforated metal barriers covered with plastic sheeting held down by chains, sandbags and clips, were blown apart by the wind, the plastic sheeting ripped off and the perforated metal left utterly useless as a flood defence.
The next storm will be 'G' and should be called 'George' in honour of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the eighteenth storm could be called 'Rory' in honour of the beleaguered minister for floods.
The weather is unpredictable, unmanageable and has been until recently un-forecastable.
Years ago a friend of mine was hosting his church garden fete, so he rang the weather centre at Newcastle Airport in order to check whether it would be safe to plan to hold the fete outdoors, he was reassured but advised to check back on the day which he did, in the morning he was told that a weather front was coming in and that he might be better remaining indoors, two hours later the front had moved direction instead of heading down the South Tyne valley it appeared to be veering North so outside would be good, two hours before the fete he was given the all clear, at Three pm as the Mayor opened the Fete, it rained.
Forecasting is now more scientific and therefore more accurate but Storm Frank, as Eva and Desmond before it, went its own way and is now as I write well out of the way, somewhere near Iceland, with 100 mph winds and about to drop a weather bomb on the North Pole which will raise temperatures by 50% whilst, ironically, making the weather in the UK 'more seasonal!
The unpredictability of weather has its economic parallel.
There is a consensus that Margaret Thatcher changed the political 'weather' by forcing a review of the post war settlement which had been introduced in the aftermath of the Second World War, during a time when the 'political weather' was clement, Thatcher was able to introduce her vision of a free market as that 'weather' changed.
But alongside this the freeing of the market carried with it a view that, like the weather, it was free to move and shift as it chose, controls were anathema and the essential purpose of Government was to encourage the entrepreneurs to make money, which they did of course, but not by making things, as new financial instruments were imagined, money just made money and the dole queues grew longer.
The argument was made that as the wealthy became wealthier so the benefits would trickle or drip down but the evidence (rejected and denied by Thatcher and her Tory supporters) suggested that all that ever 'dripped down' were the chilly waters of increasing poverty which floated the boats of the wealthiest on a rising tide but which overwhelmed and sank the boats of the less well off.
I am grateful to my friend Andy Smith the playwright who wrote in his piece 'all that is solid melts into air' commissioned and performed in Bergen in 2011, for drawing my attention to the quotation which is from The Communist Manifesto.
As Andy writes in the play:
'..... what happens to us when capitalism takes hold. When our values change. When our relationship with things and each other starts to alter. When our infrastructures break down'.
These are the questions that Marx and Engels posed in their text.
Whether it's weather or capitalism it seems the results are very much the same.
Recent floods have brought out the very best in people whether in Carlisle or York or Hebden Bridge but there have been reports of looting, of opportunists seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of deepening others misery.
Insurance companies step back.
Payments are withheld or delayed.
The Prime Minister says he will do, in his classic of cameronspeak 'The Right Thing".
Rory Stewart appears on television standing in flooded streets saying that the defences worked, until they didn't work.
Spending on flood defences has been reduced because the thing with austerity is that we are all in it together.
And relationships change, I know that its not Syria but during the storms I felt under siege, my hatches were battened, driving home from visiting family I drove through flood water and was not at all sure what I would find when I arrived at my front door (still dry, Phew!).
Phone calls from friends not affected by Desmond were welcome only for their communities to be flooded by Eva.
Street after street of skips filled with the detritus of lives a stark reminder that our relationships, with both things and each other have changed.
The storms have impacted on the infrastructure, whether it is stores closed after flooding Tesco, Sainsbury, whether the services, whose funding has been cut back and back again, overstretched and unable to cope, hospitals struggling to find beds, A&E rooms under siege, local authorities stretched beyond their capacity to provide services, as major centres 'Northern Powerhouses'? left with City Centres under unprecedented depths of contaminated water.
The link between extreme weather and extreme ideological politics is pretty clear as the one impacts to reveal the weakness of the other .......
Here's hoping for a better 2016.
Storm Frank came and went, the rain rained, the wind blew and the storm defences alongside our stream, consisting of interlinked perforated metal barriers covered with plastic sheeting held down by chains, sandbags and clips, were blown apart by the wind, the plastic sheeting ripped off and the perforated metal left utterly useless as a flood defence.
The next storm will be 'G' and should be called 'George' in honour of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the eighteenth storm could be called 'Rory' in honour of the beleaguered minister for floods.
The weather is unpredictable, unmanageable and has been until recently un-forecastable.
Years ago a friend of mine was hosting his church garden fete, so he rang the weather centre at Newcastle Airport in order to check whether it would be safe to plan to hold the fete outdoors, he was reassured but advised to check back on the day which he did, in the morning he was told that a weather front was coming in and that he might be better remaining indoors, two hours later the front had moved direction instead of heading down the South Tyne valley it appeared to be veering North so outside would be good, two hours before the fete he was given the all clear, at Three pm as the Mayor opened the Fete, it rained.
Forecasting is now more scientific and therefore more accurate but Storm Frank, as Eva and Desmond before it, went its own way and is now as I write well out of the way, somewhere near Iceland, with 100 mph winds and about to drop a weather bomb on the North Pole which will raise temperatures by 50% whilst, ironically, making the weather in the UK 'more seasonal!
The unpredictability of weather has its economic parallel.
There is a consensus that Margaret Thatcher changed the political 'weather' by forcing a review of the post war settlement which had been introduced in the aftermath of the Second World War, during a time when the 'political weather' was clement, Thatcher was able to introduce her vision of a free market as that 'weather' changed.
But alongside this the freeing of the market carried with it a view that, like the weather, it was free to move and shift as it chose, controls were anathema and the essential purpose of Government was to encourage the entrepreneurs to make money, which they did of course, but not by making things, as new financial instruments were imagined, money just made money and the dole queues grew longer.
The argument was made that as the wealthy became wealthier so the benefits would trickle or drip down but the evidence (rejected and denied by Thatcher and her Tory supporters) suggested that all that ever 'dripped down' were the chilly waters of increasing poverty which floated the boats of the wealthiest on a rising tide but which overwhelmed and sank the boats of the less well off.
I am grateful to my friend Andy Smith the playwright who wrote in his piece 'all that is solid melts into air' commissioned and performed in Bergen in 2011, for drawing my attention to the quotation which is from The Communist Manifesto.
As Andy writes in the play:
'..... what happens to us when capitalism takes hold. When our values change. When our relationship with things and each other starts to alter. When our infrastructures break down'.
These are the questions that Marx and Engels posed in their text.
Whether it's weather or capitalism it seems the results are very much the same.
Recent floods have brought out the very best in people whether in Carlisle or York or Hebden Bridge but there have been reports of looting, of opportunists seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of deepening others misery.
Insurance companies step back.
Payments are withheld or delayed.
The Prime Minister says he will do, in his classic of cameronspeak 'The Right Thing".
Rory Stewart appears on television standing in flooded streets saying that the defences worked, until they didn't work.
Spending on flood defences has been reduced because the thing with austerity is that we are all in it together.
And relationships change, I know that its not Syria but during the storms I felt under siege, my hatches were battened, driving home from visiting family I drove through flood water and was not at all sure what I would find when I arrived at my front door (still dry, Phew!).
Phone calls from friends not affected by Desmond were welcome only for their communities to be flooded by Eva.
Street after street of skips filled with the detritus of lives a stark reminder that our relationships, with both things and each other have changed.
The storms have impacted on the infrastructure, whether it is stores closed after flooding Tesco, Sainsbury, whether the services, whose funding has been cut back and back again, overstretched and unable to cope, hospitals struggling to find beds, A&E rooms under siege, local authorities stretched beyond their capacity to provide services, as major centres 'Northern Powerhouses'? left with City Centres under unprecedented depths of contaminated water.
The link between extreme weather and extreme ideological politics is pretty clear as the one impacts to reveal the weakness of the other .......
No comments:
Post a Comment