After the ball is over

This post is, to be honest, for my own therapy.

www.freeimages.com

At shortly before six this morning Jane turned on the radio and we heard the end of the all-night referendum broadcast and the news that the Leave campaign had won a slim majority. The United Kingdom would leave the EU. My stomach sank as the markets had done. Well, I don't want to bore anyone with my disappointment. However, I was uncharacteristically moved when David Cameron announced that he would in due course resign and I wasn't unduly surprised to see Nigel Farage soon rowing back on the £35 million a week to the NHS promise of the Brexit battlebus ("It was a mistake").

Many, though not all, my friends on Facebook expressed their shock, shame, sadness and even anger over the outcome. I was particularly sorry for the younger generation whom I think have been let down. A YouGov poll indicated that they overwhelmingly wanted to remain:

I can do no better than apologise to my children and their generation. (Our district, if it's any consolation, voted for remaining in by a majority of 13%.) However I suspect that this country will become and feel very different in the years to come, less open, less friendly and less tolerant. Less European - and I regret that. I devoutly hope that our vote will not unleash a wave of nationalism across the continent, but I fear it will, and that would be more than tragic.

The final word I will leave with a good friend who cares about people: "Heavy feeling everywhere. Son in law up all night worrying about the markets; next door neighbour in street worrying about mortgage. I feel a deep wistfulness for 18s to 25s, 70% in favour of remain; shame before Poles and Romanians, who work cheerfully and hard at jobs many of us would turn up our noses at; fear for the most vulnerable immigrant communities, who must understand this message, especially asylum seeker friend of mine in the country for 13 years and more and still without permission to stay. Also a shamed awe before the forgotten working classes in outer estates, forgotten by people like me in our leafy suburbs, who have no one speaking up for them, in many ways completely helpless before a world not on their side, except for this act of political vandalism, that ultimately won't help them. 'The weight of this sad time we must obey' (Lear)."

Assad - or the deluge

Picture from Russian bomber over Syria (Channel 4 News)

There was an unusually arresting interview on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme on Saturday. After a report by John Simpson (1 hour, 30 minutes into the programme) on Russia's activities in Syria, Justin Webb interviewed the former ambassador to Bahrain and Syria, Peter Ford, who after retiring from the Foreign Office went to work as UN representative for refugees in the Middle East until 2014. he had just returned from the area. He should know what he's talking about - and, it seemed to me, he did.

The interview so struck me that I transcribed it in full (you can listen to it here - after 1.30 in).

Do you think it’s fair to think of the Russian action bringing things to a head in a way that for all the short term costs might in the long term be a good thing?

Yes, I think that the Russian action is extremely positive. As John Simpson said… the Assad government had been on the ropes; a few months ago it had been haemorrhaging young men, who incidentally have been flocking to Europe, being unwilling to be conscripted. The Syrian army was down from a maximum earlier of about 300,000 to 80,000; it was on the ropes. The Russians have come in to redress the balance. And NATO, instead of sounding petulant and churlish, should actually be grateful to the Russians who are exercising some adult supervision; and what is happening is actually grist to the mill of Jeremy Corbyn who argues that NATO has lost the plot and is in fact often a risk to British security.

But in what way though could it be a long-term solution for Assad to be bolstered, because John Simpson made the point that he is more powerful in the short term, but in the long term all this does potentially is put off the day when he has to go and Syria has to be sorted out?

Oh, I totally disagree. Assad does not have to go. Let us not be brow-beaten by David Cameron repeating this mantra. I was in Northern Jordan a few days ago: I spoke to a young refugee, a teenager, a girl. I asked her, “Who do you blame?” She said, “We blame them all. We blame the jihadis for coming to our village and forcing us to flee - and we blame the government for not being strong enough.” Not strong enough! Many Syrians have this grievance against the government; so the government can hardly be blamed when it does try harder and now, with Russian support, is more likely to prevail. The choice - (Interviewer tries to interrupt) - I’m sorry, the choice cannot be shirked. It’s Assad or the deluge. NATO leaders need to address this question, and answer it to the people, like me - the voice of the ordinary man. I’m afraid we’re not getting this from the Labour Party in Britain. I don’t know why they’re nervous about tackling the government on this, because this actually a point of weakness in the government’s story. They’re not answering, “Who will replace Assad?”

Yes, but they’re nervous about saying they support Assad, and that Assad is the long-term solution because he has murdered so many of his own people, and they know, or they suspect, that he is such a divisive force, because of that in sectarian and political terms, that he could not be a realistic long-term leader of Syria.

That’s simply untrue. There’s every prospect that things could return to the status quo ante if the military campaign of Russia and Syria - 

Really, even after all the barrel bombs and the killing? 

Yes, he’s never going to be popular with everybody, but which Middle East leader is?  The truth of the matter is that Assad is supported by a good 40% of the Syrian people.  That is more actually than voted for David Cameron.  

Are you seriously expecting now that following on from the Russian action and if this is bringing things to a head on the ground in Syria and indeed in the air over Syria that there is a serious diplomatic volte face now in the West and that people follow what you’ve been suggesting this morning as a serious prospect in diplomacy?

No. That would be too much to expect, but what is realistic to expect is that the West should pipe down, take a deep breath, let the Russians get on with it, NATO should continue to do what it can to fight ISIS, but it should not undermine the one force with boots on the ground, which, as John Simpson said earlier, is the only one likely to prevail against ISIS. It is totally shambolic to have a policy which is mutually contradictory.

You talk about boots on the ground. John as you say mentioned it. There’s no realistic prospect of Britain putting boots on the ground and there is occasionally discussion in America about the options that it might have had in the past for doing it and more discussion in the last few days. Is it realistic? Is it too late now for outside powers, not just in the West, but other outside powers, to intervene themselves, possibly with the UN, now that the Russians seem to be on board with some kind of action? Is that realistic or simply not?

   No, I’m afraid that is not realistic. Western powers have impaled themselves on this policy of calling for the downfall of Assad. Anyhow it’s probably a good thing that they not put boots on the ground. But they can help, by, for example, lifting sanctions on the Syrian economy which penalise only the poor Syrian people. This is one reason why so many are fleeing Syria - the Western sanctions, about which we never hear a word. 

Well, at the end of that admirably long interview I had a number of thoughts. One was how refreshing it was for the BBC to have had the courage to allow another voice from the government party line, which, Peter Ford is right, we do hear repeated like a mantra. It's like a PR-generated slogan - if something's repeated enough, people will come to believe it. Another was how very undiplomatically frank and outspoken this former ambassador was. I should imagine it did his career no favours. But hopefully there are still those within the diplomatic service who tell their political masters the truth as it is. And finally I wondered whether any of our political representatives would take a blind bit of notice of what is an admittedly inconvenient but patent truth, and be humble enough to confess we've got it wrong again. The story we hear so often is not the whole truth. What is true is that thousands have died and millions have lost their homes - and we are not helping.

Part of wall war memorial in Tartus, Syria (Channel 4 News)

"Keep your mitts off my NHS"

Last week there was a speech at the Labour Party conference which, in my opinion, knocked the spots off any I've ever heard from a politician of any colour. I know politicians usually enter politics out of conviction, but they nearly all seem to get sucked into the slimy world of focus groups and spin. Power,  or the love of power, does corrupt. It was beautifully constructed and delivered by 91-year old war veteran, Harry Smith. He described his childhood in depressed Barnsley and the death of his sister of TB, as the family couldn't afford treatment for her. "My childhood was not an episode from Downton Abbey." Watch it here: Harry Smith on the NHS

I was reminded of this when I went to our local surgery on Monday. I wanted to ask my GP some things, and I needed a regular blood test. First it was to the phlebotomist (the nurse who specialises in blood tests). Not only did she take it to test my drug level and liver function, but "Why not do these others while we're at it?" she said. I lost count of them. Then she said to Jane and me, "Have you had your flu injections yet?" The answer was no, although Jane had had her letter. "Would you like me to do them now - get them out of the way?" And so she did.  And saved us an expedition.

Then we sat in the waiting room for a bit, until the doctor came and summoned me. The major question I wanted to discuss was about the pneumococcal vaccine. As I'd written to my friends who have slow forms of MND, "I've received a letter from my local surgery, headed 'Pneumococcal Vaccination'. It says, 'Our records show that in the last month you had your 65th birthday, congratulations!' Then it goes on to explain it's usually a one-off jab to protect against a number of infections including pneumonia. 'We would like you to be vaccinated now....' In the old days, pneumonia used to be called 'the old man's friend'. (As Net Doctor puts it, 'pneumonia is called the old man's friend because, left untreated, the sufferer often lapses into a state of reduced consciousness, slipping peacefully away in their sleep, giving a dignified end to a period of often considerable suffering.') I'm not sure whether I want immunity from pneumonia. I wouldn't mind dying sometime. I'm inclined to say yes to the yearly flu jabs, but no to a lifetime pneumonia one. I wonder what others think about this." My GP listened and heard exactly what I was saying. I don't imagine she had ever had a patient with MND raising that dilemma before. She didn't hurry to reply. In the end her answer reassured me. The vaccine doesn't give complete immunity and by the time I'm ready to pop my clogs it will probably be even less effective. In the course of our conversation we talked about whether I would want treatment and resuscitation at the moment, were I to get an infection - to which the answer was Yes. Life may be limited and frustrating, but it's definitely good, and I'd like to enjoy this gift while I may. There will no doubt come a time when I say, "Don't interfere anymore, thank you," - which, you will appreciate, is entirely different from, "Please have me put down."

I also had three others things to ask her, including about respite care. At no point did I feel she was clock-watching. She was focused on me. We concluded at the end that I would have the pneumonia jab, and Jane had the good idea that I might have it then as well. So we asked the receptionist if there was a chance. And there was. She fitted me in with a nurse. Thus I left, after about an hour, having had blood tests, flu and pneumococcal jabs and a consultation with my GP. Now that's what I call service. And at the point of delivery, it cost me nothing. Of course I and my employers have contributed over the years. But it's worth it. That's the National Health Service. The practice, by the way, is Newbury Street Wantage.

I gather that one of tabloids had a leader comment today which started: "With dreary predictability, GPs’ leaders have raised objections to David Cameron’s hugely welcome plan to restore that most basic mark of a civilised society – the right to see a family doctor at any time, morning to evening, seven days a week...." Besides being transparently part of a policy of squeezing small practices out of existence - surely The Daily Mail looks back further than ten years to the golden days when one- and two-man practices were the norm? - , I reflected my elderly in-laws' experience over the past fortnight. Their sizeable GP practice lists 111 as its out-of-hours number. My mother-in-law has had resort to it three times in the past fortnight, and according to her the service has been excellent. It sounds as though it was in every way - keeping her informed, the doctors visiting, the follow-up and the quick coordinating with their GP. I recall receiving a visit from a lovely emergency doctor a few years back on Christmas Day. The system works now. I can see no way in which Mr Cameron's plan will not soak up any new money he offers - and more. Thus we shall end up with fewer resources spread more thinly, and worn-out doctors with even less time to spend with each patient.

As veteran Harry Smith ended, "Mr Cameron, keep your mitts off my NHS!" And that applies to all of you meddling politicians. Keep your mitts off our health service - and our education service.

PS I'm told I should have mentioned how nice our practice nurses are. They are very good. My second jab was quite pain free.

Politicking politicians

'Tis not yet the season to be jolly, so I hope you will allow me some disillusioned observations before we're all ho-hoing down the supermarket aisles. They were sparked off when Jane read me an extract from the Humanitarian Aid and Relief Trust winter newsletter. In it Baroness Cox wrote this:

"After one visit to Karabakh at the height of the war (between Armenia and Azerbaijan 2011), I brought back photographs of children shredded by cluster bombs. I asked the then Minister at the Foreign Office if the British Government would make representations to Azerbaijan, concerning the use of cluster bombs on civilians – a violation of international conventions. The Minster’s reply was brief and brusque:

'No country has an interest in other countries; only interests – and we have oil interests in Azerbaijan' – and I was shown out of the room." 

I shared Caroline Cox's sense of shame at being British and disappointment in our political class. This augmented later by both our Deputy Prime Minister and our Prime Minister. 

It was started by David Blunkett, Sheffield MP and former Home Secretary, speaking about the newly settled Slovakian Romas in his home city. He said: "We have to change the behaviour and the culture of the incoming Roma community because there's going to be an explosion otherwise. We all know that."

Mr Clegg, Sheffield MP too and Deputy PM, adding fuel to the fire, weighed in with: "There is a real dilemma when you get communities that behave in a way that people find sometimes intimidating, sometimes offensive. I think it is quite right that people should say so. We have every right to say if you are in Britain and you are coming to live in Britain and you are bringing up a family here, you have got to be sensitive to the way that life is lived in this country." As the Western Morning News sensibly commented: "This might all sound quite reasonable, were it not for the fact that the Slovak Roma in Sheffield have done little that could be described as either intimidating or offensive. But when it comes to gypsies, the age-old prejudices are trotted out with impunity; from the Brothers Grimm to Enid Blyton, they have been insulted and scapegoated."

The politicians should both have listened to Professor Yaron Matras, an expert on Roma culture from the University of Manchester, who accused both Nick Clegg and David Blunkett of "ethnic profiling" gypsies and claimed their use of "medieval stereotypes" was likely to increase rather than prevent the likelihood of attacks on Roma, who would inevitably then retaliate.

"People who meet Roma personally have a positive experience," said Professor Matras. "Those who get their information from indirect sources, such as parts of the media, have negative impressions – but there is nothing in Roma behaviour that is inherently more offensive or intimidating than for any other group."

One doesn't know what talks David Cameron has had in China about human rights on his current trade mission, but his press office has been keen to tell us what a success it's been, generating in a week, apparently £6 billion's worth of trade. It was sad therefore that the photo opp which appeared on the news I was watching was of him with a lady entrepeneur from the "gaming industry" who's going to invest in Britain - yippee! More of our countrymen getting into debt chasing an illusion!

And only last week, Tsar Boris, aka the Mayor of London, in the annual Margaret Thatcher lecture declared that inequality is essential to fostering "the spirit of envy" and hailed greed as a "valuable spur to economic activity". Envy and greed used to be two of the seven deadly sins. The ambitious Mr Johnson clearly thinks he knows better. I'm not sure he does, any more than he understands the mathematics of the IQ test. "Whatever you may think of the value of IQ tests it is surely relevant to a conversation about equality that as many as 16% of our species have an IQ below 85 while about 2% …" he said as he departed from the text of his speech to ask whether anyone in his City audience had a low IQ. To muted laughter he asked: "Over 16% anyone? Put up your hands. 16% have an IQ below 85 while 2% have an IQ above 130. And the harder you shake the pack the easier it will be for some corn flakes to get to the top." Well, they would do, old chap, as the IQ test is a bell-curve based round an average of 100. That's the normal distribution  - get it? 

It is truly depressing when a politician tipped by many as a future Prime Minister lauds envy and greed as economic and social virtues, and attributes wealth to intelligence and poverty to the lack of it. "You're poor, because you're stupid."

I also found it depressing to listen to another potential PM on Desert Island Discs. I'm not able to judge Ed Miliband's musical tastes, since I shared none of them, but was interested to hear what he had to say about his political assassination of his brother, David, in the Labour Party leadership election. You may remember that Ed declared he was running after David and narrowly won only with the support of the big union votes. As I heard it, his justification was that he wanted to put party before family. It was an extraordinary insult to his brother's abilities, and seemed to me a weasel way of saying, "I wanted to put self before family." I'm sorry, Ed Milicain, I can't vote for someone who lacks both selflessness and transparency.

Finally, as you'll detect, I'm quite even-handedly disillusioned with politicians of all three mainstream parties. One omission from my scatter-gun seems to be women. In fact two of the outstanding political breakthroughs have been achieved by women. The MP for Walthanstow, Stella Creasey's unremitting pressure has at last led to a U-turn by the Government on capping the interest rates of Pay-day lenders, and, on the international stage, it appears that the interim agreement between Iran and the big powers over its nuclear industry was largely engineered by Baroness Ashton, the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs. Women seem to be doing all right in politics.

So to redress the balance let me have a go at Cherie Blair, not exactly a politician but certainly a political figure. She was recently interviewed in The Independent. The headline was "Being a mother isn't a job. It's a relationship"  It sounds exactly like a politician's sound bite. So I looked at the article and came across what she said about being a mother. In a way it sounds unexceptionable. “Don’t say being a mother is the most important job to do because being a mother isn’t a job. It’s a relationship. The quality of the relationship is what matters . The most important thing is the relationship we have with our children.” And yet it does sound like the words of someone who can afford a nanny, someone like a... millionaire barrister, or someone... married to a prime minister, or even... better, both. You might not like to describe motherhood as a job, but whatever you call it, there's nothing more important to do well than bringing up children. And whatever else it isn't, it certainly is hard work. I would reply, "Don't say being a mother is just a relationship. It's much more than that." 

I know politics is what politicians do. But it doesn't seem to me that ours are doing it very well.

Now for the season of goodwill!

PS Here's hoping George Osborne doesn't come up with some madness tomorrow.

Men behaving badly

Why are Englishmen so awful at personnel management? How is it possible for the FA board not to have consulted their highly-paid team coach before making a team decision as crucial as removing the captaincy from John Terry? It beggars belief.

The FA Chairman, David Bernstein

Whatever the rights and wrongs of Terry retaining the captaincy - and you can argue either way with some reason - it's plain as a pikestaff that to fail to consult Fabio Capello, his boss, beforehand, was plain insulting and bad management. It leaves me wondering how much a free hand he'd ever been allowed. It was convenient to pin the World Cup blame on to him. Since then, however, he seemed to have created a successful and promising team with prospects for Euro 2012. But the point is that if you employ a man at an annual salary of £6 million, the least you can do is afford him the respect to do his job.

Fabio Capello

It's not surprising if Capello had been hopping mad to have heard the FA's decision post facto. He must have felt he was up against the Mafia. Even more so, when he was expected to keep silent. When he spoke up, the Mafia would have shot him; the FA fired him. He was a strange creature in their world - a man of principle, a manager who expected his team to maintain standards, someone who said it as he saw it, someone who actually believed in "innocent until proved guilty". What a surprise, when a man of such eminence in the football world, said, "I'm sorry. I manage this team. That's what you pay me for. I make the operational decisions. You can advise. I decide"! And don't tell me he resigned! He was pushed - probably by being told, "Like it or lump it, Fabio. We've decided."

It's not the only example I've come across of what can only be described as crass personnel relations in organisations. Somehow managers regularly miss the blindingly obvious in how to treat their employees. Perhaps it's an aspect of their ambition that has pushed them up the ladder. You tend not to look at the fingers you're treading on, otherwise you'd never get on and up. I wonder whether it's a particularly male thing. I think of the different headteachers under whom I served. Without doubt the best two were women. Outstanding was Sister St James, a splendid upright fireball of a nun, who had brought an all-girls' convent school to be a highly successful mixed comprehensive. She was respected by staff and students alike, and yet had time for all alike as well. The other was Freda Storrar, who'd worked in industry before returning to education to take on one of the toughest upper schools in Cowley. She too had that combination of integrity and humanity. I hate to admit it, but three of the four male heads under whom I worked were not in the same class. They weren't bad, but they weren't as good. The exception was a retired head brought out of retirement to fill in a term's gap between appointments.

In other contexts, I've seen either first-hand or through friends repeated managerial crassness, usually at arm's length: in the Health Service for example nurses expected to operate new IT systems without having been given the training and with no time allowances; coordinators told to write up their own jobs with a view to being down-graded. I could go on. I looked at the Football Association's website. There's a page which proudly proclaims The Decision Makers. It's the list of the Board members, of whom there are 12. No prizes for guessing how many are women! I believe 51% of the world's population are female. Maybe there is a Women's FA. Maybe more men than women do play football. But maybe we don't need to look any further than the Board to understand why the members are such crass "decision makers". (In case you were wondering, the answer, of course, is 0.)

I don't make a habit of agreeing with our Prime Minister, but I think he might have had a point when, talking about women in board-rooms this morning in Sweden, he said, "The evidence is that there is a positive link between women in leadership and business performance, so if we fail to unlock the potential of women in the labour market, we're not only failing those individuals, we're failing our whole economy."

Vicky Beeching

Meanwhile the Church of England General Synod, this week, returned to the vexed question of creating women bishops.... Coincidentally, I imagine, singer/song-writer, blogger and academic, Vicky Beeching, posted a blog entitled God has given Christianity a masculine feel, says John Piper. He's a well respected and popular author and preacher in America. Unsurprisingly Vicky rebuts his thesis, and set me wondering what I honestly feel. There are getting on for 100 comments following Vicky's post (mine's near the end!). I have to say I am now positively in favour of women in positions of pastoral leadership in the church. I wasn't once. My one reservation, and sadness, is that it can become a further cause of disunity within both the church (C of E) and the Church (worldwide). I'm hopeful that, with humility, it's possible to disagree but not divide.

Saving the Hester affair

Well, Mr Hester, you clearly didn't read my post before announcing you had decided not to accept your bonus after all. I'm sure Mr Cameron has phoned you to say thank you. Of course, it hasn't got the hacks off your back - who conveniently forget that you've turned an annual £24.1 billion loss round in four years so that the bank is now making a profit. I don't reckon it's your fault that the world economy has continued to slide into recession - which, I assume, is why the markets remain a tad depressed. Things like the euro crisis and recession in the States can't be laid entirely at your door.

So I wouldn't blame you, if you picked up your substantial bonus from last year (more than four times this one!) and offered your considerable financial talents elsewhere. I'm sure there are some banks out there who'd love to use you. I get the feeling that you're not quite ready to enjoy your arboretum and twiddle your thumbs. It would be a shame if you did either.

Or here's another suggestion. How about taking an unpaid sabbatical and producing a rationale for incentives that even the grubby Quintus Slides of this world could understand? They, after all, are the public's source of wisdom on such matters. I think you could afford it. Should RBS look like going pear-shaped while you were working on it, you could always step back in and steady the ship. Hopefully the team is good enough to carry on with the progress you've made so far. While you were about it, how about George Osborne, or even David himself, commissioning you to devise a bonus-scheme for the city big bosses which is transparent and fair? I reckon, coming from you, they might listen, and something good come from this tangled mess of envy and inequality.

With best wishes.

Christmas thoughts from my chair

While there seems to be determined effort in some quarters to remove the Christian message out of Christmas, such as items about trend towards secular carol concerts citing Raymond Gubbay's 120 Christmas concerts nationwide, not mentioning the astonishing fact that last year 41% of Londoners attended carol services, there was a welcome exception on BBC's Countryfile last night, which created a traditional village celebration with none of the sceptical airbrushing that we've become accustomed to. The Christian elements of the festival were straightforwardly explored, from the star to the God pie (three-cornered mince pie representing the Trinity) to the animals. It was thoroughly uncynical and refreshing. Thank you, BBC.

Coincidentally on Friday night David Cameron had hit a raw nerve with some in a speech in Oxford marking the 400th anniversary of the Authorised Version of the Bible, in which he talked about the importance of the Christian heritage of our country. He also said it was "easier for people to believe and practise other faiths when Britain has confidence in its Christian identity". "Why? Because the tolerance that Christianity demands of our society provides greater space for other religious faiths too.""Many people tell me it is much easier to be Jewish or Muslim here in Britain than it is in a secular country like France," he said. "And because many of the values of a Christian country are shared by people of all faiths and indeed by people of no faith at all."  


Sadly the speech wasn't quoted on the Radio 4 news that night, only a predictable sound-bite from humanist ex-MP, Evan Harris, saying that restating our Christian history was divisive of religious groups - and anyway such ethical principles as "Do to others what you'd like them to do to you" predate all religions by thousands of years. Of course he adduced no evidence for his view, merely that they were rational principles. (Isn't reason God-given anyway?) He's quite wrong, of course, about the divisiveness of a distinctively Christian stance. When I taught in a multi-racial school in Oxford, it happened to be a Church of England school, founded by the Cowley Fathers to bring education to the poor areas of East Oxford. (The Christian contribution to education and in social involvement, by the way, is something often ignored or airbrushed out by faith's detractors.) Significantly ours was the school of choice for local Muslims, because they preferred a school where faith in God mattered to one with no religion. We used to enjoy our 6th-form assemblies in which Christian, Muslim, atheist, black, brown and white shared and discussed their faiths. Divisive? You're joking!

For someone who has no faith in God, it's a simple mistake to make imagining that different faiths can't coexist harmoniously. (It's also a lie fraught with danger, if not inciting hatred.) For many centuries they did so in the near middle east, as William Dalrymple's From the Holy Mountain beautifully records. And just last week I read this fascinating news item from Jerusalem:
"This holiday season, many evangelical Christians and their families are using the Hanukah Tree Topper and Star of David Tree Topper to crown their Christmas trees. The idea was the brainchild of Morri and Marina Chowaiki who have sold many thousands of the decorative 'menorahments' after making one to put on top of their own Christmas tree because they couldn’t find one in any store. The couple say that they have received many orders from people who want a symbol of Israel and peace on their tree and have received, 'tons of positive feedback.'"

There's a trenchant (and often misquoted) comment by Ben Stein, inter al speech writer for Richard Nixon, which was broadcast on CBS on 18th December 2005.
"Here at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart:

"I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are (US reality TV "couple"). I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I'm buying my dog biscuits. I still don't know. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores who they are. They don't know who Nick and Jessica are, either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they've broken up? Why are they so darned important?

"I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I don't care at all about Tom Cruise's baby.

"Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I'm a subversive? Maybe. But I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young? Hm, not so bad.

"Next confession: I am a Jew and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish, and it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautifully lit-up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees.

"I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are — Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they're slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we're all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year.

"It doesn't bother me one bit that there's a manger scene on display at a key intersection at my beach house in Malibu.

"If people want a creche, fine. The menorah a few hundred yards away is fine, too. I do not like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat. Or maybe I can put it another way. Where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and aren't allowed to worship God as we understand him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we used to know went to." 

Rather wonderful crib in Sorrento Cathedral

So to my friends, of whatever colour and creed, I wish you a happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year (I guess there's more hope of the former than the latter!). Hopefully you'll reciprocate in the way that suits you best.

Confined to barracks

Having a heavy cold which makes me sound a bit like an elephant with a bun stuck up his trunk has meant my being CB (confined to barracks) these past few days. To be honest, it doesn't make a great difference to my schedule, as I'm not highly mobile and don't get out much. The last time was on Thursday - to my amazing dentist from whom I consistently come away grateful and wee bit euphoric; followed by my weekly trip to Cornerstone, while Jane skivvies in the kitchen. Anyway today I stayed at home while Jane went with our friends, Pete and Jane, to a kind of mini home-church with a friend who's ill.

So I spent a quiet and thoughtful morning on my own. Among other things, I was pondering on what lies beneath the St Paul's protest and, come to that, the summer riots. I know there's no simplistic single answer. In fact one of the (more inane) criticisms aimed at the protesters is that they don't have an alternative. "Where's your programme for reform?" That misses the point entirely. One of the factors behind popular cynicism about current politics is precisely that in campaigns politicians make a whole load of promises, which they then fail to carry out when they come to power. Even now one hears politicians trimming their downright condemnation of the St Paul's protest as they discover that it has more support than they first thought. Such unlikely people as George Soros (megafinancier), Bill Gates (megaindustrialist) and Rowan Williams (megaecclesiastic) seem to have found common issues with them, such as the International Financial Transaction tax (the Robin Hood Tax). Oops, one senses the politicians think, we'd better not miss the band-wagon. Thus they expose one of the weaknesses of our liberal democracy. Instead of politicians standing up with their principles by which they will stand, we have politicians whose only principle is to please the people. I suppose the arch-exponent of this was Tony Blair, with focus groups, e-petitions and spin doctors, whose aim was to win at all costs. He of course has set the trend and David Cameron is said to follow his example.

On the surface it seems a reasonable approach: find out what the people want and then give it to them. Isn't that what democracy is all about? The answer is No. That's not democracy; it's demagogy. It's a system of government where the loudest voice rules. Actually it's mob-rule. The alternative is a system where men and women clearly set out their principles for public examination - and then stick to them. In that system the quiet people, the ordinary voters, have equal influence with the loud-mouth lobbyists.   It all depends, of course, on that old-fashioned word "Honour". It depends on our politicians honouring their word, but more than that, being people of honour. I don't often write to MPs, but I don't think I'm alone in the feeling that, when I do, I'm receiving a people-pleasing reply rather than a plain honest expression of opinion. By the way, I think something of this lies behind the Occupy movement's use of general assemblies which I gather are as long as a piece of string. They are an attempt to resist the power of a vocal lobby dominating decisions.

Something else which I believe, recognised or not, lurks behind the protests is a general unease that something is rotten in the state of Britain, and to some degree in the Western world. You don't need to be a prophet to recognise that justice is not flowing like a river (Amos 5.24), either nationally or globally, and to call for it. Ironically I suspect that a contributing factor to this has been the elevation of personal choice over corporate responsibility. Ironically, because on the face of it to allow more personal choice is to add to the sum total of freedom. The end of the 20th century was the great period of deregulation, from personal ethics to market economics. The City markets were deregulated - and since 2008 the world has been reaping the whirlwind. Personal ethics (such as divorce and abortion) were made a private issue rather than one which had implications for society, and we are now wrestling with the effects of divorce on countless children. People who dare to uphold traditional Judaeo-Christian values such as columnist, Melanie Phillips, are branded as "bigots", and we begin to see a new sort of politically correct censorship creeping in under the guise of freedom. However it's a "freedom" defined by the demagogues.

On 27th November 1997 a letter appeared in The Times under the title "The Death of Trust":

"Contemporary morality tends to elevate the right to choose above every other value.  It finds offensive the traditional teaching on the sanctity of human life which has been part of common morality in Western societies.  This outlook is having many profound effects.  It has desensitised many people to the evil of abortion.  It has also predisposed many to support euthanasia.

"Euthanasia aims at ending a life judged to be no longer worth living, either because of suffering or because of presumed ‘poor’ quality.  The aim is accomplished either by a direct action, such as administering a lethal injection, or by depriving a person of medical treatment or of ordinary care in order to bring about death.  An essential defining characteristic of euthanasia is the intention to end life, that is to kill."

The letter was signed by Cardinal Basil Hume. This month will see another push towards euthanasia with the publication of the "findings" of the very unofficial Falconer "commission" on assisted "dying". Hopefully it will be seen for what it is, a piece of demagoguery by a well-financed, well-connected and vocal lobby group.

PS Moving interview tonight on Songs of Praise with Glen Campbell and his wife Kim. He's the American country singer, who has been diagnosed with Alzheimers. That's faith.

A plaudit and postscripts

If for nothing else, one has to give Mr Cameron and his government credit for tackling some of the hottest potatoes that have been cooking for decades, like the pensions problem, the benefit system and the social care time-bomb, and of course end of life care. You may not agree with their exact approach to dealing with the financial crisis (I don't think I do), but without doubt they haven't ducked the task of deficit reduction. Of course commissioning reports isn't the same as tackling the problems. I suppose the acid test will be the extent to which they act on the various reports they've received. Will they follow them up as rigorously as they've laid in to cutting public expenditure? There is naturally a lot of political debate ahead, but I honestly hope that, while he listens, Mr Cameron isn't persuaded to let the grass grow up around these issues yet again.

I'm sad to learn that the Witney Town Council has not allowed the charity LIFE to hold a rally to celebrate its 40th anniversary in the Leys. There's been a bit of a hoo-ha about it, as you can discover in the delightfully reactionary Archbishop Cranmer's blog.

In what I hope will be my last word on Terry Pratchett's BBC programme about "Dingitas", I was a bit shocked to be alerted on Facebook to a news item in the Daily Mail. I did describe the programme as "creative" in the Guardian, but I hadn't realised just how creative it had been. The death of the young man with MS, Andrew Colgan, wasn't shown. What we did see was Sir Terry and his assistant back at their hotel playing Elgar's Nimrod variation and toasting him at the moment of his dying. In What the BBC didn't reveal his brother tells how his dying took 90 rather than the usual 20 minutes to take place.
"My mother cuddled him for the first 40 minutes but she was advised to let him go because knowing she was there may have caused him to cling to life. She did so with tears in her eyes."  The implication would seem to be that either Sir Terry was toasting his brave demise prematurely, or that the filming was - well - creative. Whichever, the BBC were, let's say, selective with the truth, as the impression was given of a normal Dignitas "dignified" death.

Cameron's War

So we are going to get involved in, or above, Libya. I have to confess that I agreed with Simon Jenkins' scepticism about military intervention. He argued that once you get involved you are inevitably sucked in further and further, because failure is not an option. "That Britain has been fighting and not winning two wars already in Muslim countries seems to teach nothing in Libya.... If the rebels win it should be their victory, emerging from a new balance of power inside Libya. If they fail, they must fight another day. There is no good reason for us to intervene. However embattled they feel, Obama and Cameron should find other paths to glory" (Guardian 9th March). That was until Thursday when I heard the Syrian writer and broadcaster, Rana Kabbani.

Rana Kabbani

She was contributor to that day's Letters to the Arab World on Radio 4. It was a series in which five writers from North Africa and the Middle East considered the momentous events that are reshaping the Arab world. As the political and cultural landscape shifts around them, these authors and thinkers use open letters to reflect on the consequences for the region and for its people. She addressed hers to the 81-year old Riad al-Turk, a Syrian dissident artist and activist who after 20 years of imprisonment by the Assad régime is now in hiding. For me it was an eye-opener. She talked about the reality and brutality of the oppression by the dynastic régimes of the Arab world, describing the inhumane conditions Riad had to endure. Contrary to popular western belief, Arab people are not apathetic under tyranny. The north African uprisings this year have not come out of the blue; they are the culmination of a harshly suppressed longing and working for freedom. She used, I think, the phrase, "the prison cells which are our Arab nations". Now they are at last breaking out. It's a moving and revealing piece. Rana Kabbani's letter  


I'm not sure quite how it changed my attitude, but I think it was to see that this whole thing is important, and that actually it's to do with freeing prisoners unjustly held in captivity, as well as preventing the slaughter of innocent lives. Maybe it will go down in the UK as "Cameron's War" (and in France as "la guerre de Sarkozy"), and at the moment it seems to have got off to a good start with the announcement in Libya of a ceasefire - not that I'd trust the wily old fox Gaddafi. However to give M Sarkozy his due he did stick his head above the parapet in denouncing Gaddafi, recognising the rebels in Benghazi and rattling his sabre, and David Cameron came on board fairly soon on the diplomatic front - as Sir Humphrey might have said, a courageous decision. 

Typhoon: lined up against Col Gaddafi's forces

Of course this isn't the end of the story. In all the twists and turns that Muammar Gaddafi will undoubtedly perform in order to retain power, I am sure there will be more blood to be shed. And then, if he ultimately is toppled from power, there will still be questions hanging over us, notably where will we stop? Bahrain has imported (our ally's) troops to suppress their "prison-cell" breakers. Yemen has fired on theirs. We've seen unrest in many of "the prison cells which are... Arab nations": Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, Iran, Saudi Arabia (who, incidentally, are lined up for our most advanced combat aircraft, the Typhoon). Will we be as assiduous in support of their uprisings as we have been in Libya? Simon Jenkins has a point. We need to pray for our politicians.

To end, a quote I recently came across: “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it” (Helen Keller).

Visiting Charles and Mandy

I enjoyed yesterday.  We were invited to Charles' (see 'My Donkeybody', the book) 70th birthday party.  That was nice - only they live in a former watermill and their main room is upstairs.  Not a broad gently sweeping staircase, but quite narrow steep spiral stairs....  When it was a working mill there was a sack-hoist outside, but for some reason it was ruled out.  I think there are some vital parts missing.  So needs must.  Ben, their son, used to work with the disabled.  So I linked my hands (not to pray, I'm afraid), Ben seized me from behind, Richard, their son-in-law, look my legs - and up, up and away, I was flying, soon to be dumped in an armchair upstairs!  Easy, when you know how.  Going down when I could see the drop I felt a bit less nonchalant, but they managed that manoeuvre with equal aplomb.  No doubt, health and safety would have had the heeby-jeebies, but I knew I was in good hands.

In between the two operations, I did a lot of listening and, for me, a lot of talking.  Many of the people there knew us and so could interpret my gobbledygook.  So what with friends, good food and companionship, we spent a very happy afternoon.  We didn't need any more food when we got home.
So Jane honed some of her newly acquired computer skills, while I wrote yesterday's blog.  Then we watched 'Millions', which is a fun film.  And so, as Pepys would say, to bed.

There are some thought-provoking comments on my blog yesterday.  I do like being challenged about my thoughts.  So thanks.

Perhaps this observation may provoke some reaction... but I did think David Cameron was plain wrong to cite the sadistic attack by two youngsters in the Doncaster area as evidence of the 'broken society'.  It shouldn't be too difficult to work out that the incident is news because it is so UNTYPICAL.  It may well be that we are witnessing a break-down of family life and societal values - but this isn't evidence for it, any more than the Jamie Bulger case, quoted years ago by Tony Blair, was.  Our society isn't awash with damaged sadistic young people.  I suspect most families make a reasonable fist of things.  Not that there aren't many that need help.  But rather than make too easy political points, we really need to address the issues Michael Sandel addressed in his Reith lectures about establishing a new citizenship based on agreed values.