Time to revisit the Regal Compost Bin

Regular readers will realise that I'm a closet Royalist (yeah, right) and may recall that I celebrated her maj's Diamond Jubilee in 2012 by constructing a commemorative compost bin. Today saw me taking out my latest batch of the brown stuff. It's as good a batch as I've ever made and I'm putting it down to the royal association of this particular bin. Maybe it's my imagination but what comes out of my other two bins just isn't the same. It doesn't have such a regal aroma or break down into such an imperial crumb. Rule Britannia - ruler of the bins. 

The above mentioned bin, looking good after three years of dutiful service. But will it last as long as her maj has reigned over us? I think not.

Compost fit for a queen - and my veg plot. I think I'll be growing some King Edward's in this lot next year.

Her maj always uses a silver spade when she digs. Me? I use my great grandfather's shovel. Dating from the 1930s, Henry Charles Bowyer used it when he was working as a roadman for Bedwas and Machen Urban District Council in South Wales - in fact, the discerning eye can just make out a very worn BMUDC on the handle. I like using this shovel as it links me directly, through my father and grandfather, to a man I can clearly remember. He died when I was about 5 and when I think about him I recall a fob watch in his waistcoat, a funny accent (he came from Chipping Sodbury in Gloucestershire), a white moustache that smelt of pipe tobacco, chickens, digging and picking things from his garden and, my very last mental image of him, him laid out for his burial in my nan's front room. The room was heady with the scent of Lily of the Valley and I've associated it with death ever since. Never, ever buy me a bunch - I won't be impressed.

A weekend in Cornwall

We've had some good friends to stay for the weekend and we took the opportunity to do a little local sight-seeing. Day 1 took in the Bude Canal and Crackington Haven and Day 2, Padstow, Wadebridge and Daymer Bay. Here are a few photographs as a record of a couple of very enjoyable days.

Bude Canal: Grey Heron

Bude Canal: a gaggle of Canada Geese.

Bude Canal: something we'd never seen before - a Grass Snake in the water

Bude Canal: something else we've never seen before - a Kingfisher. This one was extremely accommodating and stayed in a bush for many minutes as we all enjoyed seeing it. It proved to be quite an attraction and there was a crowd of us peering at it for a long time.

Bude Canal: we haven't seen one of these before either

Bude Canal: just one more of the one hundred shots I took of the Kingfisher

Crackington Haven: a welcome swim at the end of a hot day. Mrs P beat me into the waves

Padstow: harbour view

St Enedoc's church (Daymer Bay): twelfth century. At one time it was buried by the neighbouring sand dunes and the priest had to climb in through the roof to give services to maintain its consecration

St Enedoc's church (Daymer Bay): flowers from a wedding adorned the entrance

St Enedoc's church (Daymer Bay): a slate plaque from the wall of a side chapel. The captain of the brig was found guilty of manslaughter at a trial after the tragic event. He had taken a route into Padstow harbour which was known to be dangerous and certainly not recommended by the Admiralty

 

St Enedoc's church (Daymer Bay): In keeping with my usual skulking around graveyards for WW1 graves, here's one with an intriguing story. Hooray for the internet.

 

The SS Armenian (originally SS India but renamed SS Armenian in commemoration of the genocidal actions of the Ottoman Empire) began her final and fateful voyage in early June 1915 with 175 men onboard. She was chartered to carry a cargo of 1,422 mules from the United States to Bristol in England. The animals, offspring of male donkeys and female horses, were intended as replacements for the horses that had been lost in fighting in France. At around 6:30pm on the 28th of June, while heading northeast off Trevose Head, Cornwall, a watchman on the Armenian sighted a German submarine. In what proved to be a hugely erroneous decision, Captain James Trickey ordered full steam in an attempt to outrun
the U-boat, which turned out to be the U-24. He was signaled to stop and surrender after two shots were fired across his bow, but he refused. The U-boat's commander, Rudolf Schneider, then opened fire with the deck gun, scoring several hits on the Armenian, one shot taking out the Marconi room.

 

After more than a dozen men lay dead or injured on the deck, Trickey finally agreed to surrender. Much to his surprise, he and the crew were treated well by the Germans from that point on. With several lifeboats damaged from the shelling, they were allowed to take the remaining boats and make for the Cornish coast. The Armenian was then sunk by two torpedoes fired into her stern. She went down in a matter of minutes.

The survivors were picked up the following day by the Belgian steam trawler President Stevens. Four of the injured died before they could be rescued. Twenty-nine men in total lost their lives, including nineteen Americans. The Armenian needed hands to tend to the mules, so many of the 175 men on board were muleteers who had been hired at Newport News, Virginia, before sailing. Of the twenty-nine fatalities, twelve were muleteers who refused to abandon
the animals for which they had developed sincere affection and respect, and preferred to go down with the ship. Most of them were African-Americans.

St Enedoc's church (Daymer Bay): Another intriguing memorial, this one to Christopher Runnalls of the 10th Duke of Cornwall Light Infantry. A little rooting around reveals that he was 34 when he died 'of wounds at home'. His medal roll suggests that he did not serve abroad and I assume that he was killed in some sort of military accident.

St Enedoc's church (Daymer Bay): an interior view of the church. It had a nice friendly feel.

St Enedoc's church (Daymer Bay): a vignette from an earlier time. A grant for extra seating with the proviso that they are all free. But subject to assignment by the Church Wardens.

First thoughts on Jezza's win

It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
(Eugene V. Debs: US Politician)

Well, the deed is done and Jeremy Corbyn has been elected as leader of the Labour party. A friend said that I must be excited that he has and I am. But any excitement is moderated by a realistic expectation of a very rough ride from here on in and, I'll admit it, some trepidation about how Jezza will adapt to his new role. Being a long standing rebellious back bencher might not be the best training for being a responsible Party Leader.  

Jezza's elevation has given encouragement to those of us on the left who want to see Labour end its miserable cohabitation with neo-conservatism and privatisation. Since the ascent of Blair, Labour has sought power by adopting the rhetoric and politics of the right. Consequently, when it gained power it disappointed many because there was little or nothing to distinguish it from the bogeymen it claimed to be protecting us from. And it got worse. As the party’s rightward drift continued, it turned into the very bogeymen that Labour was founded to fight against. For the Blairites, the party’s socialist past is precisely that - passed and in the past.

But as many have pointed out, winning the leadership was the easy bit. The really difficult task has only just begun. And it’s starting with a party whose foundations are becoming increasingly unstable. The Parliamentary Party has received the news of Corbyn’s victory with as much joy as a papal blessing in an Orange lodge. Already significant numbers of the previous shadow cabinet and Labour’s front bench have refused to serve in Jezza's line-up. They’re the sort of politicians who believe that it’s not them who are wrong, it’s the voters and if they had their way they’d elect a new electorate. But they are a powerful force set against any possibility of serious change within Labour. Can the party survive with such divisions?

The divisions within Labour contrast with a media which is almost universally hostile. The UK press has absolutely no intention of giving Corbyn a fair hearing. He’s going to be monstered and misrepresented by mealy mouthed mendacious mediocrities, who’ll claim that their columns represent balanced reporting. Because, as we all know, the media are scrupulously fair and only an anti-democratic wannabe dictator would think of criticising the spawn of Rupert Murdoch and the Barclay twins. Jeremy’s voice will be drowned out whilst those of his critics will be given free rein. Faced with all this, it's going to be incredibly difficult for Labour to make substantial inroads into a voting population which will find itself subject to a vigorous fear campaign. It’s going to be relentless and unforgiving. The mildest of proposals will be hysterically blown out of proportion and stripped of context. And it won’t stop. The stakes are too high.

The British establishment could survive the loss of Scotland. Losing Scotland would be a massive blow to their prestige, to their entitlement, to their pockets, but the establishment would still reign over all except the rebellious Scots who refused to be crushed. But the British establishment can’t survive the success of the Corbyn project: he threatens the end to their privilege and preference. That’s precisely why they will conspire to ensure that he fails. Renationalising key industries threatens the bank balances of the rich, scrapping Trident threatens the power hungry dreams of the establishment. 

Already the Tories are talking in the language of threats to national security. Because in their world, national security is the same as the security of the very rich and the very powerful. The security of the poor and the marginalised is of no account. When the government refers to the main opposition party in such terms, when it describes the opposition in apocalyptic terms as an enemy of the state, we should all be concerned. Interesting times ahead, eh? Just think how boring it would have been if one of the others had won!
 

Droning on....

On August 21st two jihadists, both British citizens, were killed by a drone attack in Syria. Many aspects of this trouble me.

Let me make it clear from the outset that I have absolutely no sympathy for Reyaad Khan or Ruhul Amin who were fighting for ISIS at the time. I’m sad for their families, who never asked for any of this. But Khan and Amin were stupid, misguided and arrogant young men who signed up to an organisation which thinks it just fine to oppress and rape women, to enslave and/or brutalise non-believers, to throw gay people from high buildings and to destroy the cultural heritage of the lands they occupy. They went off to a foreign land where they had no business being in order to kill those who don’t share their narrow misinterpretation of a holy book. 

But, and it is a huge but, that doesn’t mean that the British state which ordered their deaths should escape close scrutiny. By killing these two young men Britain has become a state which practises summary justice. Summary justice is quick and easy but the great problem with summary justice is that it’s very difficult to distinguish it from summary injustice. Summary justice is no justice at all.

Whichever way you look at it, the British state has now sanctioned the assassination of British citizens, without trial, without public disclosure of the evidence against them and without accountability. I think that's a dark and dangerous road to go down. The fact that a drone strike is carried out remotely and in a foreign land doesn’t make it any less of a death squad hit. Whether we like it or not, we now live in a country which has a hit list of its citizens whose deaths can be ordered by politicians behind closed doors for reasons that are not disclosed and on evidence that is not revealed. 

 
We condemn ISIS at so many levels: we condemn it because it practises a perversion of justice that is manifestly anything but just; we condemn it because it turns to mindless violence as a first option; we condemn it because we like to think that we occupy the moral high ground, that we have fair laws, that we have just rules, that we have impartial courts, that we have compassion and understanding as well as justice and punishment, that violence is never, never our first option. Sadly ordering drone strikes drags us down to the same level as Khan and Amin. I know it's easy to say but very difficult to bring about but they should have been captured and put on trial. Am I being stupid expecting that a democratic state should adhere to higher standards? I want our government to be better than the likes of Khan and Amin, not to adopt their tactics and methods and then demand that we trust blindly in its judgement and dare not challenge its word.

David Cameron told the House of Commons that “we are dealing with people who are producing such a tempo of terrorist attacks – attacks on police and members of the armed services, attempted attacks on commemorations in our country”. So when and where did these attacks or attempted attacks take place? Who tried to carry them out and how? How were they stopped and by whom? Have any arrests been made? Will anybody be tried in court? What role did the three dead Britons in Syria play? Cameron sidesteps all such questions by citing “issues of national security”.  Even the details of the Attorney General’s advice are unavailable. We just have to accept his good faith and that of the PM, the intelligence chiefs and the military. Mmm, now where have I heard that before?

Politics and Migrants

Warning, continuing might take you into an immoderate rant zone.

Increasingly I'm finding that I wake up in the morning, read my Guardian, turn on the Today programme on Radio 4, then hold my head in my hands and cringe,  saying to myself and to no one in particular but the world in general – “Oh, good grief" (or words to that effect). That’s if I'm not already hurling abuse and invective in all directions, which is  not a good way to start the day when you have to keep your blood pressure low. 

There's no getting away from the fact that the role of Cameron's Britain in the EU is embarassing: GB is seen as the dickhead of Europe; the one who never offers to buy a round; the precious little boy who thinks he is special and the standards by which the rest of the world is judged do not apply to him. The rules by which everyone else is judged just do not apply to Britain, because Britain is special. Britain is so special that British nationalism isn’t nationalist at all. We can refuse to help the rest of the world because we need to look after our own people first, and it’s not nationalist to make your compassion and care contingent on a person’s passport as long as their passport is British. 

 
Britain is the one who is asked to help in a humanitarian crisis but pleads that it might affect its car insurance payments (thank you for that, Daily Mail). Britain is the country where the first response of the press to a humanitarian crisis washing up on the shores of the Mediterranean is to complain that British holiday makers had their holidays in Greece ruined because they were reminded that there is suffering in the world (thank you, Daily Express, for that compassionate headline).

 
We’re surrounded by water and that makes us special: a barrier which means that we’re exempt from giving a toss about the refugees trekking across the continent as a result of the havoc that the West has helped to bring about. You can walk along a Hungarian highway but Britain has no place for you, unless you’re a global finance company, a multimillionaire, an oligarch, a deposed dictator, an arms dealer or a banker. Britain only has a place for the rich and the powerful, the people who don’t need refuge. You don’t get to be rich and powerful by being a nice person. Sometimes it seems as if Britain only has a place for the utter bastards of this world. Utter bastardy is what the Tories expect us to aspire to. These are the new British values and they’re cringeworthy and loathsome.

People are dying, fleeing death, escaping from oppression and slavery, risking everything and being left with nothing, and the British government refers to them as migrants who are seeking a better life – as if they were contestants on Wish You Were Here who are viewing properties in Majorca and comparing the sizes of swimming pools. Back in the real world that the refugees are in, the swimming pool contains a dead body, face down.

After a very luke-warm start our government is now trying to fudge the numbers, hinting that they may allow a few dozen more here, a couple of hundred more there to seek shelter in the UK. At the same time they seem intent on adding to the bombs that are already falling on Syrian cities. Kobani and Aleppo stand in ruins, flattened and destroyed.  Yes, what they really need are more bombs. Not any old bombs but British bombs. Because British bombs are virtuous and problem solving bombs. British bombs blow things up in constructive and helpful ways, unlike Syrian bombs. Will they never learn? Military intervention does not work.

Turning now to the numbers. Sweden, which has a population of just 8 million, has given refuge to over 40,000. Tiny Lebanon has received 1.2 million across its border with Syria. There are 1.8 million in Turkey. Germany has said that it will receive 800,000. Yet the maximum figure being bandied about by Cameron is 15,000, and even that figure is only being aired after the immense pressure of an outraged populace disgusted by how the UK is showing itself to be the Ebenezer Scrooge of international relief.

It’s not like there is nowhere for the refugees to go. Britain could house them in the grace and favour spare bedrooms of the Royal Family, in the thousands of empty flats and houses owned by offshore tax dodgers, in the empty office space built by speculators. The British establishment tells us that it doesn’t want an EU wide settlement to ensure that every European country has to take its fair share of refugees because they want the EU to be a commercial organisation. The EU should only benefit big business and capital, not people. And that’s the sentiment that also lies behind government in this country. The UK exists to service capital, and so does its people. That’s why there’s so much focus on forcing the disabled into work, because unless you’re making money for someone else you have no value or worth in Britain. At least I can say it wasn't my vote that helped Cameron and his cronies back into power. None of this is in my name. Is it in yours?

 

Jezza's the one.

Make your mind up time is rapidly approaching and my ballot paper for the Labour Party Leadership Election has to be completed and returned by next Thursday. Me? I'm going with my heart and putting my X against Jezza.

Many say that a vote for the man is a vote for the Tories in the next election. That may be true, but in the meantime, I think it could mean a number of things.

1. It means that for the first time since they were elected there will be a truly robust opposition to the Conservative party in power. It means that at the PM's Question Time, Cameron will have to answer to someone who can actually challenge the underlying logic of his policies, not just waffle about the details or degrees of his austerity plans.
2. It means that the press cannot ignore and will have to deal with those clashes, and an alternative way of thinking about the economy and social policy will have to be reported and discussed in the public sphere.
3. It means that five years from now, and I may be being very optimistic here, the electorate will have a wider perspective with which to discuss their options. It will no longer be confined to a debate about how much we allow the upper 10% to dominate the landscape but whether we allow them to continue to do so.
4. It means that discussing what’s best for society as a whole – what is in the common good – will no longer be a quaint, faintly embarrassing eccentricity. It could become mainstream.

For the record, I’m not in agreement with all of Corbyn’s ideas. A lot of them, yes, but not all of them. Many I feel are valid, but some ignore the realities of a global economy. Further, I’m not sure that he is the right person to head a Labour government in power.  But that is not what we are facing for the next five years. What I know for sure is that none of the other candidates, to my mind, are up to the task of offering the kind of challenging opposition to the present government I think we need or have shown the ideological capacity to broaden a debate about what kind of society we want. Corbyn is, in my view, the perfect person to do just that. He has enough distance from the entrenched sites of power and a robust enough ideological education to be familiar with the structure of alternative possibilities. Right now, we don’t need someone who knows how to be a slightly less greedy, vaguely kinder capitalist; we need someone who knows that capitalism isn’t the only way of ordering the universe. Not because we’re going to do away with it, but because having the two poles there in the public sphere for discussion, we can see a wider set of choices along the spectrum.

This is what I want for the next generations: more possibilities and greater opportunities than the present one and, what I know for a certainty, is that won’t be possible unless we overturn the broadly held myths of trickle-down economics and the efficacy of the kind of selective  ‘austerity’ to which many supposedly ‘liberal’ governments now adhere. Neoliberalism doesn't work and we need someone standing up in Parliament pointing that out.

And that's why I’m voting for Jezza.