Starmer is starting to worry me

It’s being reported that, if Labour gets into power following the next General Election, Keir Starmer is not after all going to abolish the House of Lords. I know, I know, I’m as shocked as you are about this, which is to say not remotely shocked at all. Ever since he became leader of what used to be the Labour party, Keir Starmer has been shedding promises like a bad case of dandruff.

When campaigning for the Labour leadership, Starmer promised that if he became leader and won the next General Election he would abolish the House of Lords, introduce a federal system, renationalise the railways, the water companies, the Post Office and energy companies. He vowed to defend freedom of movement within Europe as the UK left the EU. He also promised to oppose Tory attacks on the rights of workers to take industrial action. He also committed to abolishing university tuition fees. A Labour Government was going to introduce tax increases on the top 5% of earners. It was going to abolish Universal Credit and the Tories’ cruel sanctions regime.

Three years on and these promises are looking pretty threadbare. In May, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves said that her party had “no plans” to increase taxes on the highest earners. Instead Starmer has been criticising the current “high tax burden” and talking instead about growing the economy. Universal Credit will no longer be abolished by a future Labour government, instead Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, has promised to “reform” Universal Credit but made it clear that Labour intends to keep “conditionality” as a part of the system. That’s code for sanctions. Starmer has done a U turn on his previous promise to abolish university tuition fees and has drastically scaled back on his promise to invest billions on the development of green energy.

The promises to renationalise the railways, water companies and energy companies have basically been scrapped in their entirety. Instead Starmer promised greater regulation of companies that would remain in the private sector, saying in July last year: “The answer is going to lie in regulating the market and changing the market, rather than simply taking things into public ownership.” He also acknowledged that the private sector would continue to have a key role to play in the NHS. So his promise to end private sector outsourcing in the NHS has bitten the dust too.

Starmer has also now ruled out any return of freedom of movement within Europe, and has said that he would not seek to rejoin the European Single Market or Customs Union. Starmer will maintain the hard Brexit foisted upon us by the Tories as he is too worried about chasing votes in Brexit supporting constituencies in the Midlands and North of England to care about those of us who think Brexit was a bad idea to begin with and its implementation has made a dreadful situation far far worse.

Starmer’s promise to introduce “radical devolution” and a federal system looks like a bad joke now. The fanfare announcement of the abolition of the House of Lords and its replacement with an elected ‘Senate of the Nations and Regions’ turned out to consist of a promise to consult on this proposal before deciding whether or not to include it in a Labour manifesto. Even if it did make it into a Labour manifesto, there’s no guarantee it would be implemented.

Labour had a manifesto commitment in 1997 to reform the House of Lords and end the hereditary principle in the upper chamber. Despite a landslide Labour majority in the 1997 General Election, there are still hereditary peers in the Lords and we now have a bloated upper house stuffed with the cronies and associates of politicians who are appointed for life in a system of institutionalised patronage. Labour promised to reform the system of life peerages so that membership of the Lords reflected the vote share of the parties, as a counterbalance to the First Past the Post system so beloved of both Labour and the Tories in the Commons. The 1997 Labour manifesto said: “Our objective will be to ensure that over time party appointees as life peers more accurately reflect the proportion of votes cast at the previous general election.” That didn’t come close to happening, instead Blair’s government was embroiled in allegations of cash for honours with peerages being doled out to Labour donors. The Tories picked up that particular ball and ran with it and the Lords is now essentially a London club for Tory donors and high profile supporters. Now Starmer appears to have scrapped the promise to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a new elected upper chamber. Instead he proposes to tackle the problem of a bloated House of Lords stuffed to the gills with Conservative life peers by stuffing it with dozens of new Labour life peers.

All that will happen is the election of a Labour government that has adopted Tory drag in order to appeal to Brexit voters in England. It will be Blairism on steroids.

A walk with two churches, two crosses and a hillfort

This walk started and ended in the shadow of Warbstow Bury (more of that later) and was mostly within the Parish of Warbstow, a wholly rural and agricultural parish. Off the beaten track and with a nice isolated feel. It has an unusual claim to fame as it is one of the few in the country to still have an 'exclave' - an island of the parish in another. In this case, the hamlet of Canworthy Water is surrounded by Jacobstow parish and is separated from the main body of Warbstow parish by some 150 meters. An historical oddity, the origins of which I just cannot find. That irritates me - bad show, Mr Google, bad show. I would guess that the truth lies with someone of note wanting to keep it within his or her control for some reason.

This turned out to be a 6.3 miler and the profile doesn't do proper justice to the ups and downs we encountered. A mixture of quiet country lanes, farmland, tracks and footpaths, spiced with a couple of churches, two mediaeval crosses and an Iron Age hill fort. All that and excellent weather. The only negatives were the less-than-adequate signposting and some blocked/non-existent stiles encountered at various points. But, in the grand scheme of things, minor inconveniences.

Church #1:  St Werburgh’s Church, Warbstow. What you see now is, apart from the obligatory Victorian tinkering, largely 15th century, with few remains of the two former buildings on this site - Saxon and Norman respectively. The church is dedicated to Saint Werburga, the daughter of  an Anglo-Saxon king of Mercia. She is also the patron saint of St Werburgh's church at Wembury. At one time, it was probably at the centre of things but, now, it lies in splendid rural isolation away from the main residantial settlements of Warbstow Cross and Carnworthy Water.

The interior of the church is quite plain and unadorned - no monuments, no stained glass windows, no elaborate altar. A simple building that has served the agricultural community for centuries. Apparently, the pipe organ is of note and came from the Masonic Hall in Bude in 1948. There's also an interesting font, the design of which reminded me of the one in Altarnun church - with a carved face at each corner. What was unique about this one is that the stem of the font seemed to reset on an upturned (earlier?) font basin.

The tiled floor of the church porch. A simple design but a lot of skill went into cutting the tiles into the exact lengths uniformly. There are a lot of them.

A partial list of the incumbents of the church. Of note are the effects of Cromwell's Commonwealth  - John Turner (ejected) and J. Harrison (intruded/imposed minister). But the list of names covers a turbulent part of England's history - the early ministers were members of the Catholic church, then we had disestablishment under Henry VIII, followed by the return to catholicism under his daughter Mary, then back to protestantism under his other daughter Elizabeth. Along comes the Commonwealth and the removal of the monarch and finally the re-establishment of the monarchy and Charles II. A simple list of names that becomes incredibly complex when the context is taken into account. At the heart of all this is the question: what impact did all these political changes have on the worship of those who attended this church?

The remnants of an old pole barn, probably dating from the late 1700s/early 1800s. The granite post in the middle is the eponymous pole.

Fortuitously we came across an intact version which shows what the one above would have looked like when it was functioning as a barn.

Throughout the walk we had views, views and more views. This one is looking due east, with Exmoor and North Devon in the distance.

Cross #1: This cross was found at Higher Youlton in 1976 buried upside down and used as a gate post. It was moved to its present position at Youlston farm some years later and reset on a new base stone.

Cross #2: This cross was originally used as a bridge over a nearby stream and was re-erected by the Old Cornwall Society in 1936 - as the little plaque to the right of it said. The stream forms part of the parish boundary so its present position is quite logical - such crosses were frequently placed at key junction points. And this route would have been an important link between the churches of Warbstow and Treneglos (united under a single vicar since the 1300s).

A disappointment: I was excited to come across a trough that housed, or so I thought, a very rare Clackworthy Dual-flow Throstle Valve. Unfortunately, I couldn't prise open the top cover to confirm this. So near yet so far. I would have been the toast of the Trough Spotters Club if only I could have taken a definitive photograph. But it was not to be. Perhaps I'll have to return with my largest crowbar and check it out.

A leafy lane, with dappled sunshine.

Church #2: St Gregory's, Treneglos. Guess what? It was closed and this might be permanent due to disrepair and safety concerns. There has been a church here since Saxon times; in the Domesday Survey of 1086, the church was given to the Priory at Tywardreath. The church was confirmed as the Priory's by Bishop Chichester on 14th February 1154. Originally, it was the 'mother' church to that at Warbstow and Warbstow was, in fact, a chapelry to Treneglos. The present church was rebuilt in 1858, and the tower, having become very dilapidated, was taken down in 1871 and completely rebuilt; its four bells were reused. Will the closure be permanent? It might become a so-called Festival Church, not open for normal services but open for weddings, baptism etc and special occasions.

The sculptured Norman tympanum, similar to other works in nearby churches such as Egloskerry, is described as "a conventional tree in the centre, with a pair of beasts having their tails bent round between the legs, and upwards across their bodies, placed symmetrically facing each other." The meaning may be found in the Psalms verse about the vine of Egypt: "The boughs thereof were like goodly cedars... The boar of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it."

Some very intricate wood carvings on the beams in the porch. Hopefully they will be preserved for future generations to enjoy?

An early example of recycling? I wonder if this window, now in the walls of a pigsty, was filched from the church when it was being reconstructed? Or maybe it was retrieved from a builder's skip when they threw it out?

The latest cost cutting measures for public conveniences by English Heritage.

The size of the Warbstow Bury hillfort means that it's impossible to get an image that does it justice.  Here's some information I've plagiarised from the English Heritage listing.
"Warbstow Bury (above), a multivallate hillfort in north Cornwall, is one of the largest and best-preserved hillforts in the county. It is also known as ‘The Giants Grave’ after the legend that a giant that lived here was killed when the giant of Launceston Castle threw a tool at him. It also called ‘The tomb of King Arthur’ although there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to substantiate this. It has two ramparts, with two entrances each, the inner one measuring 370 by 450 feet. The outer rampart averages 15 feet in height, with an external ditch 15 feet wide. After the abandonment of the hillfort in the late Iron Age, the site is unlikely to have been used frequently for anything more than the summertime grazing of sheep in the early medieval period. The inner-circle was used as a beacon for the jubilee of Queen Victoria celebrations in 1887."

The above begs the question about which is the largest hill fort in Cornwall - this seems to be Castell an Dinas. But there are a surprising number of hill forts in Cornwall, probably more than 80. Since they have their origins in the Iron Age there is little left for us to see except a circle of substantial stones or a series of banks and ditches. Some of them were built around quoits and barrows showing that they had a spiritual significance to the people as far back as the Bronze Age. Over time these locations were ‘fortified’ with ditches, ramparts and maybe wooden palisades and inside would have been round houses for people to live in. Although we refer to them as ‘forts’ the ramparts would likely have signified ownership of a property. Who knows if they were ever put to test in a combative sense. I guess we'll never know but they are impressive and thought provoking places to wander around.

Roughtor, Showery Tor and Brown Willy

 It was one of those walks when, if you weren't going up, you were coming down. A walk taking in the highest points in Cornwall. OK, not quite the Alps but still a good stretch of the legs. I've been waiting a long time for this one and it certainly didn't disappoint. There was a general feeling of accomplishment in the group when we'd finished this one. Nice to know that we could still do it.

A walk that looked more strenuous than it actually was. Just over 5.5 miles and quite straightforward - up to Roughtor, across to Showery Tor, down and then up to Brown Willy and finally down and around Roughtor back to car park. And all in glorious weather that was not too hot and not too cold: in fact, it was just right.

Roughtor from the car park, at 1313 ft, the second highest point in Cornwall. Another place for which the pronunciation separates the locals from the tourists. It is not pronounced 'rough tor' but 'row-tor'. The local dialect word 'row' means 'rough'. A fairly boring piece of linguistic information for you there. 

 Roughtor looking, mmm, pretty rough. The summit is, apart from an ideal spot for a tea break, encircled by a series of Neolithic stone walls. Also there's reputed to be the foundations of a mediaeval chapel up there somewhere but I've never been able to find it.

Showery Tor is a similar geological structure to the Cheesewring at Minions. It is encircled by a massive ring cairn of piled stones and is thought to have been a prehistoric religious site. It must have been of some significance for people to have carried all those stones to the spot.

Brown Willy, at 1378 feet, is only a little higher than Roughtor. Brown Willy is actually a distortion of the Cornish 'Bronn Wennili', meaning 'hill of swallows'. We didn't see any. In fact, apart from a few desultory Wheatears, we didn't see many birds at all.

Looking eastwards from halfway up Brown Willy and the white towers of the Davidstow cheese factory can be seen. It's biggest selling product is the Cathedral City brand. No, I can't spot a cathedral or a city either. But the extra mature variant is a rather tasty cheddar.

It's somehow in the order of things that the summit of Brown Willy is marked by a trig point. For those of us who like the details, it has a Flush Bracket with the number S1772 and it's the 456th most visited in the UK. It dates from 1st June 1949 and is an Order 1 point. Do I hear someone yawning at the back?

Lunch with a view! Looking across to Roughtor from the top of Brown Willy. Roughtor looks lower relatively than it is. Although not visible, we are looking over various settlements and field boundaries. There are thousands of years of history in this landscape, excluding the subjects in the foreground, of course.

Roughtor from another angle.

Just one hut circle amongst many. So many that 'hut circle blindness' set in after a while. Oooh look, a hut circle - again. Sometimes, by way of a change, the hut circles were within larger settlement circles. Seriously, this area abounds with the evidence of previous settlers, the span of which ranges from some 3000BC almost up to the present day. And I find that pretty amazing.

Roughtor showing a chunk out of the middle. Surely that's a man-made artifact?

Heath Spotted Orchid with unidentified yellow moth.

The Charlotte Dymond Monument commemorates a young woman, who was murdered on Rough Tor in 1844. Charlotte was born in 1826. At the time of her death she was a servant at Penhale Farm on Bodmin Moor. She was in a relationship with a farmhand called Matthew Weeks. On the 14th April, 1844, the couple were walking on the moor and began arguing. Matthew is said to have lost his temper and cut her throat. Charlotte's body was found one week later in the stream near the ford.
Matthew was finally found in Plymouth and tried at Bodmin, where he was found guilty and was convicted to death by hanging. 20,000 people attended his hanging. He was buried at Bodmin Gaol.
Charlotte was laid to rest at Davidstow Church and a monument was erected to her memory, by public subscription, near the place where her body was found at Rough Tor. In recent times it has been suggested that there may have been a miscarriage of justice and that Matthew may not have been her murderer. Charlotte's ghost is said to walk the moor still dressed in her Sunday best clothes that she wore on her last day.

The memorial is just a few yards from the car park and is easily reached, if you don't mind ducking under some dodgy wire fence and leaping over a raging stream. Well, not really raging when we were there, more susurrating.

Schadenfreude isn't becoming, but in the case of BJ........

Everyone always knew that Boris Johnson (remember him? Our disgraced former Prime Minister) was an entitled liar and a bully who has never taken responsibility for his behaviour at any point in his life. Now it’s official! The Commons Privileges Committee has published a damning and brutal report which finds that, not only had Johnson lied repeatedly to Parliament, but he also held Parliament in contempt, undermined democracy, and was complicit in a campaign of abuse and intimidation directed at members of the Committee.

He is the first British prime minister who has been found by MPs to have deliberately and repeatedly misled the House of Commons. The Committee found that his repeated offences were so egregious, offences for which Johnson continues to refuse to accept responsibility, that it recommended he be suspended from the Commons for ninety days, a sanction which would have triggered the recall process meaning Johnson would also have become the first British prime minister to be recalled by his constituents and probably voted out of Parliament. That was an indignity too far for the immensely vain Johnson. He had received prior notice of the Committee’s findings but rather than face the humiliation of being censured by the House and the prospect of a recall by election which would almost certainly have seen him booted out by his constituents, Johnson flounced off in a furious and petulant huff, resigning as an MP.

The Committee recognised that its proposed ninety day suspension of the former Prime Law Breaker was rendered purely theoretical by his cowardly decision to run away from the verdict of MPs, so the committee has proposed an additional sanction, to remove the Former Member’s Pass from Johnson. This pass is normally given automatically to all former MPs, and allows them unfettered access to the Parliamentary estate where they can meet with serving MPs and government ministers. It is this pass which makes former MPs so valuable to lobbying companies, giving them a potentially lucrative source of income after leaving Parliament. However Johnson’s offences are so serious that the Committee has decided to make him persona non grata, no longer welcome in the halls, meeting rooms and bars of Westminster.

Since resigning as an MP he has continued to rant about the Committee, denouncing it as a “kangaroo court” and insisting that the Committee is “talking tripe.” In his angry and self-pitying attempt to make out that he is the real victim here and his continuing refusal to accept that he has done anything wrong, he merely confirms that the Committee’s assessment of him was correct.

This is a man who was never fit for high office yet this serial liar and bully was repeated defended and enabled by the Conservative Party. Sunak may now be one of Johnson’s many political enemies, but he too was one of Johnson’s most prominent enablers for years. The Privileges Committee has a Conservative majority but this report is not merely damning in its findings about the former Prime Minister. By implication it is damning about the entire Conservative Party which supported, promoted, indulged and enabled him for so many years.

The Commons will vote on the report on Monday. Don’t be surprised if Rishi Sunak suddenly discovers that he has a ‘pressing engagement’ which requires him to be far far away from London. Although most Conservative MPs are now fed up with Johnson’s antics, he still retains a cult like following among the Conservative grass roots and some Tory MPs will be afraid that, if they vote to uphold the report, their local Conservative Association may take steps to deselect them. So likewise don’t be surprised to see mass Conservative abstentions on the vote. Even now the Tories are still too gutless to stand up to Johnson, and the frothing British nationalist quasi fascists of G Beebies ‘News’ are still defending him, making excuses for him, and platforming his lies. Despite everything, they still don’t understand the meaning of the term complicity. Democracy doesn’t die in the dark, it dies under the bright lights of a right wing ‘news’ channel.

Boris Johnson is a liar and a bully who led a party for which lying and bullying are what pass for policy and principle. He might be gone now and might have suffered a political savaging from which there can be no coming back, but the deceitful mendacious Conservative Party which he shaped in his image is still very much a cancer on the body politic. A pox on all of them. Roll on the General Election.

Sunday afternoon stroll around Caradon Hill

A glorious afternoon and where better to walk than around Caradon Hill? It has it all: relatively easy walking, views all the way around and lots of industrial  archaeology to pique the interest. And a personal connection to one of the mines. All this and a very nice tea room at the end!

Our route took us down the Gonamena Valley and around Caradon. Not too strenuous for the heat and around 3.5 miles.

It's been a wonderful year for May blossom and the display is just about coming to an end. But not quite. Spot the sheep.

Walking along the trackway of the Liskeard and Caradon Railway. It opened in 1844 and was built to carry the ores of copper and tin, and also granite, down to Moorswater, just outside of Liskeard, thence to Looe for transport by sea.

Although we have absolutely no propriety interest in this cottage, we have watched it fall into sad decay over the years and are delighted to see that someone is bringing it back to life. Originally 2 or 3 cottages for smallholders and dating from the late 1700s, it looks like their time has come again as a single dwelling. If there had been someone around, we would have asked about access and water and electricity supply. We can be quite nosey when we want to be.

The whole of Caradon Hill is surrounded by the evidence of mining. Here's the stack associated with Elliot's Shaft looming above the dumps of the West Caradon mine complex.

This is something we've never seen before. Known locally as the 'donkey pond', it acted as a reservoir and water supply to various water wheels associated with the nearby mining activities. In all of our time walking around here, it's never been completely dry. Assuming that there were similar periods of drought in the past, it brings home how dependent the mines were on water power. And with water, no work and no pay. Tough times.

And here we are at the most visible remains of South Caradon mine - the stacks and engine house associated with Rules and Holman's shafts.

The view looking towards St Cleer and St Austell in the far distance.

Meadow Pipit.

Wheatear.

Pied Wagtail.

An adit associated with the East Caradon mine, where Mrs P's great great uncle John Henry Cook worked before he emigrated to Australia to make his fortune. It is more likely to a drainage adit rather than a working level (see video below).

This is the main shaft (Pierce's Shaft) for East Caradon mine. It looks relatively benign now but there was a quite significant collapse of the walls to reveal a very deep pit a few months ago. It was thought to have been caused by the heavy rains at the time. It has been fenced off far more securely than it was before and, I believe, a local caving group has blocked up the hole with a barrier. This, I believe, is where John Henry Cook went to work.

This is the view from East Caradon mine, looking across to Pensilva and beyond. Is it fanciful to think that John Henry Cook might have enjoyed this very view in a moment of rest? Certainly, he would have walked into this view as he made his (weary) way home after a shift.

Descending from Caradon Hill, with Cheesewring prominent on the skyline, with Sharp Tor to the right. A panorama that captures the working industry of the area - granite workings on Cheesewring and near Sharp Tor - and the engine houses associated with the various mines. And here and there, you may be able to make out a few sheep/

I haven't been able to find a decent video of what the East Caradon mine looks like underground but this one does give a glimpse.

And on the grand scale, what about the myriad of shafts, adits and levels that made up the complex of mines around Caradon Hill? Keith Russ has been working on developing 3D computer models of all that lies underground. Take a look at the video that shows all that he has been able to trace and quantify. I think it's an amazing piece of research.