Just some daffodils

A quick trip to Cotehele House to see what's on display for Daffodil Week. Mmmm, daffodils, that's what.

Aneurin Bevan: telling it the way it should be

If, like me, you are seeking relief from the pantomime that now passes as politics, I can thoroughly recommend a 'grown up' book on the subject: Aneurin Bevan's In Place of Fear.  

First published in 1952, In Place of Fear serves as an inspiring insight into the political philosophy of Aneurin Bevan. Most famously Minister for Health and Housing in the post-World War II British Labour government, Bevan established the National Health Service (NHS). From what was previously a piecemeal coverage dependent on charities, employers, and private clinicians. emerged universal healthcare (while still having charities, private clinicians, etc. lurking around the edges). The vital difference was that, for the first time in Britain, medical care was available on demand and free at the point of use for all. It was one of the most (positively) transformative moments in the nation’s history. It was Bevan's unshakeable credo that "the collective principle asserts that no society can legitimately call itself civilised if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means".

Growing up in the hardship of a South Wales mining community (Tredegar), Bevan developed a passionate conviction in the need for collective action by his class. In 1929 he began his long career as the Member for Ebbw Vale, and developed into one of the most brilliant debaters in Parliament. He believed that Democracy and Socialism go hand in hand and that the unrestrained free-market undermines democracy. Rather than an economy based on the attempt to frighten people into working harder by allowing many to fall into unemployment, poverty and homelessness pour encourager des autres, Bevan proposed that government provides for the basic needs of all through a comprehensive welfare system and more control of the nation's resources and infrastructure. Although written in the early 1950s, it is as relevant today as it was when it first came out. It's a programme of social democracy that the Labour party and Keir Starmer have long left behind. It hits all the spots that they miss by a mile. And that's a shame. It's also a shame that no political leader today, no matter what the party, seems to be able to articulate their guiding principles as clearly and cogently as Aneurin Bevan. We need his like now - but where are they?

Hoyle vs Abbott

 Prime Minister's Questions this week turned into even more of a farce than usual as the Speaker Lindsay Hoyle repeatedly ignored Diane Abbott as she rose 46 times to try and get a word in about the racist abuse and incitement to kill her from the Tory party’s biggest donor Frank Hester. A significant portion of PMQs was dedicated to these violent and abusive comments but Hoyle decided not to let the victim speak, instead leaving it to others to discuss the issue on her behalf.

Rishi Sunak made out that the whole issue should be forgiven and forgotten because the perpetrator had "apologised". There are several things wrong with this:

1. It's not Sunak's decision whether to accept an apology or not. Isn't that for Diane Abbott to decide?

2. Anyway, it's a hell of a stretch to portray Hester's statement about his scandalous comments an "apology". It was more of a defensive and self-serving PR exercise in responsibility evasion than an apology. And it didn't even address the main issue that he’d called for an MP to be killed!

3. And then there's the fact that any ordinary person who hasn’t donated £10 million to the Tory party would never be instantly absolved upon a mealy-mouthed "apology for causing offense" if they'd spewed racist abuse at an MP and called for them to be shot. They'd be the subject of near-universal condemnation and a likely criminal investigation.

Watching Keir Starmer using the scandal to score political points was certainly not edifying. We know that his faction of the Labour Party is keeping Diane Abbott suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party with the intention of booting her out of her constituency at the looming general election. And we know that they did absolutely nothing to punish the Labour insiders who bullied Diane Abbott and heaped dreadful racist abuse upon her. All of this was clearly referenced in the highly critical Forde Report which Starmer continues to outright ignore. (In July 2022, Martin Forde KC produced a report on racism and factionalism in the Labour Party. The report had been commissioned by the party leader himself).

It’s nauseating that Hoyle allowed such an obscene spectacle to play out without allowing the victim of the abuse and threats to get a word in as Sunak and Starmer used the scandal to push their own agendas and point score at each other. The excuses Hoyle’s office came up with afterwards are downright ridiculous. They claimed that there wasn’t enough time to allow Diane Abbott to speak! However the session ended at 12:35, and, as has been pointed out by others, the previous two PMQs went on until 12:39 and 12:43. Surely 8 minutes would have been enough time for a question and a response, and even if it had taken ten minutes, what would have been the harm if the session had gone on until quarter to one? The excuse that they "ran out of time" simply does not add up.

The other excuse is even more disingenuous. They’re claiming that to call Diane Abbott would have gone against parliamentary procedure! This fallback on parliamentary procedure is coming from the guy who just weeks ago justified ripping up parliamentary procedure to sabotage the SNP's Gaza ceasefire motion by citing unspecified threats and abuse, by unspecified people, against unspecified MPs.  But now Hoyle’s citing parliamentary procedure to justify ignoring the victim of threats and abuse against an MP, which is the exact polar opposite position!

Hoyle’s decision denied Diane Abbott the opportunity to speak and prevented her from highlighting her continued suspension from the Parliamentary Labour Party, and the history of horrific racism and bullying she suffered at the hands of Labour Party insiders.

In the space of just a few weeks, Hoyle has gone from binning parliamentary procedure citing threats and abuse of MPs, to citing parliamentary procedure as an excuse for not allowing the victim of threats and abuse to speak! It’s impossible to look at a person making absolutely polar opposite justifications for his biased and outrageous decisions and think that he’s remotely fit to continue doing such an important job. Time for him to go.

A walk around St Cleer

 Hooray, a day with no forecasted rain - a long awaited first. Our choice of route was one that we last did some 14 years ago. We enjoyed it then and we enjoyed it again. As ever, a short record of a very good day's walking.

I was a little surprised when my GPS told me that I'd walked 7.8 miles on this one. A little longer than anticipated and I can put a little of the extra distance down to a couple of 'navigational mishaps'. A simple route: from the centre of St Cleer up to Common Moor and then back to St Cleer, via King Doniert's Stone and St Cleer Downs. I'd give it a difficulty rating of sub-moderate

About 1/2 mile into the walk and looking back towards St Cleer church. The last time we did this route, about 12 years ago, we saw some deer just about here. None today

This is where we should have walked but, as we didn't fancy getting up to our knees in mud, we made a diversion around this patch. It's always wet so the diversion was well used

This stream doesn't seem to have a name and we walked along various stretches of it. It was obvious that, every now and again, it had been used to power various mills. 

Spot the stile. In this case, we spotted the wrong stile and had to retrace our footsteps to find the one we really wanted, which was to the left and out of shot. But the deviation was worthwhile as it took us through a very attractive stretch of woodland and along a noisy stream

Mossy Tree #1: seemed to be a recurrent theme on this walk

The anonymous stream (again) as it passes through the woods of Bulland Downs

Mossy Tree #2: given the many shoots, I suspect that we are looking at the remnants of past coppicing activities

On the road from Minions, and near Common Moor, are the two granite cross bases that make up King Doniert’s Stone. The Latin inscription is late 9th century style and it is thought that Doniert was Dungarth the King of Cornwall who drowned in the river Fowey and the stone marks his death in AD875. Despite a rumour that I've just started, the stones are not named after the eponymous pub in Liskeard

Mossy Tree #3: the last one in this series. Looks like it was originally part of a traditional Cornish hedge. I'm never less than amazed at how deep the roots go and how precarious seems the link between the tree and the soil. Another example of taking pleasure in whatever you come across?

The track leading downhill from King Doniert's Stone. It's not quite as I remember it. There's something missing............

........and here it is. Water. The path soon turns into a stream as water is channeled off the fields. Nothing quite like sloshing along a watercourse. Dog Dora seems to be enjoying it as well

A wintry landscape, looking west, but with a rather cold wind from the east to keep us moving. Views like this feed the spirits and, as the saying goes, "the best things in life are free". And I never keep forgetting that all of this is within a 20 minute drive from home

Unexpected sightings by the wayside Part 37: A novel bird feeder with a resident audience of onlookers. Whenever I see something like this, my native curiosity kicks in and I wonder what the story behind it is. Despite an albeit cursory search, I can't find any more information.

St Cleer parish church is dedicated to Saint Clarus. First built in 800 but rebuilt in the 13th century, the tower suffered damage and was repaired in the 15th century. 
St Clarus was an Englishman who went to Cornwall to preach to the inhabitants in the 8th century. He founded the church of St Cleer and lived a saintly life nearby. However, he rejected the advances of a local chieftainess who had fallen in love with him and when she continued to pester him he fled to France where he lived in an isolated hermitage. The enraged woman had him pursued and then murdered. The place he had lived was afterwards named Saint-Clair-sur-Epte. 

Looking down the nave towards the rood screen, a late Victorian reintroduction. It has a high church feeling, especially as the chancel is barricaded off from visitors. A very plain wooden table stands at the ‘crossing’.
Notwithstanding this, it is a church with family connections for Mrs P. Several members of her family are buried in the graveyard

Never have we come across a stained glass window made by someone we know. This modern piece was made by Alan Endacott, an acquaintance of ours through our Local History Group. The window is dedicated to '300 years of the Honeycombe family' and was donated by Gordon Honeycombe, the TV news presenter and author

A little sunshine coming through the windows of the south side. Keen eyes will notice that the columns of the north arcade are constructed of separate blocks of stone, whereas those of the south arcade are of one piece. An indication of contruction at different times

This nicely carved pulpit, the work of Harry Hems, dates only from 1895. He was an ecclesiastical sculptor who was particularly inspired by Gothic architecture and a practitioner of Gothic Revival. He founded and ran a large workshop in Exeter, which produced woodwork and sculpture for churches all over the country

It's getting more and more difficult to get to the truth

The truth is important but, to others who should know better, it seems to be dispensable. Let's be blunt: most establishment politicians are liars, the mainstream media is full of liars, and social media is increasingly full of lies. Call it what you like - misinformation, disinformation, post-truth - it's still lies. And, assuming that you want to and are not comfortable with just judging everything through the lens of your own prejudices, it's getting more and more difficult to get to the truth. So where do we find it?

But first, a few examples of what I mean. And I'll start with the Prince of Liars, Boris Johnson. He won the 2019 election despite being the most notorious liar in British politics. He lied about 40 new hospitals; he lied about not creating a trade border across the Irish Sea; he lied that Corbyn wanted to disband the armed services; he lied about his 'oven ready' policy on social care. Despite his inveterate lying, Johnson was supported, and enabled, by the majority of the political establishment and mainstream media, and his election win proved that absolutely brazen dishonesty was no barrier to success in British politics. He set the trend.

Rishi Sunak clearly has issues with the truth too. Since becoming Prime Minister, Sunak’s lied about "stopping the boats"; he’s lied about getting back the £billions in Covid fraud that happened under his watch as Chancellor; and he’s lied about "getting NHS waiting lists down" when they’ve soared to the highest levels ever.

Unfortunately for we Labour supporters, Keir Starmer is not without form. By his own actions since, he's shown that he lied his way into the Labour leadership with a load of pledges, policies, and promises that he never intended to keep. He lies when he says that he never said that Israel has the right to collectively punish civilians by cutting off food, water, and energy; and he lies that his so-called "patriotic economy" is going to bring back prosperity for ordinary people when it’s actually just another dose of the same austerity agenda that’s been trashing living standards for the last 14 years.

Instead of holding these political liars to account, Britain’s supine political media class have knowingly amplified and obfuscated the lies of their favoured factions. If you read the Telegraph, Sun, or Daily Mail or watch GB News, you’d never know that Sunak and his Tory mob are such a pack of liars. And if you uncritically read what the Guardian tells you, you’d probably believe that Starmer actually did a great thing by lying to the Labour membership to get the party leadership, or that he had to abandon all his promises because of circumstances, rather than because he never intended to actually keep them.

But social media is even worse. Not only is it infested with all the establishment lies, our social media feeds are increasingly plagued with fakery, scams, AI-generated dross, woe-peddlers and conspiracy theory rubbish. Social media platforms like Facebook don’t just allow lies to flourish on their platforms, they make absolute fortunes actively helping the liars to spread their lies.

So if politics, the media, and social media are so infested with lies, where can we seek the truth? It’s an extremely difficult question to answer. I wish I had one. I struggle to find News that is truthful and unbiased.

There’s still a small minority of decent politicians and journalists among all the professional liars. I’d be much more inclined to take the Green Party's Caroline Lucas, independent North East mayoral candidate Jamie Driscoll, Hilary Benn or Manchester mayor Andy Burnham at their word than most politicians. I don’t necessarily agree with everything they say, but the journalism of Peter Oborne, Owen Jones, James O'Brian and George Monbiot is infinitely more believable than the output of the majority of journalists who seem to see it as their job to amplify establishment lies rather than call them out.

There are actually quite a lot of reliable sources on social media, but they’re increasingly difficult to find since platforms like Facebook and Xitter changed their engagement algorithms to deprioritise independent media accounts.

The best advice I can offer is to engage your critical faculties at all times. Remember that we’re all wading through a sickening morass of propaganda, bullshit, and lies, and that the truth-tellers are increasingly difficult to find. In the end, I think that the answer lies with us. Me and You. Every time we receive a WhatsApp or a Facebook post or whatever, we have to question whether it is true or untrue. Don’t take it for granted. We must reply to those spreading untruths. The same for those in power. Question their “facts” and don’t let them repeat untruths again and again. And definitely don't forward anything to your friends if you have not validated it first.

If you come across any politicians, political writers, or independent media sources that do seem to be doing their best to stick to the truth, treasure them. But don’t just passively follow them, because the social media algorithms simply can’t be trusted to actually show you their content. Actively seek them out and see what they’re saying.

Look out for red flags. If anyone tries to tell you that "wealth trickles down", presents austerity economics as a way to bring back prosperity, or compares government borrowing to credit card debt, they’re liars who are spreading economic illiteracy, either because they’re too dumb to realise they’re spreading economic lies, or because they’re cynically lying on purpose to dupe the gullible. If anyone tries to portray overwhelmingly peaceful Palestine solidarity campaigners as a dangerous and violent mob, you know they’re a reality-reverser who cannot be trusted. If you see journalists and media outlets amplifying or obfuscating political lies rather than calling them out, remember it, and don’t trust them in future.

There’s no perfect source that’s going to tell you the truth on every issue. But there are those that cite their evidence, try to do their best to be truthful, and apologise on the occasions they make factual errors rather than doubling-down or pretending it never happened. They’re the ones to follow and support. Free Speech is a precious thing and something we should never take for granted. However, I think that the Freedom to speak should be backed up with the necessity to prove your facts.

If you know of any politicians/sources you consider to be broadly honest and reliable, I'd love to hear of them. And for those interested, here are some of my own sources.

• The Guardian 
• The Observer
• The Internationalist
• Private Eye
• The New Statesman
• New York Times
• Peace News
• Bloomberg
• Politico (Good for Polls)
• UK-ICE (Interesting articles)
• Vox
• BBC 
• Google News (Surprisingly good)
• Amnesty International
• Liberty
• The Violence of Development website (for the politics of Central America)

Rilla Mill and Henwood - without too much rain

Guess what? The weather forecast was wrong and we had a day with hardly any rain. Not no rain, just not as much as expected. Hardly anything in fact. Another good stretch of the legs.

A very varied route, starting in Rilla Mill and walking up to close to Minions via the Marke Valley. We then headed to Henwood and went back to Rilla Mill, through Darley. It was around 7 miles and I'd class it as moderate - there was a fair bit of uphill

A panoramic view as we leave Rilla Mill. Kit Hill is the bump in the distance and, for one fleeting moment, the sky has a few blue patches

A muddy track through the woodland. Nothing special, just a typically post-winter folorn looking stretch of trees. The buds are not yet breaking and the undergrowth has yet to shoot forth with the flowers of wild garlic (no flowers but we could smell it) and bluebells. Joys to come

, 

A muddy track at the start of the Marke Valley. This would, undoubtedly, have been used to access the mines

I don't know who was more surprised, me or them? Not what I expected to come across whilst sloshing up the track

Buildings and stack associated with the Salisbury Shaft within the Marke Valley complex. Copper and ti wenre the main metals extracted and the hey days of the mines were in the early and mid 1800s. It's an area for pottering around, avoiding falling down any open shafts, the various remains and trying to put form to function.

It may be muddy, it may be wet but the air is fresh and clean. Lots of Spanish Moss hanging from the trees is a good indication of a pure atmosphere

Further up the Marke Valley and entering the domain of the Phoenix mine complex. Here are the remains of two circular buddles used in the metal ore seperation and purification process. Water is an essential part of this and the nearby stream would have provided what was necessary - and then some

The photograph belies have steep and ackward this set of steps were to negotiate. The good news was that they pretty much coincided with the highest point of the walk. After that, it was all downhill - mostly

Some of the buildings associated with the Phoenix United Mines. That on the left housed two rather large boilers at one time. But, this time around, we didn't explore further as lunch beckoned

Lunch stop with a view - a reservoir associated with the Phoenix Mine at Minions. A restful spot and, just as we were finishing up, the temperature dropped and the only 'real' shower of the day came down

A verdant track dropping back towards the Phoenix mine. A lovely wall of moss covered stones on the left - a very vibrant green

A short stretch of lane walking towards Henwood village, with the granite peak of Sharp Tor dominating the view. Ascending it was not on our route for today but it must be some time as we've never done it

If you have plenty of granite to hand, why not use it to block up an old field entrance. In this particular case, I think the uprights were 'repurposed' from an adjacent dilapidated barn

Mmmm, this is what I call a proper puddle! Requiring a little deft climbing along the bank on the left

Just a very pleasant pastoral view, looking across to Kit Hill in the distance. It's probably 10 miles from here to our house which, with binoculars, we could probably make out

Walking down through Darley Wood, we came across a few numbered nest boxes. These weren't for birds but were part of a dormouse monitoring project. I wish them every success (and, thank you, Mary, for the information)

Another unexpected encounter - four domes associated with the Caradon Observatory, belonging to the Caradon Astronomical Society. Situated at the edge of the Bodmin Moor Dark Sky area, they are ideally placed to view clear skies, unpolluted with light from urban areas. They also seem to be ideally placed, with a telescope at the correct inclination, to look into our bedroom

Not the sort of road sign that we normally see in these parts. They appear on the lanes around the Lower Lake Shooting Grounds - clay pigeon shooting rather than anything more objectionable

And let's finish with the sound of running water.