If Farage is the answer to our problems, God help us all!

The far right is on the march. Globally, people are struggling to make a living and afford decent housing as a small minority of super rich grow ever more wealthy. People feel, quite correctly, that the system is not working for them, and that the economy is rigged against them as it operates as a mechanism for funnelling money to the rich and keeping it there.

Even if you do have a job and a home, everything around you seems to be turning to shit as public services creak under the strain of chronic underinvestment and the profiteering of the private sector forces us to pay more and more for less and less. Even the Internet, once the great hope of a better future, is becoming less usable as Google searches produce ever less reliable results, Twitter and Facebook are turning into more chaotic versions of a Nuremberg rally stuffed full of racism, hatred, and conspiracy theories touted by people who have ‘done their own research’ - research which consists of watching Internet videos produced by some imbecile whose only talent lies in parting people from their money. It’s only in this milieu that someone like Lawrence Fox, the moron’s idea of an intellectual, can pass himself off as a great thinker, and, in the USA, the brain dead Candace Owens – who announced last week that science is a pagan religion which she has rejected – can pose as an ‘influencer’.

Meanwhile your income doesn’t keep up with inflation, and people feel as though voting doesn’t matter anymore because, when we elect someone who promised change, that change turned out to be pretty much the same crap that we had before and for whom the idea of fixing the systemic problems facing us all isn’t even on the radar. Starmer witters on about ‘growth’ as if economic growth were the magic bullet which will solve all problems. But without radical changes to the tax and benefits system, changes which Starmer won’t currently countenance, economic growth will only put more wealth in the bank accounts of the rich, and that’s where it will stay. 

The era of centrist politics is dead. Funded and promoted by the super-rich, the far right floods the media sphere, both traditional and social, offering a deceptively simple solution to society’s problems. By dint of outnumbering and outshouting and out-funding, the far right lies more effectively than progressives tell the truth. The far right tells us that the reason you can’t get a decent job or are priced out of the housing market is due to migrants and the imaginary ‘woke elites’. Just put the blame on Muslims, brown and black people, trans and gay people. The far right will take care of those 'others' and we will all magically be transported back to the good old days of the 1950s when you could get on a bus without fear of overhearing a conversation in a foreign language or encountering an obviously gay individual. The good old days when housing was affordable and a job was for life. But as any science nerd will tell you, correlation is not causation. But why worry about that?

The truth is, of course, that the far right has no solution to wealth inequality. It has no answer for job insecurity or the housing crisis. How can it when its main economic policy is to cut taxes for the rich and axe the regulations which ensure we have a decent environment and working conditions? The far right will do this while presiding over massive corruption of the sort which has seen Donald Trump blatantly sell access and enrich himself by $2.8 billion, more than doubling his fortune from $2.3 billion to $5.1 billion according to Forbes magazine. Public disappointment and anger in a Reform UK government will dwarf what we have seen with Keir Starmer, but by that time it will be too late. Once they take power, authoritarians do not surrender it easily. There's a lesson to be learnt from Trump's reaction when he lost.

The era of centrist politics is dead. Traditional political parties can respond to the rise of the right in one of two ways. Firstly they can do as Starmer is doing and turn what was once a centre-left political party with a strong socialist tradition into a pale imitation of the far right, promising to crack down on benefits and implement mass deportations. But all that achieves is to normalise and legitimise the messaging of the far right, further entrenching them in the body politic. As Labour’s plummeting polling numbers prove, it is also spectacularly ineffective. And, at the same time, Keir Starmer's multiple acts of conscious cruelty against the vulnerable since becoming Prime Minister have handed Nigel Farage a golden opportunity to pretend to be the good guy. And how he will milk it.

Alternatively a party can tack left, making tackling wealth inequality the core of its offer to the electorate. Reforming the system of political funding to prevent rich individuals effectively buying political parties through large donations, legislating to ensure transparency in the funding of think tanks and introducing a new system of media regulation, breaking up the social media giants and ensuring that the media is politically representative of the population it purports to serve. Norway’s medias funding system is one possible model.  It’s only by offering a real alternative to the tired nostrums of the failed centre that we can hope to defeat the far right. Recent elections in Europe show that this can resonate with the public.

When faced with an existential crisis such as that posed by actual fascism, it is not a time for timidity or playing it safe. Now is the time for boldness. Now is the time to put the super-rich and their far right puppets back in their box. Offer people a real alternative and they will vote for it. Who will take up the gauntlet? Starmer should, but will he?

'The' Treveague Walk

 A Sunday afternoon stroll, taking advantage of the Bank Holiday weekend and some reasonable weather. A route we've walked many times before and one that we always thoroughly enjoy. This time was no different. And we managed refreshment stops before (The Coffee Cup at Altarnun) and at the mid-point (The Cabin at Crackington Haven).

A straightforward route - the first half along the coastal footpath and the second half through the wooded Ludon Valley. Approximately 4 miles and I'd rate it moderate with some strenuous bits. Although this walk is generally stated to start at Crackington Haven, we always start it at a car park near Treveague Farm. This has the double advantage of doing the more difficult coastal footpath stretch largely downhill (although it does still have some steep stretches) and avoids the need to pay for parking! Oh, and the Cabin Cafe is conveniently placed at the midway point.

The coastal footpath is about 5 minutes walk from the car park and this is the view westwards towards Boscastle and Tintagel. The small island in view is Meachard, off Boscastle.

The beach at The Strangles. So called because it's a treacherous part of the coast and many ships have floundered on the off-shore rocks here. Tempting though it may look, this is definitely not a swimming beach.

The Strangles from a little further on.

The promontory known as Cambeak. It is accessible from the coastal footpath but I've never tried it. The beach in from of the cliffs is Cam Strand. You might be able to make out the geology of the headland - impressive chevron folds of rock. I wish I knew more about the formation of such structures but I don't. However, Mr Google does and he says "The rock formations here are so distinctive that geologists have named the rock type after the cove. The Crackington Formation is a brittle, easily-fractured shale whose layers, or 'strata', were folded under enormous pressure during Earth movements some 300 million years ago".

Hovering over Cam Strand was a Peregrine Falcon. One minute it was there and the next it had plunged down for its prey.

The second half of the walk is in total contrast to the first half along the coast (which, I forgot to mention, was very windy in parts. Unlike the calm of the woods).  The Ludon Valley is well known for being a haven for wildlife beneath the mature oak and ash trees, with a very well developed understorey of holly, hazel and willow.

Rather nice, isn't it?

Cows lining up for milking at Trehole Farm. Probably about 100 head and they all disappeared into the large barn on the right within minutes.

Who doesn't like Puffins?

 "Did you see any Puffins on you recent trip to Shetland?" Yes, we certainly did and, as evidence, here a few photographs taken either on Noss (a small island off Bressay, off Shetland) of Fair Isle (Britain's remotest inhabited island). I've got about another 500 to go through!

Dartmoor Walk: Merrivale and King's Tor Circular

A familiar route for this walk but this time with a deviation to Foggintor Quarry as we haven't been there for a while. We had the added attraction of refreshments at the end at the Dartmoor Inn in Merrivale - highly recommended for a visit.

We started just down from the Dartmoor Inn at Merrivale. Across the road, we picked up the track through Long Ash Wood, passing Daveytown and got back onto moorland at Criptor. From there it was up to the quarries and across the moor to the stone rows at Merrivale. It’s always worth checking that they are still there! The distance was about 6.5 miles and I’d grade it moderate.

A barely decipherable old Parish boundary stone next to the River Walkham, which is the actual boundary.  Walkhampton can be made out on the right but Whitchurch, on the left, requires some imagination. Its chamfered shape might suggest that its original position was somewhere else, maybe at a mid-point on the parapet of the old bridge?

The mossy track into Long Ash Woods, once upon a time a fairly important route for quarry workers at Merrivale. That’s Nora in the bottom right, doing what dogs do best - sniffing around.

If it’s possible to have a favourite gate, this is mine. It always strikes me as a transition point between the Domain of the Ents and the world of the mortals.

Through the gate and into the fringes of Long Ash Woods. Lots of stunted oaks and moss covered granite boulders. There is something very comforting about this type of scenery.

Foggintor Quarry is surprisingly beautiful. I never used to think of quarries as being scenic, but having now explored a few in the area, I have definitely changed my mind. The steep jagged cliff walls are dramatic and the water inside offers a perfect reflection on a calm day. However, it is the silence that strikes me the most. You could almost hear a pin drop! The silence was only broken when we spoke, at which point the sound reverberated around the quarry.

Looking towards one of the abandoned mine buildings, with Kings Tor to the left and, in order, Middle Staple Tor, Great Staple Tor and Roos Tor to the right.

A crown of clouds over King's Tor.

The same trio of tors as before - Middle Staple Tor, Great Staple Tor and Roos Tor. And we've walked them all. Maybe it's time we did them again.

It was that time of year when swaling was in full swing. For those who don't know, swaling is the practice of controlled burning of moorland vegetation, like heather and gorse, to improve grazing for animals and to manage vegetation. It's a traditional but controversial land management technique, used on Dartmoor and other areas. It happens before ground nesting birds start laying their eggs. The land looks scorched after its done but it really doesn't take long for it to green up again. 

Merrivale Down is rich with prehistory and, being close to the road, is possibly the most accessible on Dartmoor. Its most prominent features are two double stone rows running east to west, each consisting of more than 150 stones, mostly under a metre high.
The northern double row is 182 metres long, with an average width between the rows of 1 metre. The second row runs roughly parallel with the first but is longer, stretching 263 metres across the moor. It has terminal stones blocking each end. Near the middle of this row, a ring of stones marks the kerb of a small cairn. This feature may mark the burial of an important person but it isn't known whether it is earlier or later in date than the stone rows.

Looking across the stone row towards Great Mis Tor, with another dramatic 'sky'.

In the distance, must be 20 miles away, the silvery strip of the sea can be made out. This would be the stretch just the other side of the Plymouth Breakwater.

Some further thoughts on Starmer's 'Immigration' Speech

The repercussions continue over Keir Starmer’s gob-smacking/ill-advised/inflammatory/provocative (take your pick) speech on immigration in which he echoed the language of the notoriously racist “rivers of blood” speech delivered by Enoch Powell in 1968 to a meeting of the Conservative Political Centre in Birmingham. At the time Powell was the Shadow Secretary of State for Defence in the Shadow Cabinet of Tory leader Edward Heath. The backlash to Powell’s nakedly racist speech saw him dismissed from Heath’s shadow cabinet the following day. But, as it turned out, he was only articulating what many in the Tory party thought.

Now we have a Labour Prime Minister who channels some of the language of Powell’s speech. Powell was on the far right of the Conservative party in Heath’s day, now, even though Labour would disavow Powell’s unabashed racism, many of his anti-immigration and anti-European views would sit comfortably within the Labour party of Starmer. That tells you how far to the right the centre of gravity in British politics has shifted. Starmer himself has been a part of that journey from left to right. In 2020 he insisted that migrants were not to blame for housing shortages or failings in public services. By 2025, he’s sounding like an editorial in the Daily Mail.

Starmer, quite predictably, refuses to back down. The speech, and his inability to concede that his language and the sentiments he expressed in it were at all problematic, are further evidence of just how poor he is as a politician. It really doesn’t matter whether he echoed the most notorious anti-immigration speech in British political history on purpose, or out of ignorance. Apologists for him are saying it's the latter. I'd say "bollocks" to that. He's a trained lawyer and knows full well the power of words. He meant what he said and he knew what he was saying.

The “island of strangers” line wasn’t even the worst part of his speech. The worst part was how he legitimised the claims of the far right that immigration has done “incalculable damage” to Britain and restricts the access of native born British citizens to jobs and housing and public services. In so doing he has raised the white flag and surrendered to far right populism. He should be making a positive case for migration, just as he should be making a case for the reintegration of the UK into the European customs union and single market, if not for rejoining the EU. Instead he’s doing Nigel Farage’s job for him, simultaneously detoxifying and normalising Reform UK while toxifying the Labour Party.

The migrants who keep the NHS going, those who staff care homes, those who work in agriculture, hospitality, academia or deliveries. They’re not doing damage and it’s grossly insulting to claim that they do. They keep the UK economy going. Immigrants are essential for the NHS, social care, academia and business. Starmer also played into the favourite far right trope that mass immigration is part of an ‘elite conspiracy’ by referring to the past few decades as a “squalid chapter” in British political and economic history.

Politics is not really about facts and figures, it’s about perceptions, feelings, and above all stories. As a man who is clearly emotionally stunted, Starmer is ill-placed to do politics well. He obviously has no instinctive sense for how his words come across, he has no coherent or compelling story to tell. Starmerism is a vision-free zone. No one could tell you what he actually stands for or what he believes in. He has U-turned and been economical with the truth so much that even if he did, by some miracle, present a vision and tell an attractive story of where he wants Britain to be, no one would believe him. 

Reform aren’t winning by rational argument, but they are gaining ground, by appealing, with the help of the media and now Keir Starmer, to our basest tribal instinct - the fear of the other. These fears have been overstated and repeated ad nauseum, but the fact is the vast, vast majority of immigrants make a positive contribution to society. And the vast, vast majority are here legally. Indeed, many have been actively recruited to come here.

What Starmer did last Monday was to tell voters that Nigel Farage’s story on immigration is correct. You do not challenge the rise of the far right by legitimising them. You don’t challenge an irrational appeal to base instincts by endorsing it. Given Starmer’s rather tawdry history of broken promises, no one who was tempted by Farage’s racist snake oil is now going to say that they’ll vote Labour instead. They’ll just see a Prime Minister who has agreed that Farage was right all along and that will only encourage them to vote for a far right party which has just seen its core message endorsed by the Prime Minister himself.

As such, it was a massive own goal which, far from helping Starmer to stem the rise of the far right, will only embolden and empower them. Starmer’s tin ear for politics continues to astound and amaze. He seems bereft of all substance. His core message is, in essence, “Stick with me and my Labour party, and eventually we will make things just a little bit less crap.”

That’s not at all appealing at the best of times, even less so when it’s delivered by Keir Starmer. It is also manifestly untrue, as millions of pensioners, disabled people, migrants, low income families with more than two kids, and members of the LGBT community will readily testify. He won the general election and now, as Prime Minister, he has nowhere to hide and his duplicity is catching up with him. The problem for the rest of us is that what is waiting in the wings is orders of magnitude worse. Within a short few years we could find ourselves part of a nakedly English nationalist far right UK. And if that happens, Starmer will have to shoulder much of the blame.

Starmer disappoints yet again

The unpalatable truth for 'real' Labour supporters, that is those, like me, who adhere to the traditional values and beliefs of the Labour party as they were understood throughout the entire twentieth century, is that the Labour party we believe in is dead. It’s deader than Monty Python's parrot and it’s every bit as blue.

The Labour party of old was a party which stood for democratic socialism and social democracy, the abolition of class-rooted privilege, the public ownership of utility companies, the redistribution of wealth, the protection of the poor, disabled and elderly, and an NHS which is entirely funded and run by and for the public. All these values and beliefs have been or are being ditched by the party which currently masquerades as the Labour party, a party whose policies and positions are roughly similar to those of the Conservative party before Brexit drove it insane.

The response of the Labour party to the drubbing it received at the hands of voters in England at the recent local and mayoral elections has not been to rethink the right wing policies which have caused Labour’s traditional supporters to desert it in droves but to double down on the right wing policies its own voters detest. Last Sunday, the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, announced new restrictions on visas for care home staff: a sector plagued by staffing shortages and which relies on foreign workers to do the emotionally and physically draining low paid jobs which British citizens won’t do. It’s an appalling example of knee-jerk politics. The truly insane thing is that the chief driver of immigration panic is “small boats”. An issue played to the hilt by the right wing media, and one which has no relation to workers coming in on special visas to take up jobs in the care sector. The issue of undocumented asylum seekers making the dangerous crossing of the English Channel is a problem that remains to be solved and, no doubt, Starmer is cooking up a Rwandan-like solution.

Does the Labour party really believe that as a result of this policy someone who was reluctant to vote Labour is going to say – "Yes! Now my grandmother with dementia won’t be spoon fed by a care worker from the Philippines, I’m voting Labour. Thank you Keir Starmer!" Of course not. Those who hate the idea of immigration are never going to vote Labour because of Labour’s anti-immigration policies. They’re going to vote for the full fat nastiness of Farage. As something that’s recently been making the rounds on social media puts it, Labour’s offering is like soft porn. People who don’t like porn, don’t like it, and people who do like porn don’t like it either.

On Monday, Starmer touted a raft of new restrictive policies on immigration, policies which ignore the realities of the British economy but which represent yet another shift to the right in order for Labour to pander to Reform leaning voters. He shamelessly adopted the language of the far right, talking about “taking back control of our borders” and how immigration risks making Britain into an “island of strangers”. The foreword to the government white paper says high net migration has done “incalculable damage” to the country. This is despicable fear-mongering phrasing which could have been uttered by Nigel Farage himself or, for those with long memories, Enoch Powell. It’s also a lie.

In 2020 Starmer said: “Conservatives have created this hostile environment....we should welcome people wherever they come from.... the UK is better because of immigration... Labour has been a bit scared of making the positive case for immigration.. we need to turn that round.” And that he's certainly done that! By turning Labour round into a right wing Anglo-British nationalist anti-immigration Brexit party. Duplicitous or what?

Channelling Farage was no doubt Starmer’s intention. He is sending the clearest possible signal that his response to the growing political threat from the far right is to take the Labour party even further to the right than he already has. Starmer’s answer to the threat posed by Reform is to become them.

If we are an “island of strangers”, it’s not because of immigration but destruction of the social fabric of communities by a decade and a half of austerity and the public sector being treated by governments, first the Tories and now Starmer’s Labour party, as sources of wealth extraction for private companies and their shareholders. While the rich get ever richer, many of us are so busy trying to earn enough to live on and keep a roof over our heads that social cohesion is rapidly falling apart.

When you see Labour continuing a cruel Tory policy, or allowing something disgusting to come in that the Tories previously set in motion, or adopting a nasty right wing policy in an attempt to appeal to Reform leaning voters, remember that Labour are sitting on an unassailable majority in the Commons that lets them do absolutely anything they want for the next four years. So whatever Starmer is doing, it’s by choice. This government could face down and challenge the right and its media friends. It’s not doing that.

These are unpalatable truths for Labour supporters and voters, but the Labour party will never go back to being a left-of-centre political party. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, the Labour leadership embarked on periodic campaigns to expunge the Labour party of ‘Trotskyite entryists’ which was code for actual socialists. All the while Labour really was being infiltrated by entryists, but by right wing entryists in the pockets of corporate interests. Labour is now a right wing British nationalist party, wrapping itself in the flag, presiding over austerity and policies which are cruel to the poor, the disabled, and to minorities. The Blue Labour takeover is complete.

It should be evident by now, to even the most hopelessly partisan and optimistic left wing Labour supporter that the Labour party is no longer a place for them. What will they do? Come to that, what am I going to do? Wanted - good home for a disillusioned leftie!

Manaton and Lustleigh Cleave

We travelled to the eastern edge of Dartmoor for this walk. Well, to be accurate, just off the moor but near enough to count. And what a delightful walk it turned out to be but for a non-ambulatory reason. Read on...........

We began and ended the walk in the car park adjacent to the church in Manaton. The route took us into Lustleigh Cleave and, as the elevation profile shows, it was rather up and down. The ups were rather vicious! So much so, that we cut a bit off our intended route to avoid finishing crawling on our knees! Despite that, it was a very enjoyable 5.5 miles in an area we rarely visit.

St Winifred's church, Manaton. But who was Winifred? There are a few ideas but the most popular one is that Winifred was the daughter of a Welsh nobleman living in the 12th century. She had a suitor named Prince Caradoc who took none to lightly the fact that she decided to become a nun and so, in a fit of temper, he beheaded her with his sword. Fortunately her mother’s sister, St. Beuno, reunited the head with the body and Winifred was restored to life. In an act of reprisal St. Beuno prayed to God for vengeance and her prayer was answered when supposedly the earth opened up and swallowed Caradoc. It was also said that on the spot where Winifred’s head fell to the ground a holy well issued forth. All of this raises a number of unanswerable questions with me: why was St Winifred chosen for this particular church? Who made the decision to adopt her name? And did the mediaeval mind really believe the mystic tales woven around such saints?

The woods in Neadon Cleave, covered in moss and lichens. I do love a blanket of green. And cleave? Generally accepted to mean a steep sided valley. And they certainly are cleaved out of the granite.

This is the mighty climb up the side of Lustleigh Cleave, littered with large granite boulders, one of which was Harton Chest.

Harton Chest is a well known viewing point high up in Lustleigh Cleave and juts out of the surrounding woodland. From here, the view is tremendous, looking down into the Cleave and the Bovey Valley Woodlands.  Beyond those are Trendlebere Down and Yarner Wood and the whole area forms the East Dartmoor National Nature Reserve. 

We followed this wall for what must have been the best part of a mile. And all the way it was covered in moss. An impressive testament to the stonewallers' art.

Just a finger post pointing the way for the next stretch. This one was blending in very nicely with the background and took a bit of spotting.

Dropping down to the river, we passed a few Iron Age hut circles. It might seem odd that they are in woodland until you remember that these areas did not always have trees and the huts would have been in open land. The views from here must have been amazing. And the dog? Rusty doing a little exploring.

The Old Clam Bridge in Lustleigh Cleave has been in place for at least 120 years. The logs - which have to be replaced about every 20 years - are roughened to make then non-slip, and walkers also have a hand rail to help them cross the river. A newer, safer footbridge was erected alongside it a few years ago and, I'll admit, that this was the one we used. And the word 'clam'? It's thought to come from the Anglo-Saxon 'clamm', meaning to grip or grasp. which you would certainly have to do whilst balancing on the logs.

Heading up the steep ascent of Woodash. One foot in front of the other and plod along...and up...and up. Strangely, I discovered that plodding and reciting the Welsh for 'I am tired' - dw i wedi blino  (dw.i.we.di.bli.no.dw.i.we.di.bli.no and repeat ad finitum) -  maintained a useful rhythm. You can thank me for this tip when you use it.

The rather attractive group of Water Cottages at Water, near Manaton. Dating from the early 18th Century and now incorporated into a single dwelling. The pump in front is original.

I think this must be the smallest commemorative plaque to a royal event that I've ever come across. But there was a very nice cast-iron lamppost attached to it. Delightfully underwhelming and completely resonating with my republican proclivities. If you really have to recognise a royal event, take the minimalist approach. Power to the people!

There are many reasons to visit St Winifred's and one of them is this 15th Century rood screen. It's a fine example and the images of the saints are really fine - except for the faces determinedly defaced during the Reformation. By whom? Who knows but whoever it was, they were not content with just scratching the faces out, they were gouged out with an implement of some sort. Not merely an act of vandalism but also one with more than a touch of malice. 

The rood screen itself is mostly original but was 'touched up' in the early part of the twentieth century by the redoubtable Pinwill sisters. We've come across their work in many churches and their expertise never ceases to amaze me. And if I can, I always like to run my fingers over their carving in a sort of homage.

Another good reason (in my humble opinion, the best) for visiting the church is this window designed by Frank Brangwyn and made by James Silvester Sparrow. It positively glows and looks as fresh as the day it was installed. There is so much in it to take in and enjoy.

Just look at the faces on these choiristers.

There is a sad story behind this window. It is dedicated to Esmund Hunt, who died at 19, in 1928. Esmund had Downs Syndrome and he is the lad in the centre panel. By all accounts, Esmund adored music; he had a pianola (a self-playing piano) with over 250 rolls of music that he would sit at and work away with the pedals to keep it going.

My pre-reading for our visit had alerted me to look out for this. Behind Esmund is St Cecilia, the patron saint of music. Look closely at her face, is it not full of tenderness and care? I'd speculate that she was the patron saint of Esmund, staying by his side all his life, helping him find a path to cope with a very difficult world. And look at her hand; a good artist can always be assessed by their ability to illustrate hands, and this artist was very good indeed; Sir Frank Brangwyn, thought by many to be too radical, and by others to be too establishment, and by me to be up there with the best. I really like this window and I'd rank it as one of the most memorable I've come across in a country church.