I fear for the sanity of the Govester

Almost from the very beginning of my blog, and especially when I was being political, my friend from childhood days, Mike Jones, could be relied on to comment. Our similar backgrounds and similar experiences gave us a very similar outlook on life and very similar politics. Sadly Mike died a couple of weeks ago after several years of heart problems (we even had a bypass in common!). I will miss him and I know he would have had a few comments about what follows. RIP Mike. This one's for you.

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Some of us had the immense misfortune (or warped pleasure. Take your pick)  to witness Michael Gove’s, eh, let’s call it a “performance”, on the BBC Breakfast news, and other channels last Wednesday morning. Readers of a certain age may remember Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks, way back when John Cleese was still funny. The Secretary of State for Levelling Up appeared to have decided that he was really the Secretary of State for Silly Talks as he adopted a variety of am dram accents and mugged and gurned his way through an unhinged interview in which he denied that there was any split between Boris Johnson and the Treasury on how to tackle cost of living crisis. He went on to describe any suggestion that Boris Johnson should resign for breaking the law as – and I quote – “bonkeroony.”

He gave, by the account of those who know the signs, the appearance of someone who is dealing with the aftermath of a monstrous coke binge – allegedly. Being tired and emotional at 7.40 am is quite an achievement. Don’t let it be said that this government doesn’t go the extra mile. Admittedly, it seems to the casual observer, to be a mile that they have gone with the assistance of Bolivian marching powder. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'the party line'.

It was just a short a while ago that it was reported that traces of coke were found in the toilets at Westminster and nothing more was said about it. In construction, or in any other workplace, if drugs were found on site all the staff would be getting tested. One line for them, and another for the rest of us?

Still, it’s heartening to know that the person in charge of levelling up the north of England can put on a cod Liverpool accent so that those northerners can understand as he tells them there’s no money and the government isn’t going to offer any monetary assistance as people are forced to choose between heating their homes or feeding their children. Delivering the news as though he’s auditioning for a part in a Harry Enfield sketch that’s based on tired stereotypes of Liverpudlians (Calm down! Calm down!) will really make them feel like he and the government care deeply for them. It was like watching a real life episode of Spitting Image, only with a more rubbery faced main character.

Clearly Gove hasn’t understood that this is a cost of living crisis. It’s not a joke, or an opportunity for him to display what an out-of-touch middle class student debating society considers to pass for wit. It was a bizarre and troubling performance. This individual is in charge of making decisions which affect the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people. And yet he behaves in a flippant and adolescent manner as though it’s all just a bit of a laugh.

There are those who claim that Gove’s performance was a deliberate trolling to distract our attention from the Government’s woeful handling of the cost of living crisis and to get us to talk about Gove’s clowning instead. I don’t buy that at all. This is the same Michael Gove who was filmed in the Chamber of the House of Commons in September 2019, visibly unsteady on his feet, and propping himself up on a lectern and doing a very good impression of an extremely drunk man trying and failing to disguise just how drunk he was. This is a government which is led by a man who is widely considered, even by many in his own party, to be unfit for office. All that Gove has done is to make everyone think that he is unfit for office too. If it was just a tactic, it was a self-defeating one, and would only confirm the poor judgement of those who occupy the most powerful positions in the British Government and demonstrate that they really are unfit for office.

A far more plausible explanation, given the behaviour of senior Conservatives over the past years and months, is that they genuinely just don’t care. The rules and norms that apply to ordinary mortals do not apply to them. To them it really is just a game. They do not have to suffer the consequences of the decisions that they make and the dysfunctional Westminster system means that they know that they will never be held to account. Not even actual law breaking by the Prime Minister has resulted in him being forced to resign, and Gove thinks that it is “bonkeroony” that he should have to. They are not even hiding their contempt any more, but putting it on full display as though they are competing with one another to see which of them can take the piss the most before a TV interviewer will call them out for it.

So it’s just fine in Gove’s mind that he can appear in a TV interview, clearly, ahem, “unprepared”, and treat the experience as a huge joke. He knows that no one is going to take him to task for insulting the public in such a brazen manner, least of all the BBC interviewer. In any other walk of life this would be a career ending performance. If you or I had turned up for work and behaved in such a fashion, we’d be sent straight to HR and forced to take a drug test before being shown the door.

If a Labour shadow minister had behaved in a similar fashion during a TV interview, it would be newspaper headlines for weeks. It might even get the Daily Express to stop banging on about 'Beergate' for all of five seconds. But because it’s a senior Tory it will scarcely register. This is the UK after all. Our political masters in Westminster are expected to hold us in contempt and to laugh at us, and it’s just as accepted that there is nothing that we can do about it. The Tories are laughing at us. They know we can’t vote them out. Gove thinks it’s bonkeroony that people like him should ever face consequences.

Michael Gove needs help, and as long as he remains a minister, so do we all. Gove’s bizarre performance is yet more proof that it’s bonkeroony for us to remain under Westminster rule and subject to the contempt of arrogant Conservatives like Michael Gove whom we cannot hold to account. A plague on the lot of them.

Annual Bluebell Walk to Burrator Woods

Time for our Annual Bluebell Walk. Will we get them at their best or will they have gone over as they did last year? We walked with eager anticipation.

Around 6.5 miles in glorious sunshine. Starting in the Quarry Car Park near Burrator Reservoir, we walked around the reservoir to the Narrator Plantation and then contoured Sheeps Tor at a low level until we reached Sheepstor village. From there we headed through Burrator Woods to the Meavy bridge and then back to the car park. Not a particularly strenuous walk but definitely a notch up from 'easy'. 

A Dartmoor pony which took a rather too-close-for-comfort interest in an apple I was eating. Unlike many tourists, I never feed the ponies and neither should anyone else.

Looking north-eastish across Burrator Reservoir towards Down Tor. It doesn't feel that high when you are up there.

And due south is Sheeps Tor. We haven't been up there for ages. Too long ago, in fact. We'll have to correct that soon with a circular route I have in mind.

Finding this Jay in the corner of a shot was a very pleasant surprise. In fact, I don't think I've got one of a Jay on the ground before. It pays to look carefully at photographs before deleting them as this was part of a rather boring panoramic shot.

Blue and gold of Ukraine?

St Leonard's Church, Sheepstor. There has been a church and chapelry  on this site since the early thirteenth century but the dedication to St Leonard's seems to be a relatively modern association. The present building dates from the 1450s and was 'restored' by the Victorians in the 1860s. There are lots of reasons to visit this church but the most unusual are its links with the Rajahs of Sarawak (Borneo), the Brooke family. 

 The carved Rood Screen dates from around 1914. It is based on a drawing of the old rood screen that was unceremoniously ripped out in 1861 (the rood screen, not the drawing) by the builder doing the restoration. It was designed by Frederick Bligh Bond who was the Devon rood screen expert at the time and carved by one of the best workshops in the South West, that of Herbert Read of Exeter. One of the best workshops, yes, but not THE best. Let's give that accolade to the Pinwill sisters, who, in my humble opinion, have the edge for artistic interpretation over Herbert. But what do I know? Only what I like.

This window commemorates the Brooke family, from whom the link to Sarawak springs. There is more that can be said about them that I've got space for so I'll just touch on the bits that interest me.
The 'White Rajah of Sarawak', Sir James Brooke is buried in the churchyard, along with his successors as Rajah, Charles Brooke and Charles Vyner Brooke. Sir James helped the Sultan of Brunei combat pirates and squash internal rebellions. As a reward, he was granted dominion over Sarawak in 1841. The jury is out on whether Sir James was a champion of Sarawak against the oppressive Sultanate of Brunei and the evils of slavery, or an autocratic colonial adventurer. Me? My politics makes me favour the latter. Notwithstanding this, the title descended through three generations of the Brooke family until Bertram Brooke essentially granted the title to the UK government following WW2, despite the objections of the Sarawak people and the next Brooke in line to inherit.
The three tombs of the Rajahs can be found in the north-eastern corner of the churchyard, rather incongruously facing the most English of rural scenes with sheep grazing on the hillside. James Brooke’s has the grandest tomb made from polished red Aberdeen granite. Yes, red granite from Aberdeen in the middle of an ocean of lovely local granite. The other two tombs are less conspicuous and are of local Dartmoor granite. The larger of the two apparently took 11 horses to pull it to the churchyard. It really is huge so, perhaps, it is pretty conspicuous after all.

This alabaster memorial to Susanna Elford dates from 1641. There's a lot to see in this poignant memorial of a double death.

Susanna, according the symbolism on display, died in childbirth along with her babe, shown here on the left wrapped in swaddling clothes. Just for emphasis, Susanna is pointing to her baby (1), and her three grieving elder daughters are grasping her coverlet. A tragedy but there is some theatricality, almost at the level of a Victorian melodrama. Top left (2) and  middle right (3, hard to make out) are two angels holding back curtains, as if presenting this as a scene in a play. Old Man Death has a walk on part as well, top right (4), peeking out from behind the curtain, just to make sure that we all get the point. Though, to show that there is hope after death, at the bottom left is a phoenix (5), for resurrection and everlasting life.

These kind of memorials, to death in childbirth, are not unusual and appeared to have started in the latter part of the 1500s and became more popular in the early 1600s. Unusual too, as they did not start with the aristocracy and spread downwards, but were always with the merchant class and small time gentry. Why? Well, one interpretation is that they were a sign of the rise of marriage for love and/or companionship, rather than transactional, for connections and property. And Squire Elford had lost his Susanna and his fourth daughter, missed them deeply and wanted to show it. And why wouldn't he?

But what I find so poignant are the two little girls on the right (6 & 7) clutching their favourite things, a special ribbon, a treasured book. Both looking as if they want their mother to wake up and play with them. As I said earlier, Victorian melodrama.

Looking back down the nave and side aisle, the fifteenth century granite arcade (row of pillars) is wonderful. One of the many (and there are so many) delights of these Dartmoor churches is that they use ‘moorstone’ which is the granite just lying on and around the surface of the moor. No violent quarrying, no despoiling of the earth, just gently taking the surface stone and lovingly caressing it with a chisel to give it another character. And all done in the same neighbourhood. A triumph for low granite miles. A description I like is that churches such as St Leonard's were built 'from the bones of the moor'. I wish I'd thought of it but I can still use it, and I will.

An unusual, but rather dusty, adornment is the Sarawakan ceremonial blanket, a Pua Kumbu, hanging on the south wall (to the right). It was the gift  of the people of Sarawak in the 1990s. It could do with a good clean!

Lovers of wood carving don't just come to St Leonard's for the Rood Screen, they also come for the benches. These were designed by Violet Pinwill and carved in her Plymouth workshop between 1914 and 1939. I really like her work, and that of the Pinwill sisters generally, and always marvel at the skills that are completely beyond my abilities.

They are very much of their time, beautifully carved, and could have leapt from the pages of children’s history books and bibles of that era. Will future generations have the context to decipher and appreciate such subjects? With increasing secularisation, I doubt whether the religious references and subjects will mean much to the 'unchurched'.

The primary purpose of this walk at this time was to see the bluebells in Burrator Wood. Last year we got there just after they were passed their best. This year, by general acclaim, we got it right. And what a visual and sensory treat we had. The path wound its way through the woods and there were bluebells all the way. There's no need for any more text - just enjoy them.

Not a bluebell in sight. The sloping path up from Meavy and back to the car park. The buds are just breaking and the canopy is filling out very nicely.

I'll finish with 360 degrees of daffodils. Until next year, I presume, as I don't think we'll be seeing anything quite as splendid as this again in 2022.

Ruritania comes to town - again.

 The State Opening of Parliament today prompted me to root out something I posted in 2013. I think it stands the test of time and is worth rehashing. The only difference this year is that the Queen was unable to attend because of 'mobility issues'.

It's that time of the year again when the issues to be presented to Parliament in the next session are announced and what a weird and anachronistic way to do it. One of the less attractive features of the British is our pathological need to ritualise tradition and today's State Opening of Parliament is a brilliant example of this. A wonderfully over-the-top gothic pantomime of epic Hollywood proportions. The Queen (gawd bless her) processes in state from Buckingham Palace to the Houses of Parliament in a glittering coach, flanked by ranks of the Household Cavalry. In an elaborate ceremony with all the Crown Jewels on display, she reads out a list of government bills from the throne in the House of Lords. Only the British could still be doing this sort of thing in the 21st century! Either us or some tin-pot dictator with galloping delusions of grandeur!

It’s a colourful ceremony of seemingly ancient rituals (but they are not as old as you might think) where all the symbols and offices of the constitution come together under one roof. The Lords gather in their ermine robes and the Commons are summoned to attend in a famous door-slamming ritual played out by Black Rod ((by tradition, the Queen cannot enter the Commons). It is amazing how little things have changed in parliament over the last two centuries! It’s a grand pageant set in elaborate 17th century costumes of wigs, breeches, tights and ruffs. Pure high camp drama. The Crown, the Cap of Maintenance (the what?!), the Dutch Cap of Prevention (I'm sorry, I made that one up. I just couldn't help myself) and the Sword of State make an appearance along with officials with extravagant titles like Garter King of Arms and, a particular favourite of mine, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant! The camp splendour of the royal procession through Parliament is quite a sight. The uniforms, gowns, robes and the Crown jewels themselves are spectacular. More Ruritanian pantomime than serious government procedure.

The Queen finally takes her place on the Throne (titter, titter) in the House of Lords and the Commons file into the chamber. The Tories looking smug and, I'm glad to see, many Labour ministers and MPs appearing suitably bewildered by the occasion. The speech (and it's not any old speech, it's the Gracious Speech and is read from a goat-skin vellum scroll**) is a turgid list of Government business and legislation, prefaced with a regal, “My government will…”. It’s dull and no one pretends otherwise - and what's on this year's menu is duller than most.  As soon as the speech is complete, the Queen and her entourage process all the way back again (no, not backwards - sadly they spoil things by turning around) and the politicians get down to the serious business of making soundbites and point scoring - sorry, I meant to say the serious business of debating.

The one thing you can’t help noticing is how undemocratic the whole thing is. Only a third of those in attendance, the House of Commons, is elected by we plebs. The rest are hereditary or appointed. Within the ceremony, the Commons are conspicuously the least prominent. During the speech MPs (our representatives, remember) crowd in at the back of the room -rather like naughty school children, it's always struck me. Of course, it could be argued that any ceremony that makes politicians stand at the back must be a good thing!

However, there is one element that is totally missing from all of the above. The people. Any government presentation outlining upcoming intentions and priorities should, in the modern world (Hey - it's 2013 already or maybe Black Rod and Rouge Dragon Pursuivant haven't noticed?), be aimed at us, the electorate. Strip away the constitutional flummery and you’re left with a governing party stating what it’s going to do in the upcoming parliament. That’s important, and it should be presented to the people in a clear, unambiguous way. It's weird that a day of such high politics should start with such an archaic royal ritual. How long is all of this going to last. Will we see a radical overhaul at the end of the current reign ? Will a forward looking King Charles scale it down or abolish it all together? Probably not.

OK, so it’s a bit of constitutional glitter that pomp and pageantry junkies (and tourists) love. But does it really add any value to government in the 21st century? Would we not be better off with a State of the Union style speech to parliament and people by the Prime Minister? Isn't that what a representational democracy demands? Isn't that what the electorate deserve?

** I was being a little economical with the truth here. It is not on vellum anymore. It is on "goatskin parchment paper" but, confusingly, it's not actually made from goatskin. However it is very high quality, thick paper, which is why the ink takes several days to dry, and it then needs to be bound into a booklet, before being sent on to Her Majesty for signing. I wonder if she uses joined-up handwriting for this?

Circular walk from Tokenbury Corner to Trethevey Quoit

 A good clear day and one just right for a walk! And this was a good one as it was our first longish walk after our bouts of Covid.

This walk came in at just under 6 miles in weather just fit for a walk. We started at Tokenbury Corner and took in the south of Caradon Hill towards the Gonamena Valley. Then down to Trevethey Quoit and Rosecraddoc Woods back to the starting point. We've done most of this walk before but usually in the other direction so it was interesting seeing it in reverse.

The tips on the right are from Kittow's Shaft, part of the South Caradon mine workings. In the distance are various mine stacks and engine houses connected with the West Caradon/Gonamena complex. Whenever I see these, I always remember that they were all produced by pick and shovel, with very little in the way of mechanical aids. What is seen is the result of a lot of hard physical labour underground in appalling conditions.

Looking towards the tips of the West Caradon complex.

Another view of West Caradon looking over the buildings associated with the Old Sump shaft. It really is a huge site. Mining began in 1839 but was largely over by 1874. By the 1860s, it employed over 500 workers.

Looking back towards West Caradon over what was once known as 'The Yard'. This was the area of processing and servicing the core of the operation, the shafts. Here there were the offices, miners' dries where working cloths were dried between shifts, tool sheds, wash houses and even a barbers. All gone now but once bustling with activity. Old photographs show that most of the buildings were plaster rendered and painted white.

A visit to Trethevey Quoit is always an awesome experience. Awesome because of its size and uniqueness. There aren't many like this in the West Country. It's a Neolithic (3500-2500 BC)  'dolmen' burial chamber, formed by five standing stones, finished off with a huge capstone.

Tomb or shrine? No-one knows for certain but that doesn't stop people from speculating. The weight of the capstone is estiamted to be around 20 tonnes and, however it was done, it was a feat of engineering getting it in position. Maybe a ramp was used but it would still require a lot of muscle power to pull it up a slope.

Taken from the information board for the quoit. It must have been an impressive and commanding sight when it was in its prime.

I just love the way that ferns gradually unfurl. We are fortunate to have the right conditions for them in Cornwall and they are everywhere. To think that we brought ferns down with us when we moved from Kent, where they did grow particularly well.

Bluebells in Rosecraddoc Woods.

The early months of every year are awash with a sequence of different colours - snowdrops, daffodils, camelias and bluebells. Of these, masses of bluebells are probably the most impressive. Here they are interspersed with the white of Wood Anemones. And the smell of the bluebells is just amazing.

An ideal spot for lunch - a curried lentil pasty, a cup of tea, sunshine and the sound of running water. Does it get any better?

Lots of Red Campion (Silene dioica) in the verges, field margins and woodlands at this time of year. A nice bright highlight. Also known as Adder's Flower and Robin Hood.  Apparently they are a favourite of woodland fairies. 

An isolated clump of Cowslips (Primula veris) on the verge of a lane at Lower Trethake. Synonymous perhaps with meadows and woodlands, I was surprised to spot it where it was. Unless I missed something, these were the only Cowslips we saw on this walk.

What I liked about this was the band of bluebells at the bottom of the bank. Thinking about it, it's not a surprise to see bluebells at the top and bottom - this is where the soil is. Despite the grass covering, the banks are really the traditional Cornish hedges of granite. Hardly conducive for bulbs.

A welcome watering spot for the many sheep on the moor.

And who doesn't like the sound of a babbling brook?

Democracy under threat?

Let's face it, we have a very fragile democracy. The collection of customs, practices, and laws which collectively amount to what passes for a British constitution are already hopelessly inadequate for the task of putting limits on the power of the government and holding the powerful to account. A task which is vital in order to guard against a possible descent into authoritarianism and corruption, tendencies which are already far too evident with this Conservative administration. As an illustration of just how useless the Westminster system is at safeguarding democracy and ensuring the highest standards of behaviour in public office, we currently have a Prime Minister who has repeatedly lied to Parliament, the public, and the Cabinet, and who has been found to have broken the law on at least two occasions. Yet he remains in office and we must rely on the Conservative party deciding to unseat him for its own party political advantage.

As if all that wasn’t bad enough, and it is extremely serious. 56 MPs, including three Cabinet ministers, are currently being investigated for allegations of sexual harassment. That is almost 10% of the entire cohort of MPs in Parliament! This points to a deeply dysfunctional working culture in Westminster. Just a couple of days ago Conservative MP Neil Parish resigned after being seen to have been watching porn on his mobile phone in the Commons chamber and in a committee meeting. At first, Parish refused to resign, claiming that he had opened the file by accident when looking for information about tractors. At this rate BBC Parliament will soon take over from Babe Station as the UK’s leading broadcaster of blatantly sexual behaviour.

At first the Conservatives tried to excuse this litany of appalling conduct by claiming that MPs work hard, work long hours, and spend a lot of time in Westminster’s several bars. As though drinking on the job was somehow normal and acceptable in any other field of work, and that it somehow excused the rampant sexism of so many MPs.

This weekend, the SNP MP for Airdrie and Shotts, Anum Qaisar, has revealed that she has been warned to stay away from certain male MPs because they have a reputation for predatory behaviour. The Sunday Times has reported that a minister has been alleged to be heard having “noisy sex” in his parliamentary office, a Tory MP has been accused of sending a picture of his genitals to a female colleague , and another Conservative MP has been given repeated warnings for his use of prostitutes.

Ms Qaisar pointed out that, all too often, the responsibility for dealing with the inappropriate behaviour of male colleagues is put on women, with women being told to be ‘careful’ about what they wear or to have to take care to avoid being left alone with certain men rather than men being held accountable when they behave inappropriately with their female colleagues. She added that there is a culture in Westminster where the men accused of these actions only quit when they are threatened with being thrown out of Parliament. This is exactly what happened with Neil Parish, who at first tried to stay in office and only resigned as an MP when the outrage that his behaviour generated looked as though it was going to lead to him being facing the humiliation of being dragged out by a tractor.

However this sorry situation forms the backdrop for the Conservative evisceration of the Electoral Commission, stripping it of its status as an independent body and putting it under the control of a cabinet minister, currently Michael Gove. Gove, who lies as frequently as Boris Johnson but even more glibly, will now have the power to determine the remit of the Electoral Commission and to decide what counts as legitimate campaigning. In February, before the Conservatives’ Elections Bill had received its final reading, the Commission wrote a public letter to Michael Gove, saying that the bill’s provisions were “inconsistent with the role that an independent electoral commission plays in a healthy democracy”, adding that the independence of the Electoral Commission is is fundamental to maintaining confidence and legitimacy in our electoral system.”

The bill gives Gove the power to criminalise groups and individuals for actions undertaken up to a year before an election that he retroactively deems to be campaigning. Former Electoral Commissioner David Howarth has described this draconian measure as “something straight out of Putin’s playbook”. Other critics of the new legislation have pointed out that it gives British Government ministers the ability to shape how electoral law is applied to them and their political competitors, and gives the governing party a significant and unfair advantage.

The Conservatives have already introduced legislation which significantly restricts the right of protest in England and Wales. This new legislation destroys the independence of an institution with the power to put limits on the Conservatives and to hold them to account and puts it firmly under the control of the party. Additionally it puts significant obstacles in the way of exercising the right to vote, and will make it mandatory for voters to show photographic ID at the polling booth. The Conservative government says the bill will protect the “integrity” of elections and prevent voter fraud. There is, however, no evidence that impersonation is a serious problem at ballot stations. Figures show that between 2015 and 2019, there were only 88 allegations of in-person voter fraud, out of a total of 153 million votes cast. That included votes in three general elections during the four-year period. The Conservative elections bill will introduce a serious obstacle in the way of casting a vote in order to solve a problem that doesn’t actually exist.

The effect of this bill, and no doubt its real intention, for all the mealy mouthed and pious excuses of the mendacious Conservatives, will be to make it harder for certain demographic groups which tend not to support the Conservatives to cast a vote. Young people and members of ethnic minorities are more likely to lack the kind of photographic ID demanded by the new legislation. The Tories have clearly taken a leaf out of the voter suppression book of the US Republicans. The Electoral Reform Society has warned that the ID measures, which will cost £20 million per election to implement, could disenfranchise the 3.5 million people in the UK who lack the ID required. According to the British Government’s own figures, as many as one in ten people do not have an up-to-date, recognisable photo ID. 

Kyle Taylor, the director of the campaign group Fair Vote UK, said the UK Government had essentially “voted to officially end the independence of the Electoral Commission” and that the new powers mean ministers “can effectively rig election rules in their favour”. He added “This is how countries slide into authoritarianism. First you take control of the institutions, then you rig them in your favour and ban noisy protest so people can’t fight back. It’s a dark day for democracy.” Should we be concerned? Yes, we should.

Yet another rant about the iniquities of BJ and the Tories

Boris Johnson’s self-inflicted troubles have not gone away. No matter how much the Prime Law-breaker tries to wrest back control of the narrative by play acting as a global statesman and buggering off for photo ops in India or in Ukraine, because he is now in such a state of disrepute that he feels more secure in an actual war zone than he does in Westminster. With rumours of more police fines yet to come and reports that the much delayed Sue Gray report will be damning in its account of Johnson’s behaviour and the boozy culture of entitlement over which he presided in Downing Street, back bench Conservative MPs are once again making noises about unseating Johnson as they nervously anticipate Conservative losses at the local elections next week.

Of course, what really motivates these Tories is not a desire to ensure the highest standards of behaviour from those who hold high offices of state. It is, as it always has been, to protect their own careers and to maintain the Conservative party as the party of power and influence. A bad performance for the Conservatives next week will tell those anxious Conservative back benchers that their party’s grasp on power, patronage, and influence is slipping. That will be especially true if the party polls poorly in those councils in the midlands and north of England, where victory for the Tories in the 2019 General Election was instrumental in securing the large Commons majority that Johnson enjoys.

That will be what motivates them to move against Johnson and unseat him from number 10, not any sudden discovery of moral standards or concern that the most powerful man in the UK is a serial liar and repeated law breaker with nothing but contempt for the rules and standards that everyone else is expected to abide by. If the Conservatives do better than expected in those electorally important regions of England, then they will be falling over to persuade us that Johnson’s law breaking and lies are a trivial matter and that it is churlish and unchivalrous of us not to accept his performative apologies and allow him to get away with it.

Meanwhile there will be more full scale deflection and whataboutery. We have already seen this with the frantic and frankly pathetic attempts of the Conservatives and their fellow travellers to assert that there is a moral, legal, and political equivalence between Nicola Sturgeon forgetting to put her face mask on for a whole six seconds and Johnson’s repeated and deliberate law breaking and his constant and incessant lying about it after the story came to light. And Keir Starmer's bottle of beer at a meeting. And Angela Rayner's appearance at the same. There’s going to be a lot more of this ahead. Classic cynical diersionary tactics. Apologists for Johnson tell us that this is not the timed to unseat him “because there’s a war on”.  Remind me when there hasn't been a war on in recent years?

But even if the Tory party does finally move against Johnson, they will only replace him with someone just as mendacious and morally bankrupt. The system which put such a manifestly unsuitable individual as Johnson into power will remain intact and his removal will only serve to ensure that system remains intact, not to reform it, and certainly not to replace it with a more robustly democratic way of choosing a British Prime Minister. It is a signal fact which illustrates the fundamentally undemocratic character of the British state that Conservative Prime Ministers are typically removed by their own party and a successor chosen by the Conservative party in an effort to perpetuate Conservative rule, rather than being turfed out of office by the electorate.

Since 1945, only three Conservative PMs have left power after losing a General Election. Alec Douglas Home in 1964, Ted Heath in 1974 and John Major in 1997, all the rest have either been removed by the Conservative party or have resigned after realising that they could no longer count on the support of Conservative MPs. That was back when Conservative ministers actually resigned after they had screwed up. There was Winston Churchill in 1955, Anthony Eden in 1957, Harold Macmillan in 1963, Margaret Thatcher in 1990, David Cameron in 2016 and Theresa May in 2019. In all these cases a successor was chosen by the Conservative party with no input from the public despite the fact that under the Westminster system the Prime Minister enjoys almost unlimited power without the checks and balances and limitations on the executive found in democratic states with a written constitution.

If the Conservatives do remove Johnson they will choose a successor from within their own ranks, and the entire British undemocratic circus will continue. Those of us who are subject to the self-serving rule of the Conservative party will once again be mere passive spectators as the Tories make their calculations about the best way to maintain their power, and to preserve intact the privileges and wealth of that small minority in whose interests they govern.

The excesses, lies, entitlement and contempt which we see with Johnson will not cease once the Tories calculate that they must remove him in order to maintain their grip on power. They will simply continue with whoever it is that they find to replace him. Anyone chosen by the Conservatives will have been a party to and complicit in, the lies, corruption, authoritarianism, and deceit which has characterised the Tory party under Johnson. Johnson might be brought down by Partygate but any successor will have seen what Johnson was able to get away with, which was a considerable assault on the UK’s fragile democracy, and will continue in a similar vein.

Meet the new boss, the same as the old boss. The UK has a rotten political system and is incapable of reforming itself. And Labour is just as guilty as the Conservatives in perpetuating the status quo. Here we are in 2022, and the UK still has an unelected second Parliamentary chamber and an electoral system which can give a party a huge and crushing Commons majority on just 43.6% of the popular vote. Both the two main UK parties are equally in thrall to the absolute power and unlimited patronage that the Westminster system offers to the victor in a general election, both have a vested interest in keeping things as they are.

The UK is a pretend democracy where corruption, lies and law breaking go unpunished and in which there are no means of holding power to account beyond a grossly unfair electoral system. Even the fixed term Parliaments Act is easily subverted, and the Prime Minister retains the power to call a General Election when he or she calculates that it’s in their party’s interests to do so.

This is a system which is never going to change because when you get the power to change it your self-interest depends on you keeping things the same. What a mesh. And I can't even not vote Tory next week as there's no election in Cornwall.

Cousin Audrey being politically incorrect.

I introduced Cousin Audrey in my lost post and showed her in full ballet mode. But, as other photographs reveal, she also had a penchant for dressing up and, presumably, showed a talent for folk dances from other lands. The postcard below just had ‘Audrey: Russian’ written on the back. As the costume doesn’t strike me as something a Bolshevik would wear, I’m guessing that it reflects Tsarist Imperialism rather than Soviet realism. On the other hand, it could be a Cossack costume, in which case it is remarkably current. A man-made famine often called the Holodomor, a term derived from the Ukrainian words for hunger (holod) and extermination (mor) raged in the Ukraine from 1932 to 1933, peaking in the late spring of 1933. It was part of a broader Soviet famine (1931–34) that also caused mass starvation by ill-judged collectivisation in the grain-growing regions of Soviet Russia and Kazakhstan. The Ukrainian famine, however, was made deadlier by a series of political decrees and decisions that were aimed mostly or only at Ukraine. And now we are seeing brutal acts of retribution as the Russian army runs amok in the southern and eastern parts of the country. A modern day Holodomor.

But all of this then and now, was many miles from Audrey Kent’s School of Dancing, behind a bicycle shop in Brighton. Maybe if Audrey was still alive and her  111 year old legs were up to the task, she might have donned this costume once more for a Ukrainian refugee fundraiser. 

This is the untouched photograph. If only I could show such poise.

And this is the same photograph colourised with some software. The question about colourisation is always about how accurate and or realistic the colour rendering is. In this particular instance, not very.

I’m lucky to have a colour version of the same photograph, which  must have been hand-tinted. There’s no reason to suppose that the colours are not accurate and they show that the colourised version is a pale imitation of the original. So, a technique to be used with caution, although the skin tones do add a little life  to the image.

Still messing about

"Stop messing about" is a cry that has accompanied my entire life. "Stop messing about and get on with your homework”, “Stop messing about and get down to some real work, “Stop messing about and…. ....". You can change the latter part of the sentence, but the first few words remain the same. Some time the cry came from others, particularly my mother, but more often it comes from me. Whatever the source, the meaning is the same - curtail your flights of fancy, beware of tempting tangents and stick to the matter in hand. I’ve always found diversions so tempting.

But now, apart from familial and matrimonial responsibilities, I answer to nobody, my life is gloriously aimless, and I can mess about 'till the cows meander home. When my time eventually comes, the last post on my blog will be "Deri Parsons - Stopped Messing About".

And this rumination was prompted by my coming across some old family photographs - a collection of my 1st Cousin X1 removed, Audrey Minnie Kent, my dad’s first cousin. Audrey trained at the Royal Academy of Dance and ran a dancing school in Brighton for many years. I’d say the photograph was taken in the late 1920s/early 1930s. She died in 2004 and I’d only met her a few times over the years. The colourisation of the image brings her to life and I might well do a little research and see what else I can find out about her. She deserves to dance in the spotlight once more, methinks. Then the cry will come “Stop messing about with those old photographs and cut the hedge”. Plus ca change.