This Time No Mistakes

Will Hutton's article in yesterday's Observer outlining his book on How to Remake Britain, which will be published in 10 days, exposes the catastrophic period of economic decline, austerity, growing inequality, and the cost of living crisis. He catalogues the mistakes made in post-war Britain with a relentless zeal. He also provides a chink of optimism for the future, this has always been an essential part of his character. 

"The level of our national debt has climbed alarmingly over the past quarter of a century, with no compensating increase in public assets..... Similarly, more than 20 years of imports of goods and services exceeding exports has meant our international debts have climbed by £1.5tn so that our balance sheet – positive for centuries as a result of empire and as a pioneer of the Industrial Revolution – is now dangerously negative. Fifty companies that could have been in the FTSE 100 were sold abroad between 1997 and 2017; we are running out of assets to sell. At the same time almost every metric on the economic and social dashboard – whether social mobility or the number of new companies launching on the London stock market – is flashing amber or red."

It is undoubtedly his most significant book since The State We're In, which was a precursor to the arrival of the Blair government in 1997. He has no compunction in pointing to Margaret Thatcher's government as the instigator of the collapse. Nor does he hold back from criticising the "rightwing nexus of libertarian tax-cutters and immigration-phobes, who put those aims above the rule of law and respect for human rights. They are unfit to govern."

"Rightwing ideological maxims, initiated by Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and continued by her imitators, have led to a sequence of policy disasters – monetarism, wholesale financial deregulation, austerity and then Brexit. Far from launching a renaissance, Thatcher was the author of a pernicious decline. The doctrine is that the private “I” is morally superior to anything public, that the state’s “coercive” proclivities must be reined in to promote a “free” market, that regulation and taxation stifle enterprise, that unless ferociously means-tested and minimalist, welfare creates a huge underclass of undeserving “shirkers”, and that good public services follow from a successful economy rather than being integral to it." 

"In the 1980s, monetarism did not contain inflation as billed, but rather prompted mass unemployment, hollowed out much of our productive economy – manufacturing employment nearly halved in a decade – and eviscerated public investment. The areas so scarred by the experience would, 30 years later, vote for Brexit. Financial deregulation led to the fastest rise in private indebtedness in our history, propelling illusory economic growth buoyed not by investment and innovation but by a flood of credit. It could only end in tears."

He does not flinch from castigating Blair and Brown as lukewarm followers of fashion. Even Blair has admitted he was far too cautious in investing in public services during his first period of office. After all, Gordon Brown was his ever-so-prudent Chancellor who determined that fiscal stability meant there was no room for renationalisation of the yet-to-be fully privatised railways.

"Britain’s liberal left cannot absolve itself of blame. If Conservatism has over-emphasised the “I”, the left has not yet found an electorally attractive way of making the case for “We” – or, better still, blending it with the “I” to create a political philosophy and attractive policies that flow from it, that would appeal to the majority. My proposition is that the “We” should be built on fusing an ethic of socialism grounded in profound human attachment to fellowship, mutuality and co-operation with the ethic of progressive liberalism....,. Essentially, individuals and society are in a constant iterative relationship. Individuals shape society, society shapes individuals, and each and everyone has an obligation to make the social whole as strong as possible."

He argues that Keynes' economic revolution and Beveridge's welfare state illustrate how progressive liberalism allied with socialism can be a powerful elixir for positive change. This is How to Remake Britain.

"Progressive liberalism and an ethic of socialism are not incompatible value systems: they are complementary. Progressive liberalism leans into the individualism that propels capitalism while accepting social obligations; an ethic of socialism leans into the foundation of a social contract and infrastructure of justice that underpins the sinews of a good society."

His starting point is to raise public investment decisively and so “crowd in” private investment radically to lift productivity and real wages. He focuses on three musts:

• closing the disgraceful gap in productivity, infrastructure and economic performance between London and the regions; 
• a commitment to achieve net zero by 2050 given the alarming rise in global temperatures; and 
• lifting research and development spending dramatically. 

He argues that it will require public borrowing for such investment to rise by at least 1% of GDP, or between £25bn– £30bn, with fiscal rules not determined solely by accounting, goals. He believes that the financial markets will be reassured if they know that the government investment is strategic and thought through. 

"Shibboleths about taxation need to be put to one side. Taxation represents the “we”, and as long as the demands on all sections of society are reasonable – involving at present a greater contribution by the wealthy, whose assets in relation to GDP have doubled since 1980 – there is no evidence that tax receipts at today’s level or even marginally higher will damage growth."

The missing link in Hutton's argument is the need for a comprehensive recasting of the British Constitution. He does argue for stronger accountability with the House of Lords democratised and an enforcement of ethical standards. What he fails to advocate is a root and branch reform of our constitution and he is silent on the importance of localism.

In the halcyon days of the UK being in the vanguard of the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, much of the need and motivation for radical change, innovation and delivery occurred at the local level. It was not a top-down series of Eureka moments from the government. It was tackling poverty, poor health, education and communications at the local level that nurtured the ideas, technology and collaboration between the municipalities, local entrepreneurs and inventive minds. This is what generated the revolutions in public health, transport, power supply, and manufacturing industries. There was a sharing of these inventions and ideas across and between localities. Government of the localities, by the localities, for the localities would ensure that 'This Time No Mistake' is not just another titular mantra destined for failure.

The evolution of new ideas seldom starts at the government level, they lack the detailed knowledge of problems or the experience to make things happen. It is the recognition and promotion of our regions, cities and councils' right to take back control of identifying needs and finding solutions that are the missing link in Hutton's analysis. If this is not recognised as we head towards the general election, even his optimism may lead to 'This Time More Mistakes' as the wannabe panjandrums and spads trade their WhatsApp messages with gay abandon.

Sunday Morning on the wee Ben

Stuc a' Chroin and Ben Vorlich

Loch Venachar and Ben Ledi

Ben Lomond capped in snow

Ben Ledi

The sky was a perfect blue but it was brutally cold and tomorrow would have been Aileen's birthday. I needed to avoid any Sunday Morning Blues. For the first time in a week, I was on a foray up the wee Ben (Gullipen). No need to say how impressive it was, the photos do that. 

The Highland Cattle that graze on the track were absent so no nervousness about dodging between the heaving beasts as I was slipping and sliding on the descent over the muddy track from a month of rain. Compared to Sunday mornings 50 years ago after a night at the student's union that Pentangle summed up perfectly, today would not be a lost Sunday. What a way to start the day!
 

The Crow Trap

It's that time of the year when the fifty or so crows nest in the half-dozen ash trees along the burn at the side of the house. They spend early March partnering up and building nests, there appear to be more crows than ever this year and the windy conditions have made construction difficult as the fragile trees sway wickedly and branches snap.

It was lunchtime and it sounded like someone was banging about upstairs or on the roof, I went to look but the sounds had stopped and there was certainly no one around. I had some lunch whilst watching the 1 o'clock news when a phone call made me mute the TV. The sounds had started again and came from the wood-burning flue pipe near the ceiling. It must be a bird, it sounded like the beating of wings. It had already descended down the 6-inch twin-walled flue pipe through a couple of bends in the attic and the bedroom. I could tell from the sound of wings flapping on the side that it was a bigger bird than a chaffinch or a great tit and assumed it must be a thrush or a blackbird. I opened the wood burner to create a draft and hopefully encourage the bird to take the plunge but it was either stuck or not wanting to drop into the unknown. I decided to try later.

I spent the afternoon in the garden and a friend came to visit with her young children. It was almost 6pm when I returned to the room and from the sounds I knew that the bird had made it halfway down the flue but I could not entice it any further by tapping on the side. I decided to watch Aftersun, the award-winning 2022 film that my daughter had been involved in commissioning. It lasted 1 hour and 41 minutes during which the trapped bird was slowly descending the flue pipe and arriving at a holding position above the stove. I now figured that the bird must be the size of a jackdaw or a magpie. I paused the film, unless I disassembled the firebrick linings of the stove the bird would not survive. A YouTube video was useful and after 15 minutes of tricky manipulation I had all the fire linings out but the torch showed that there was a bar across the bottom of the flue and the bird had stopped moving. I closed the door in the room, left the door of the stove open and opened the window so that if the bird managed to extricate itself there was an escape route to the rain-washed world outside. 

The film was restarted and every so often the bird would make another attempt, I aimed the torch at the stove and this prompted more movement. The tension in the room matched the tension in the film as Paul Mercat and Frankie Corio act out the emotional anguish of estranged father and daughter. It was after 11pm before the film was finished and the credits read. I decided that I could do no more to release the bird so put in a small dish of water and some blueberries, just in case, before closing the door on the stove, the window and the room door and retiring to bed. 

At 3:30am I was awakened by the wind and went downstairs for a glass of water. I looked in the room to see if anything had happened. It had, there was a large crow trapped in the glass-fronted stove. I opened the window and having seen the size of the crow's beak, put on the fire gauntlets to lift out the bird. I opened the stove to grab the bird but no such luck, the crow was out and crashing from one end of the room to another, swishing past my head every couple of seconds, this was Hitchcockian. 

After it finally found a perch on the curtain rail I escaped to the kitchen and dining room in the hope that the bird would find the open window. It didn't, so I opened the patio doors of the dining area, the wind and rain were making whoopee. I stood at the back of the kitchen area in the dark and put the lights on by the patio doors. I opened the door to the other room and after a few minutes, the crow came crashing out, felt the cool air from outside and disappeared into the night. The sense of satisfaction and relief was immense, I could clear up in the morning.

Crow Trap top door

The Incorrigible Michael Gove

Gloria Gaynor's greatest hit?

Listening to the Today Programme this morning, I was surprised that even the assertive presenter Amol Rajan was flummoxed by the apparently reasonable and emollient phrases of Michael Gove. It was a live example of Gove’s innate ability to convince his colleagues and wider audiences, even the sceptics. He is the political version of the number 42.

 

It is becoming a common trope of journalists and commentators to rank the past five prime ministers, all of whom would be in the relegation zone of post-war prime ministers. They were seduced by Gove’s calm reasoning and they gave him various cabinet portfolios to play with. The exception was Liz Truss, Gove had endorsed Rishi Sunak, and Truss didn’t take prisoners.  Since May 2010, Gove has spent more years in the cabinet than any other MP. He is the master of survival. He had probably figured that Truss would not last long and sure enough, after 49 days of trashing the country, she was terminated. He would probably like to think the damage done in the days he wasn’t in office would prove that his sage guidance to the cabinet during his 14 years would be his enduring legacy, the halcyon days of the Cam-Sun governments.

 

Gove was resurrected and appointed Sunak’s Minister for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Minister for Intergovernmental Relations. He is the true Svengali of the Tory party, able to sweet talk other members of the party into taking what he presents as a modern reformist agenda and for others to take the fall when the policies fail to deliver. He managed to inveigle his way into key cabinet positions with four prime ministers and in the process managed to damage public services in a way that will take many decades to repair. Of course, he would never accept this. He averts any responsibility by referring to the failure of others or events dear boy and just occasionally gives a grovelling apology to prove that he is human and can make mistakes. 

 

His duplicity is legendary, it is in his DNA. Witness his betrayal of Boris Johnson on two occasions, although that could be construed as good judgment, but on both occasions it was after the damage had been done. Most recently during the Covid Inquiry, he criticised his government by saying that he thought the lockdown was far too late and that “we are fucking up as a government...and the whole situation is worse than you think”. At the same time, he was responsible as Minister for the cabinet office for setting up the PPE fast track for Ministers' friends and we know what damage that did. 

Whilst Education Minister in 2010, he abandoned the ‘Building Schools for the Future’ initiative which had been set up by the previous Labour Government and over 600 state schools lost out on capital building projects that were ready to roll so he could create Academies.  He scrapped the social housing regulator leaving tenants no longer protected. He played the key role in arguing for the UK to leave the European Union, ditching his friend David Cameron in the process and providing the intellectual heft for Boris Johnson to jump aboard the Brexit Express. So began the four years of Parliamentary chaos over Brexit. This also led to three prime ministers resigning whilst getting Brexit wrong. 

But Michael Gove had this enormous ability to survive when all others drop by the wayside. He has a tendency to appeal to the Conservative Party as a reformer and someone in touch with the zeitgeist. He is one nation, two nation, right-wing, progressive, zero carbon, or whatever other faction makes sense at any given time. His claim to be a reformer contradicts his underlying philosophical beliefs that people must be free to make money but that there must be redemption for lesser mortals. They have always been key values of the Conservative Party. 

Even watching him run, with the gait of an errant pony, could not better illustrate his tendency to wander. When we come to revisit the wasted years when the UK lost respect and influence, the five Prime Ministers will be in the dock. Johnson or Truss will be nominated as the worst Prime Minister and Gove will be Rasputin. 

 

Democracies at a Turning Point

Canon Kenyon Wright delivering the call for devolution

2024 will be a significant year of elections, as well as the UK parliamentary elections, the United States, Russia, India and France also go to the polls. The campaigning will generate a razzamatazz of promises, as well as the trashing of opponents by tribalist politics that has been supercharged by social media. 

In the UK, the chaos of Brexit, the flawed response to the COVID pandemic, the failure to respond to scandals such as Grenfell Tower and Post Office Horizon IT and the sheer hypocrisy of the government's migration and asylum policies means that there is little to be cheerful about. The perpetual damage of long austerity and the rowing back on climate change policies have created a sense of despair among large sections of the electorate. Like other self-appointed big-ticket democracies, the UK no longer provides the gold standard of government that it likes to claim.  

2024 also marks 25 years of the Scottish Parliament but the next election for the Scottish Parliament is two years away. Freed from the alternative truths peddled during elections, Scotland has the opportunity to be more reflective and inclusive about how it should reset the governance of Scotland and create a more inclusive constitution that restores some trust in its democratic processes. It is time to acknowledge that Holyrood is not the only player in the democratic governance of Scotland.

The Scottish Government has delivered some significant improvements for the people of Scotland, for example, the creation of National Parks, the Outdoor Access Code, the banning of tobacco in public places, free prescription charges, and free travel for young people. But devolution's undeniable, negative feature has been a weakening of local democracy through the centralisation of power, functions and services. Despite a significant tranche of devolved powers from Westminster, not all of which have been exploited, there has been more enthusiasm by Holyrood for drawing up powers and funding streams from councils. This in turn has impacted adversely on the funding and further devolution of powers to local communities.

Is this what devolution was to be all about – creating an excessively centralised state? The Scottish Government has 111 quangos (quasi-autonomous non-governmental bodies). They are non-democratic bodies responsible for many public services, inspection agencies and advisory bodies. In recent years as the Scottish Government has reduced the share of public services that were locally accountable to democratically elected councils from 42% of the Scottish GDP to 29%, the ability to set local priorities and coordinate local services effectively has been vastly diminished.

It is time for Scotland to wake up from its drive to be the least democratic nation in Europe and to reset how it is governed. There is little evidence that the Scottish Parliament can be trusted with this task. It will require the collective will of civic society to reboot our democratic institutions in the way that the Scottish Constitutional Convention achieved in the 1990s. This led to the creation of a Scottish Parliament that, over the past 25 years, has grown too big for its boots. Simply suggesting the devolution of more functions and powers to be transferred from Westminster to Holyrood is the mantra of a failing state. Whilst in England there are several initiatives and dialogues taking place to devolve more powers to the regions and councils and this seems likely to take place after the next general election, there has been no such inclination in Scotland.

It is time to utilise the tools of conviviality to redesign the governance of Scotland to engage the wider knowledge and experience of Scottish citizens. Their understanding of local conditions along with their vision and ambitions are the tools to enrich the social, economic and environmental fabric of Scotland. To create a written constitution that embraces an inclusive network of democratic bodies at the national, local and community levels should be the goal of a properly functioning democracy. Unfortunately, there has been little debate in Scotland on the next stage of creating a modern, inclusive, devolved governance within Scotland.

Desolation Democracy

Dundee Clown

Rishi is blaming the extreme mobs

They're ignoring the Brexit debacle

Covid was not their making

They paid their friends instead

The house speaker

They've got him in a trance

Democracy is in meltdown

Westminster is full of clowns

Boris is sowing seeds of his prowess

Liz just left a mess

Lord Dave has been resurrected

St Theresa is stepping down

Austerity was forever

George Osborne's great salvation

Never a greater lie

The banker's crash 

It was all Gordon's fault

Just another lie

Vince Cable called him Mr Bean

John Major has disowned them

Democracy is in Meltdown 

Westminster is full of clowns

George Galloway will fit in fine

He's going to the carnival

On Desolation Row

With apologies to Bob Dylan

Sale Fell, Ling Fell and Binsey

Bassenthwaite from Binsey

Wednesday, 28 February 2024

Sale Fell           359m     21mins    39mins

Ling Fell           373m    24mins    43mins

Binsey.              447m.   20mins    36mins

After yesterday's wind and rain and a similar forecast for late morning today, we decided to minimise getting soaked again and climb a couple smaller Wainwrights on the way back to Scotland. We left the Keswick Hostel at 9:00am, Keith had unusually decided to give the hills a miss, he was feeling quite unwell and discovered after a weekend with his walking club that there was a COVID alert. John and I headed to Sale Fell and Ling Fell which are located behind the Pheasant Inn at the head of Bassenthwaite. It was a place we visited for Saturday lunch over many years at the start of our Langdale week when the children were young and a Lakeland pub lunch was a treat for us all. 

We parked at Brumston Bridge and climbed Sale Fell first, the clouds were scudding in over Skiddaw and the Northern Fells at a rapid pace but we figured we would be safe from rain for a quick up and down. The strong westerly wind made the descent almost as long as the ascent. The short sheep-shorn grass was a delight to walk on, providing a bounce and having none of the bogginess of yesterday. Skiddaw was topped by clouds as were the fells down to Grasmoor.

On arriving back at the car, I swapped my windproof jacket for a waterproof one. We walked across to the start of the Ling Fell path and kept to the Corpse Road for the ascent so that we could get a view over to Cockermouth and the coast. We hit the wind head on and it took our breath away. The summit trig point was no place to linger so we made a direct descent down another grassy path. It had barely gone 11 a.m. when we arrived back at the car. What now? After a drink, we decided to pop over to Binsey, a mere 4 miles away to claim a bonus hill. 

Binsey is the most northerly Wainwright and a gentle plod up from Binsey Cottage on the Ireby Road. There were three cars there already. Even in February, the Lakes are a magnet for hillwalkers. It was another simple walk and a jog down, by noon, we had completed three Wainwrights and avoided the rain, just. There was a road closure at Ireby that added about 10 minutes to the journey home but I dropped John in Selkirk and was home before 5pm despite the traffic delays on the Edinburgh Southern bypass.

Ling Fell from Sale Fell

Broom Fell from Sale Fell

Embleton from Ling Fell

Sale Fell from Ling Fell

Ling Fell and Skiddaw in the cloud

Skiddaw from Binsey

 

Loweswater Fells

Keswick skyscape

Tuesday, 27 February

Ascent:      625 metres
Distance:   10 kilometres
Time:         2 hours 58 minutes

Burnbank Fell       475m
Blake Fell.             573m
Gavel Fell.             526m

The day had broken with grey fells outlined against a greying sky. The forecast was not auspicious, just terrible, even for the Lake District. We had decided to climb four smaller hills near Loweswater, some of the least visited hills in the far northwest of the Lake District. We had never abandoned planned walks and we saw no reason to change the habit of the past thirty-five years of hillwalking days.

It was a thirty-minute drive over Whinlater Pass to Loweswater. The rain that was steady as we left Keswick had become full flow by the time we parked at the Maggie's Bridge empty car park. Even putting on boots and waterproofs was an act of pre-soaking. Keith had his two phones with route maps safely encased in waterproof cases so I left my phone and maps in the car. Within minutes of starting water was seeping through my recently reproofed jacket and into my gloves. 

We reached Watergate Farm on Loweswater and found a path that ran steeply through the afforested Holme Wood and eventually brought us out at Holme Beck. We were now exposed to the full force of the wind-driven rain as we began to climb the pathless east ridge of Burnbank Fell. It captured all the ingredients that can make hillwalking such an exercise in advanced purgatory. Water running down the cuffs of my jacket had filled my gloves, a cold finger bath for all ten digits. Water had penetrated my jacket and all three layers of Merino vest and thin fleece tops, my shoulders were shivering but at least I didn't have to faff about looking at map and compass, Keith was doing that as we plodded on unaware of anything in the poor visibility..

Burnbank Fell was where some fence posts met, what was Wainwright playing at by describing this as a hill worthy of carrying his name? We took some bearings for the next hill, Blake Fell, we were on the summit ridge now and could follow the fence which occasionally would shift direction by a few degrees. Keith decided the weather was too bad to be bothered collecting a Birkett top at Sharp Knott. We knew this meant it was really bad, he never misses a top no matter what their classification in the lexicon of hill lists. The wind seemed to have shifted so it could continue to hit us in the face. This is where we decided that our fourth hill of the day, Hen Comb, should be deleted from the planned route. I could pick it up in more clement conditions with another three hills.

That left us with another kilometre and a half to Gavel Fell and the rain kept coming. Keith stopped to add another waterproof over his existing four layers. There was no need to stop for drinks, you could lick the rain running down your face. Reaching Gavel Fell was the highlight of the day, if only because we were about to descend from the wind and horizontal rain. We followed a fence down to the bridleway and stopped by the gate, the rain had abated and it was a chance to empty my gloves of water, take a drink and attempt a conversation. It was only 25 minutes from the car park and we charged down the short grassy track, minds bent on a hot shower and respite from one of the wettest and windiest days I have encountered. Keswick was pleasantly dull and dry.

Watergate Farm, Loweswater

Blencathra

Blencathra from Doddick Fell

Monday, 26 February 2024

Ascent:      1024 metres

Distance:    13.5 kilometres 

Time:          4 hours 45 minutes 

Blencathra                       868m.  1hr 48mins

Atkinson Pike                  845 m. 2hrs 2mins

Mungrisdale Common     633m.  2hrs 25mins

Keith had organised another winter trip to the Lake District, staying at the excellent Keswick Youth Hostel. I drove down with John from Selkirk. We agreed to meet at Scales Farm below Blencathra at 10:30 am. The forecast was for a bright cold day with a 30mph northerly wind, it wasn’t wrong. There were several options for the ascent and we chose the path up Doddick Fell. Blencathra was in the clouds and the snow level was down to 700 metres. Crossing the Scales Beck involved some tricky scrambling on the slippy exposed slate before we began the steep grassy path that followed the apex of the ridge. At least we were sheltered from the strong northerly wind until we reached Doddick Fell where we took a few minutes before entering the jet stream to search for the Birkett top that Keith intended to collect and then wending our way up the zig-zags to Hallfell Top, otherwise known as the summit of Blancathra. There was no cairn just a windswept high point of this massive and impressive mountain. 

We immediately set off for Mungrisdale Common, one of the quirks of the Wainwrights. You descend 200 metres and ascend maybe 10 metres to reach it, Presumable Wainwright had his lunch there one day and decided it was a mountain, just lower than everything around it. 

As the number of classifications of British hill lists expands with Marilyns, Nuttalls, Birketts, Hewitts, Dodds and Tumps; all with rules about heights and drops to adjacent hills, you can't help but admire Wainwright's artistic license of defining hills His rules are completely random depending more on the Ribble Bus routes and Wainwright's bloody-mindedness than any pseudo-scientific blending of the imperial and metric systems.

To celebrate this we had a lunch break at the small collection of stones that are supposedly the top (or bottom) of Mungrisdale Common. Keith, in his obsessional manner, found the accurately measured top about a hundred metres away using an app on his phone. After 15 minutes of eating food and taking a drink while the freezing northerly wind sapped any warmth out of us, we began the long climb back from Mungridale Common to the snow slopes north of Blencathra. It involved a long traverse through soft snow to Blencathra and then a pleasant descent via Scales Fell to Scales Farm. 

We had timed it perfectly and arrived at the Keswick Youth Hostel at 4pm. As always, the nomenclature fails to reflect the clientele at this time of the year. The only question was whether there were more seventy-year-olds than sixty-year-olds. Most of the guests had been hostelling since the days when no cars were allowed, there were 20 or so bunks in a room and the warden was a taskmaster who made you peel potatoes or clean the outside toilet as part of the payment. Nowadays, £15 a night for a warm room, a kitchen and beer on draft seems like the sort of place that Youth might fancy but for the fact it is full of yesteryouth.

Ascent by Doddick Fell

Blencathra in cloud

Heading to Atkinson Pike

Looking back from Mungrisdale Common

Mungrisdale Common

Skiddaw from Blencathra 

Blencathra from Scales Fell

 

Universities: the facts about fiction

Headlines in the Sunday Times, Times and Telegraph over the last few weeks have focused on how British students are failing to get places at University because of the massive increase in foreign students taking up places. These stories were ramped up by GB News, never slow to escalate its prejudices, saying that 'it made their blood boil', yet another literal fiction. These claims all fit the post-Brexit tendency of the government and its fourth estate behemoths to blame the foreigners or better still the EU for the ever-mounting list of catastrophes As is often the case the excellent 'More or Less' programme on Radio 4 subjected these claims to their verification experts. By the simple expedient of examining facts rather than accepting the wished-for fiction as the default narrative, the story toppled.

The number of UK students going to English Universities increased by 19,135 in the five years from 2019 to 2024, a 4.85% increase. The number of International students from outside the EU increased by 15,000 or  34.8% over this period but this was more than offset by a reduction of 20,000 students from the EU countries meaning a net reduction of 5000 students from overseas. Many of the International students are now enrolled on one-year induction courses rather than degree courses that most European students had previously enrolled for.  

It could be argued that Universities, by charging higher fees than had been possible before when EU students had paid the same fees as UK students, had found a way to fund more UK students. However, in the process, they have dumbed down the entrance requirements and qualifications on offer to International students and opened an alternative route for in-migration. This is not a narrative that we will hear from either government ministers or the universities. 'Follow the Money' is the silent motto for them both. Their moral compass is calibrated to between 100° and 140°, that is to students from Southeast Asia and the Middle East, just like funding for most of the government's infrastructure investment.

The Burrell Collection

Entrance to the Burrell

The Burrell Collection Museum opened in Glasgow's Pollok Grounds in 1983. We lived nearby and it became a regular haunt for taking our young children out or for Aileen to visit during the week whilst the children were at playgroups and nursery. When combined with the walks in the wonderful woodlands that it overlooked through its expansive glass curtain and its open-plan cafe it was an ideal place to take our weekend visitors. Our children learnt to ride their bikes on the newly laid tracks that now provide access to the expensive car park. I ran through Pollok Grounds two or three times a week on my way home from work and then again at the weekend. 

Sir William Burrell was the son of a Glasgow shipping owner who became a successful businessman when he took over his father's business. He was also an art aficionado and Glasgow councillor. His bequest of the collection made in 1944, which he insisted also belonged to Lady Constance, his wife, was to the city of Glasgow. It included the funding for a new building to house the collection in a location with no pollution and ideally within 4 miles of Killearn in Stirling. It took many years trying to satisfy these conditions before the Glasgow city fathers agreed on a site on the grounds of Pollok House, which was gifted by its late owner Sir John Maxwell-Stirling, founder member of the National Trust for Scotland. It was less than 4 miles from, not Killearn, but Glasgow City Centre. 

The Burrell Collection of 9000 items includes Chinese art, 200 tapestries, French Impressionist paintings including Degas, Cezanne and Manet, paintings by the Glasgow Boys, Egyptian stone carvings and Greek vases and ceramics. It is an eclectic collection made possible by the immense wealth from selling his cargo ships during the Great War. Burrell employed agents throughout Europe to scour for artefacts that he was interested in. He was a shrewd collector and struck hard bargains in the 1930s and 1940s when a worldwide depression and wars had driven down competition for art collections. This included portals from Hornby Castle in Yorkshire that Burrell bought from Randolph Hearst, the American newspaper magnate, who had bought them for a castle he owned in Wales before his wealth had been depleted by the Great Depression.  

The museum closed in 2016 for an extensive refit that cost £16m and took 6 years to complete, partly because of Covid. It was opened by King Charles, one of his earliest engagements after ascending the throne in 2022. Aileen and I had been looking forward to its reopening for a couple of years and it was one of her wishes after coming home from the hospital but sadly she was unable to travel. I took myself there today, a wet Monday when I thought it would be quiet. I was the first in at 10:00 a.m., and twenty minutes later as I wandered around an empty downstairs gallery, the attendant told me she had never known the museum with so few visitors. I had always loved the spaces and light in the building and today I was free to enjoy the collection without the noise and intrusion of other visitors or supervising three energetic and curious children. It gave me time to reflect on how one man could afford and collect so many artefacts from so many parts of the world. Seeing Rodin's statue also got me thinking about how philanthropy used to work for the benefit of local communities in the days before moonshots. 

I spent the first hour absorbing the exhibits and then joined a guided tour of some of the highlights, most of which I had already admired without having to listen to the reciting of dates and well-rehearsed stories of the volunteer guide. Nevertheless, there were some interesting asides. It was 1 pm before I left for a quick walk around the North Wood in the rain. It had been a good way to spend the morning and revisit one of our favourite places in Glasgow, the Burrell was the Art Fund Museum of the Year, 2023.

Warwick Vase in the foyer

Ming Dynasty, Figure of Luodon set against the North Wood

Boudin: Atmospheric Skies

Cezanne; Chateau de Medan

Manet: Women drinking Beer

Tapestry Fight between aHeron and Falcon

One of many Iranian Tapestries

 

A Corridor Gallery

Rodin: The Thinker

London: home of the Money Tree

St Pancras

My first trip of the year was to visit family in London. It was to be the anniversary of Aileen leaving us. My daughter had proposed coming north but with her work and family to consider, I thought it better to go down to London. The LNER train arrived ahead of schedule and I had to decide how best to get to the new house, I would no longer be greeted by the happy drumming at Brixton underground station close to the old house. I decided to travel overground from St Pancras, one of my favourite London buildings and terminals. I crossed the road from King's Cross and entered the magnificent Victorian building, its roof vault encasing many high-end cafes, bars and shops. It was probably a mistake, Aileen and I had whiled away part of an afternoon in one of the cafes with a live pianist a few years earlier, but no, it rekindled a fond memory. I caught the Thameslink train from the expensively modernised station below St Pancras, it wasn't just a terminal. I arrived at their new house that was undergoing a major refit, I had been warned.

The next morning, I left early and travelled across London by overground train to Chiswick where my friends from France have an apartment. It was a 4-kilometre walk from the station to the apartment, mainly along the north bank of the Thames. It was grey and cold and the tide was out as I arrived at Hammersmith Bridge, it looked strangely familiar although I had never ventured here before. I then realised I was standing where the body had been found in an episode of Silent Witness the previous week. 

We had a long brunch, Ian had unwittingly introduced me to Aileen 45 years ago and we had seen him often since and Beatrix too for the past 30 years. They were life friends. During Aileen's final weeks, Ian and Beatrix had flown over from Marseilles to visit her and they FaceTimed every few days. Aileen had always been besotted by France, Beatrix understood this and sent postcards of typical French scenes almost daily. They were stacked on her bedside table for constant viewing. Ian and Beatrix were only over on a short visit to the UK so I left them early in the afternoon and caught the underground to Green Park. 

I was heading to John Lewis in Oxford Street, one of the few department stores left in Britain worth visiting. It also gave me the chance for a meander through Mayfair. It never ceases to amaze me how many top-of-the-range diplomatic cars are on the streets in this part of London. Apparently, the United States has over 600 diplomatic vehicles and both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have over 300. They mostly have high-powered Internal Combustion Engines (ICE), receive tax concessions and seem to dominate parking places in this part of London. It is allegedly a low-emission zone, an area where even most of the taxis are now electric vehicles. The garage franchises for Bentley, Ferrari, Bugatti, and Aston Martin suggest that Mayfair really is the UK's epicentre of untrammelled wealth and mega carbon footprints and not only diplomatic ones. Even wine sellers acknowledge this by trading under the name Hedonism Wines. I stumbled through the streets, agog at the widespread upgrading of immaculately maintained buildings, the blue plaques festooning the buildings were even more common than Ferraris. Mayfair was a veritable money tree. Talking of which, Carrie Johnson did not feel that John Lewis was expensive or special enough, more of a nightmare. I thought it was normal, more like Jurgen Klopp than Jose Mourinho.

We went to a local pub on Friday evening for a fine meal. The extensive range of eateries in London is one of the examples where competition between small businesses seems to work to the benefit of customers, I just wish the government realised that this type of competition didn't extend to the large corporations, privatised companies and monopolies who were more concerned with wiping out competitors and ramping up prices for their clients. The good food theme was repeated the following evening when a carry-out from a local Indian restaurant produced the best Indian meal since pre-COVID days. The rest of Saturday was spent visiting the excellent library and workspace that hosted a community-run coffee shop, taking grandchildren to various activities and exploring parks near the new house on a day when temperatures barely exceeded freezing levels and that included the house that was awash with plumbers and builders.

The next day brought some sunshine and we worked all morning in the garden taking down overgrown trees and bushes and running garden rubbish to the local tip. And then a walk for lunch at a favourite Italian cafe before exploring Dulwich and Sydenham Hill where we happened on a blue plaque for the man who invented Bovril. My step count in London had mounted without any mountains. I returned home the next day, and London was sparkling in the morning sun as I crossed the Thames. It was another comfortable train journey and on time. As we crossed the River Tweed at Berwick, I felt a pang of joy to be almost home alone again.

The Thames at Chiswick

Mayfair toys

Hedonism in Mayfair? Who'd have thought

Ten

Thames from Blackfriars Station

 

Crossing the River Tweed at Berwick