Good Reads 2021

2021 was the year when time was on our side as we drifted in and out of lockdown, restricted by travel bans and through the adoption of many other self-regulated constraints. Reading and gardening should have been the beneficiaries. The days of reading 20 or so books a year are challenged by reading all sorts of articles, news items and blogs online as well as curating masses of emails, many of which serve no useful purpose. 

I have resisted Twitter, Instagram and given up on Facebook and that probably reduces the angst that they generate. I only buy a Sunday newspaper but spend an hour or so each day reading articles online. I have taken to reading Private Eye for the excellent MD pages that provide a Doctor's insiders perspective on how we have coped, or not coped, with Covid. Elsewhere in the Eye, the peal of revelations about the corrupt practices of MPs, companies and public agencies simply adds fuel to the imperative for a radical overhaul of the UK's constitution, if not the existence of the UK. 

And so to books. For the first time since I started counting in 1988, I have not reached double figures. The fiction category provided nothing worth recommending, perhaps a result of finding it too difficult to select worthy novels from the avalanche of new publications or the dozens of older books that stare at me from groaning bookshelves. 

Non-fiction was different, Gavin Esler, the BBC journalist provided an insightful book, How Britain Ends. It charts the growth of English Nationalism as the justification for a written constitution with the devolved nations and English regions taking responsibility for the majority of functions that Westminster struggles to manage. Whilst repetitive at times, it is a well-judged addition to the debate that should be far more prominent as we suffer the consequences of austerity, an ever-increasing control by the UK government, the damage of Brexit and the disastrous handling of the Covid pandemic. The primacy of London and the South East has been an abiding contagion for the other English Regions as well as the devolved nations. 

I was mesmerised by James Rebanks book English Pastoral which reflects on his journey as an upland farmer in the Lake District. It is a humble story of coming to terms with what has gone wrong with modern farming and the need for regenerative agriculture. He references the experiences of three generations of his family as hill farmers. Whilst he is critical of modern methods of monoculture that have stripped out hedges, removed wetlands and made extensive use of chemicals, he is also dismissive of large scale rewilding. He describes the importance of soil management by rotating crops and the benefit of grazing by cattle and sheep. It is a nuanced argument that gains merit by his open admission to past mistakes driven by fertilizers and an obsession with economies of scale. It is also a plea for diversity in the way we manage land and by referencing Jane Jacobs, who in the 1960s had argued for the diversity of land uses in the city, he provides a powerful reminder of the need for systems thinking. The whole book was laced with descriptions of places and activities in the Lake District that I am familiar with and made the book doubly powerful.

Finally, I am well immersed in the book After the Virus by Hilary Cooper and Simon Szreter of Cambridge University. It is a powerful critique of the UK's response to the pandemic but set in a historical context. It argues that Britain has had two periods, the Elizabethan Poor Laws and the creation of the Welfare State after WWII when pandemics and food shortages have been overcome by collectivist measures. Conversely, the neoliberal policies of the past forty years have undermined the social fabric of the country and left the most vulnerable exposed to delayed and flawed decisions. The authors go as far as suggesting the principles that are necessary to restore a nurturing state. It is a book that could have been more tightly edited but through its historical perspective goes further than the excellent critiques of UK policy by the BMJ and Professor Devi Sridhar at the beginning of the year. 

Needless to say, we are still awaiting the government's own inquiry of its performance during the pandemic. The evidence is already available from many trustworthy sources so why would we believe an inquiry from a government that routinely misrepresents facts and was led by such luminaries as Boris Johnson, Matt  Hancock, Rishi Sunak, and Dido Harding. I suspect we will have a new PM long before the government inquiry ever sees the light of day.

Loch Venachar Redux

Loch Venachar and Ben Ledi mirror images

 Loch Venechar has been a constant presence since 1978 when I began to visit Aileen's parent's cottage on its northern shore. The remote cottage had been the gamekeeper's cottage for the Duke of Montrose. It was largely unmodernised with water abstracted from the Milton burn and heating from a log fire. Its simplicity, peaty water, smokey fire and minimal appliances gave it a timeless rustic charm. We used it at weekends until her parent's retired, renovated and moved in permanently. 

The cottage then became a regular cosy retreat from city life with our growing family. It had riparian rights on Loch Venechar by virtue of a couple of hundred metres of shoreline. I bought a small dinghy so that I could sail on the Loch.  We visited from Glasgow at least once a month, I would be dropped off at Aberfoyle and run over the forest trails and along Loch Venachar to reach the cottage; a 17 kilometre run via Brig o' Turk, or 22-kilometre run if I did a circuit of the Loch including the road on the south side. In later years after moving to Aberfoyle, I would run over fairly regularly for Sunday Lunch, it was the perfect way to exercise and then enjoy a hearty meal with the family

Today Gregor wanted to run the complete circuit of Loch Venachar including the new path to the north of Loch Venachar built by the Woodland Trust. We decided to walk the south road and rekindle old memories. The single-track road has been recently resurfaced and it is far more popular with visitors than back in the 1980s when people and traffic were a rare occurrence. We captured the last parking place by the dam and began the walk on a surprisingly mild day with patches of blue sky and near-perfect visibility. There had been a lot of damage from the storms in December and the roadside was littered with fallen trees. A short way along the Loch some wild swimmers were about to take the plunge with dogs and safety dinghy following. 

The Sailing Club had far more boats in the yard than had been the case. The Ripple Retreat Centre for families of young cancer parents was unoccupied as was the Scout Camp. A number of odd-looking visitor cabins have been erected in the old forest along the shore at Dullatur. It reminded us that this is the dark side of the Loch with great views to Ben Ledi compensating for the lack of winter sun. Our memories of the cottage on the north side are that we were always bathed in good light, unlike Dullatur. Scanning the opposite shore for the cottage today we realised that it was concealed by trees that we had helped plant some forty years ago. Not that they would affect the cottage which was higher up the slopes and in full sun.

After 45 minutes of walking, we returned along the road, passing the rough track that goes over the Menteith Hills to Aberfoyle, watching the lone fisherman casting for information from his mobile phone, passing a dozen walkers and even more cars. Arriving back at the car we were asked if we were leaving by three young women who wanted a parking place so they could go wild swimming. We were waiting for Gregor to return so gave them our space and double-parked whilst waiting for him to return. To our surprise, they had no wet suits, just swimsuits, a Santa hat and a lot of gumption as they waded out and on the count of three launched themselves into the cold waters. They gave Gregor a loud cheer as he finished his 20-kilometre run. Loch Venachar had given us another set of fine images to pack into the memory box.

The view west from the dam

Stuc Odhar and Ben Ledi 

Ripple Retreat

View from Dullatur

Geese at the Scout Camp

The view northwards to the cottage

Lone fishing

Walk over

Wild swimmers

Jon Snow

 

I guess like many others last night, my eyes watered as I watched Jon Snow sign off during his last day as the Channel 4 News presenter. For over 30years he has provided leadership to a news programme that has had the audacity to challenge governments, global companies and regimes that have abused their power. He has encouraged the journalists to express opinions formed by knowledge acquired by a thorough investigation. Channel 4 News gives short shrift to the cult of celebrity that is cosseted by other news programmes and the press. In recent years I have given up any regular watching of other news programmes including the BBC as they have lost their incisiveness and dumbed down as they regurgitate the press releases and shibboleths issued by governments, celebrities and companies.

Jon Snow always sought to recruit journalists from diverse backgrounds and imbued them with a sense of respect to their interviewees whilst they held them to account by inquisitive challenges. Several fine young journalists have been nurtured in a culture that eschews hierarchy and ensures a collective purpose and energy. I saw this last year when I met some of the crew making a programme on the Covid response in Scotland on the day we were first allowed to travel more than 5 miles from home. Jon Snow had earned their huge respect by watching their backs, giving them space to develop and providing a template of how to garner news and inject some ethics and morality into interviews and reports.

I had met Jon at Liverpool University, where he was a friend of a flatmate. He persuaded me to take part in a sleep-in at the University Senate building, an anti-apartheid protest against the University investments in South Africa. He was a campaigner and networker even at that stage of life and it resulted in the university expelling him without a degree. As his reputation soared, they had the grace to present him with an honorary degree in 2011, by which time anti-apartheid values had been normalised and Jon had been lionised. This was all but confirmed in 2017 when Tory control freaks, Grant Shapps and Andrew Budgen, challenged his neutrality and called for his resignation for his extreme views. 

Jon Snow was immune from such attacks, his impeccable record of seeking the truth and his widespread respect had been assured by the length of his tenure and the multiple awards for journalism that had been bestowed on him. It has meant that Channel 4 News has been able to give us an hour of peak-time viewing that is free of interference from both the government and media moguls.

Whittyspeak and Johnson Gestures

Oh, what a mess we are in. The latest Covid Press Conference on 15 December from the lavishly refurbished conference room at 10 Downing Street was to clarify how we are to respond to the insurgent Omicron variant of Covid. There were 78,610 new cases of Covid yesterday, the highest ever figures since the outbreak of Covid. The dynamic between the PM, Boris Johnson, and his Medical and Science advisers has always been sticky. On this occasion, Chris Whitty was the PMs minder. The mantra used by the PM and the late unlamented Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, to describe the government's decision making was always, "we follow the Science". When examining the actions made and contracts handed out by government, they probably meant 'Scientology',  a religion that operates as a cult and has been described as a manipulative profit-making business, 

Chris Whitty is well aware that the underlying values of the medical and scientific community are diametrically opposed to the freedom-loving chancer PM. Whitty, along with the pride of professors from Oxford and Cambridge, who dominate the airwaves, has adopted an alternative language, let's call it Whittyspeak, that gently contradicts the messaging of the PM. Johnson wants people to get boosted, go to work, eat out, have parties, albeit following the guidance, and to book holidays, fly, commute and if they can afford it, go into space.

Whittyspeak is a bit like Esperanto, it works fine if people understand it. His advice yesterday to de-prioritise some of your events, take sensible precautions, wear a mask, and avoid unnecessary contacts are all indisputable but not a direct contradiction of the PM's determination to impose no more restrictions. The inevitable outcome is that people can choose which sets of guidance chime best with their own intentions. It is no surprise that the hospitality sector, the aviation and tourism industries, the high street retailers and young people wanting to enjoy themselves will interpret the PM's messaging to suit their desires. Similarly, older people, families with children at school, those with health problems and people more concerned about the global implications of the pandemic will be inclined to follow some Whittyspeak.

Standing at the Downing Street podium, Johnson is on his best behaviour, keeping to script with his comments short and generally non-controversial. He knows that his wingmen and women will not contradict him and that their comments will not rock the boat too much. It is a different story when he appears at the despatch box in the House of Commons and is speared by opposition MPs and now his own backbenchers on all cabals in the Tory collective. His trademark smart but grungy appearance and bullish statements no longer cut the mustard, if they ever did. 

Any suggestion by his opposition questioners that he is winging it or deceiving the public prompts an immediate flounce. He retaliates with mad gesturing and vicious trolling of Keir Starmer and Ian Blackford repeating old, but no longer funny, insults. He then tries to conduct Conservative MPs to outshout the opposition, twisting round and flailing his arms to his benches in a pale imitation of Jurgen Klopp getting the Kop choir to another rousing rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone". And what does he hear 'Hello darkness my old friend,....the Sound of Silence'. He is what he is, a busted flush.

Ben Vorlich (Loch Lomond)

Ben Vorlich Trig Point, not the summit

Thursday 9 December 2021

Ascent:      1037 metres 
Distance:   18 kilometres
Time:         5 hours 54 minutes

Ben Vorlich    943m     3 hrs 10 mins

Winter conditions had arrived and John had come to stay for a few days.  We planned to walk on Friday but high winds, poor visibility and snow showers are not high on our wish list any longer. There would be a few hours of dry clear weather on Thursday so we decided to take advantage of this weather window. It would be claggy until 11am so there was no need to start early. We parked at the Sloy Power Station at Inveruglas, the car park was being gritted and it was a bit icy underfoot. It is about a kilometre walk south alongside the main road on a gravel path before the track to the Sloy dam takes you through a gate and under the railway line. A truck adapted to run on the rails raced past as we began the steady climb towards the significant engineering works being carried out on the Sloy power station transformer replacement project to build a new substation, replace the transformers, and upgrade or remove sections of overhead lines (OHL).

We veered off to the Sloy dam at the junction with the track that continues up the Glen that leads to the steep path up Ben Vane. It was just over 4 kilometres to the start of the very steep path alongside a burn that spirals upwards to Ben Vorlich. In its lower reaches, the path is a well-constructed staircase made from large rocks. The views over the Sloy dam were impressive but this would be the best of the weather for the day. We reached the snow level at 400 metres and it became increasingly deep as the path disappeared from view. 

There were some day-old footprints that might or might not have followed the path. Walking poles were needed to judge the depth of the snow as we occasionally fell into pockets of recent snow. By the time we reached 600 metres, it became harder as rock bands covered in snow had to be negotiated. I fell down a cleft in the rocks and it took me 5 minutes to dig myself out. By 750 metres, the gradient lessened and the ridge to the summit became apparent. The winds had blown away some of the snow so we could move more quickly on shallower snow or occasional icy patches. 

A young woman walker caught up with us and thanked us for kicking steps for her to follow and asked if she could tag along with us. We discovered later that we both had thoughts of calling it a day as we were behind our hoped-for schedule of reaching the summit by 1:00pm. The brief interlude of sunshine had given way to cloud and limited visibility ahead and there was no discernable path. Typically, neither of us had expressed any doubts about turning back, it has never been in our nature, and now we had a determined young walker to lead to the summit as well.

We had broken the most difficult section and we chatted as we progressed to the trig point and explained to our new walking colleague, Kirsty, that the real summit was another 150 metres along the ridge. It was not visible in the cloud but took no time to find. We stopped for some food, drink and photos and it was well after 2:00pm when we began the descent. There was a brief respite as the clouds dispersed as we reached the trig point on the return and we managed some photos before beginning the long descent through the snow. I suggested a more direct route down by dropping to Coire nan Baintighearna and then finessing our way through the crags to the southeast. The ground looked less tricky and it was less distance. 

However, Kirsty had a bike at the foot of the path so we decided to return by the ascent route following our foot holes. It proved to be a reasonable decision after we bypassed a couple of the difficult snow-covered rocky sections from our ascent. Kirsty shared her quest to climb all the Munros, she had become smitten as Covid had changed lifestyles, socialising was difficult and her time off as a pharmacist had been diverted to enthusiasm for hill walking. She intended to climb the Munros in ten years and had managed 64 this year. Watching her progress today, I doubt it would take that long to finish, she has the determination, energy and fitness for it to be just the starter for a lifetime of adventures in the great outdoors.

We were down to the track by 3:40pm, it was already dark and the promised rain had started. Kirsty collected her bike and disappeared down the track under the influence of gravity. It took us over an hour to walk out to the car. Two walkers who had been ahead of us stopped about halfway down and were looking at their map and seemed perplexed. They wanted to get to Arrochar but had missed the turning and would have to climb back up the track for a mile or so before following the Cowal Way down Glen Loin to Arrochar, it would be a long slog, a couple of hours in the heavy rain and sleet

As we approached the railway a freight train of oil tankers rattled through on its way to Fort William or Oban. It was a long final kilometre back to the car park opposite the Sloy Power Station. It usually has the look of a drab industrial relic but was ablaze with light and looked inviting in the dark although it was only 4:30pm. Certainly, the power station was a more comforting image than the fossil fuel freight train that had just reminded us that the COP 26 decision to phase down fossil fuels needed to start biting soon.

Junction of track to Ben Vane

Track to Sloy Dam 

Corbie

Sloy Dam from path

Approaching summit ridge at 750metres

Cold comfort at the summit

Descent from summit

Sloy Power Station at nightfall

Identity, Entitlement and Immigration

French Identity Card

 

British Identity Card

Finnish all-in-one Identity Card

Typical UK commercial Identity Card

Almost everyone in the UK has a wallet or purse full of cards, or maybe these are now contained on their mobile phones. We seem to accept that our details can be captured by banks, retailers, travel companies, insurers, clubs, charities and betting companies. For the most part, our personal information is protected but there are spillages such as the one from TalkTalk where 4 million customers had to be informed that their personal information may have been compromised. It is also fairly apparent from rogue emails that quite a few retailers and companies are happy to sell our data to others. Facebook is the best example but with so many transient companies there must be an active trade in selling our details and it is not always easy to despatch persistent intrusive company emails to the trash bin.

Meanwhile, in the UK the government has an aversion to issuing a generic digital identity card. We have to go back to the years after World War 2 to find a British Identity Card, it was very necessary to collect the weekly rations including orange juice and cod liver oil for the post-war baby boomers. Although we have a driving license and a passport, they are requirements that entitle us to drive and travel and are necessary to access more enlightened countries. 

Identity cards are far more liberating than this, there are other entitlements like education, health care, bus or train travel, usage of local facilities such as libraries, sports centres and local or age-related discounts that can be included in an entitlement identity card. Identity Cards are now universal in almost all European countries. 28 countries in the European Economic Area have introduced digital-identity-id-cards that are card readable. Only the UK, Denmark and Iceland have refrained from issuing identity cards, Across the world, there are 70 nations in a similar position and this is increasing rapidly as their benefits become essential in the digital age. The UK government merely sees identity cards as a loss of freedom and goes to inordinate lengths to devise alternative schemes that are both less comprehensive, expensive and seldom very effective. Witness the test and trace application.

This new generation of computerized national identity cards provides the best identity theft protection. They also enable governments to implement online applications such as eGovernment solutions giving citizens access to public services with the reassurance of robust security.​​​ These government-issued IDs mean a single card is able to offer a wide range of services from acting as a driver's license, enabling the user to file their taxes, confirming voting rights and giving access to employment and state benefits.

The UK could have been in the vanguard of countries developing smart national identity cards. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, proposed a British Identity Card and a National Identity Register (NIR) that would hold biometric information such as fingerprints, a face scan and iris scan that would be indexed to other databases such as a resident's address register. After much debate, the UK government passed The National Identity Card Act 2006 to introduce such a card and NIR, this also stressed its importance as an entitlement card. This would have simplified and made secure many transactions with local and national governments as well the NHS and other government agencies. 

During its introduction, there were some concerns and amendments were made as the proposals were developed. Cards became available on a voluntary basis in 2008 for foreign nationals and for UK citizens in 2009. They would also replace passports and act as ID cards for young people to prove their age. Opposition from the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives as well as human rights groups and security experts continued after their introduction. It led the new Conservative/ Liberal Democratic Coalition government in 2010 to scrap identity cards and the NIR as one of their first acts. Austerity, Brexit and a failure to introduce ID Cards should be bracketed together as the major follies that have damaged public services and reduced the life chances of far too many UK citizens. They also explain why, along with our incompetent and disrespectful ministers, the UK has lost any respect in its dealings with other nations.

In Scotland, there was parallel progress in developing an entitlement card and it was ready to roll by 2007. It had a strong emphasis on linking a register of citizens with a unique property register in order to provide better information sharing between key services such as Education, Social Work, Health and Police. This was considered vital to protect vulnerable children and the elderly. However, the new Scottish Government rejected these proposals when the SNP. Conservatives and Liberal Democrats all voted against the proposals in 2008.

Asylum Seekers

Nowhere is the damage to the UK's reputation more apparent than in the scandal of the lost lives of asylum seekers as they strive to rejoin families or claim asylum in the UK by crossing the Channel from France. It is not that the UK has many asylum seekers compared to most European countries. In 2020, Germany had the highest number of asylum applicants in the EU (122,015 applicants), while France had 93,475 applicants. The UK received the 5th largest number of applicants (36,041) when compared with countries in the EU ( 7% of the total). This represents the 17th largest intake when measured per head of population, according to UN Refugee Agency.

Many migrants choose to make an asylum claim in the first country they arrive in - such as Greece or Turkey - and only a minority choose to travel on to the UK. At the end of 2020, Turkey hosted some 3.65 million Syrians under temporary protection (90.6% of the total refugee population) and 322,000 international protection applicants, mainly from Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran.

By the end of February 2021, the UK had resettled 20,319 refugees from Syria under the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme. The overall number of arrivals is still relatively modest, certainly when compared with the number 20 years ago, when UK asylum applications reached 84,132. Nevertheless, the numbers attempting to cross the English Channel have increased dramatically. More than 23,000 people have arrived in the UK this year in small boats, almost three times 2020’s total of about 8,500.

The home secretary, Priti Patel, claims that 70% of small boat arrivals “are not genuine asylum seekers”. This is contrary to the Home Office data shows that nearly two-thirds of people who cross the Channel in small boats are judged to be genuine refugees.  Eventually after inordinate delays they are allowed to remain but not allowed to work. Without some form of identification card system, there would be no way of ensuring their whereabouts or their entitlements which is the norm in most other developed countries.

The government's claim that the UK is a popular destination with strong ‘pull factors’ for asylum seekers and economic migrants is misleading, an unedifying attempt to justify its harsh policies to reduce the UK's obligations to asylum seekers. People who are fleeing persecution or conflict don’t need any further incentive to look for safety. Previous Home Office research into asylum seekers’ decision-making appears to undermine the pull factor argument for harsher policies. It says: “Asylum seekers are guided more by agents, the presence or absence of family and friends, language, and perceived cultural affinities than by scrutiny of asylum policies or rational evaluation of the welfare benefits on offer.”

In this respect, the French, who take almost three times as many asylum seekers as the UK, are correct when they argue that it is the UK, by preventing flights and ferry entry to the UK, that is the root of the problem. They also point out that the absence of identity cards in the UK makes it more likely that there is a chance to find jobs and live illegally in the UK. It is a country that fails to keep a register of its citizens, a digital identity, for protecting the right to work, keeping a record of Covid vaccinations, for services or voting or to provide the entitlements that the mother of parliaments likes to pretend to exist. C'est la vie en Angleterre.

Formula 1 and Top Gear

 

Phasing Down Fossil Fuel? Not on your Nelly!

The government has been attempting to convince us that COP26 was a real breakthrough on climate change as a result of an agreement to phase down fossil fuels. But what does this mean? Alok Sharma was an honest broker at the talks and probably exceeded the expectations of many climate change activists. I doubt that any other member of the government could have provided the diplomatic acumen required to secure any agreement. However, if the UK has any remaining soft power, the top of its agenda should be phasing out high octane motorsports like Formula 1 that are largely hosted by the UK. It could also use its influence to eliminate the world-beating TV motor programme that promotes the extravagance of the internal combustion engine. 

Take the Formula 1 Grand Prix series in which 10 teams with 20 cars spend $3-4bn per annum on competing in 21 Grand Prix in 21 countries. The logistics of transporting the cars, spares, trucks and teams by air, sea and land has an enormous carbon footprint that alone costs $800m per annum. As a way of burning fossil fuels, it is highly effective. There are 6 or 7 Boeing 747 cargo planes and 300 trucks involved in the movement of the F1 circus to all continents. And it is estimated that each Formula 1 car uses 190,000 litres of fuel each year for practices and racing.

This is half funded by the team's owners that are mainly vehicle or engine manufacturers - Mercedes, Renault, Ferrari, Aston Martin and Honda and then there's Red Bull. Sponsorship provides most of the remaining costs with tobacco companies like British-American Tobacco and Philip Morris and the oil giants: INEOS, Petronas, Shell, Mobil, BP, and Castrol the main culprits. There are many other non motor related companies drawn mainly from the IT, fashion, and luxury goods sectors. These companies  are looking for the hype of association with the glamour of F1 and a walk down the pit lane for their freeloaders. More worrying is that the Financial Times chips into the sponsorship as well.

The titans of F1 will probably argue that there has already been a phasing down of F1 (but not its carbon footprint) since its peak in 2007. Sponsorship reached $2,900m in 2007 since when it has dropped to below $2000m per annum. This is primarily a result of the non-oil sponsorship deals declining as the merit of Formula 1 as a medium of advertising has diminished compared to the benefits of using social media. In part, this is because there has been a 19% loss in TV viewers as F1, in its perpetual greed mode, sold the broadcasting rights to subscription TV companies instead of retaining the wider audiences reach from free to air broadcasters. 

It would be a useful tool for encouraging carbon abstinence if the climate change activists would publish the list of F1 sponsors as a means of putting pressure on them to phase down their support for the climate change damage caused by F1. After all, we were told at COP 26 that the private sector was going to drive the charge to become carbon neutral. Electric car racing is already growing fast, why not speed it up and make it the mainstream form of motorsport.

Meanwhile, we have witnessed a new series of Top Gear, the laddish celebration of expensive fossil fuel burners, with complex logistic escapades to far-flung lands where cars are trashed and fuel is burnt. The government have shown in recent years that they like to push the BBC around for no justifiable reason other than to promote their own agenda, so why not give Alok Sharma a bit of help and tell the BBC to scrap this outmoded worshipping of ICE supercars.

The advantage of both these moves would generate huge public controversy with both positive and negative arguments. In the process it would enable the UK government and our world-beating broadcaster, the BBC, to prove that they are in the vanguard when it comes to phasing out fossil fuels. It would also force our media and politicians to come clean and show which side they are on when it comes to phasing out fossil fuels.

Top Gear - time to phase out celebrity fossil fuel burners

Ben Chonzie

Looking north from Ben Chonzie

Monday, 22 November 2021

Ascent:     755 metres
Distance: 13 kilometres
Time:       2 hours 47 minutes

m  Ben Chonzie      931m      1hr 33mins

After only the second night of frost this autumn, I headed up to Comrie and the beautiful Glen Lednock that takes you to the start of the walk to Ben Chonzie. I had done this walk twice before on weekday birthdays, it was only a half day walk so allowed me to work as well. I was the second car to arrive at the car park and began to walk immediately, I had driven in my trail shoes, the ground conditions still too benign for boots The walk is not hard, about 4.5 kilometres on a rough track that climbs to 730 metres and then a steeper and slightly boggy path that climbs to the south ridge at 870 metres Thereafter it is a pleasant saunter over the broad grassy ridge following some old fence posts to the untidy summit shelter.

I kept a steady pace, my regular morning walk has kept me reasonably fit so that there is no need for rests. I had reached 800 metres before stopping for some water and to take a few photos. The path was slightly icy and the northerly breeze was a gentle reminder that winter was ahead. On previous visits to the hill, I had been struck by the number of hares but I saw none today and the only bird apart from several groups of squawking grouse was a red kite. Just before reaching the summit the walker who had started ahead of me passed on his descent and we exchanged greetings. He looked to be in his sixties and seemed content with his outing.

On the descent, my right knee began to trouble me on the steeper boggy path but I pushed on.  As I reached the track there was a sudden spurt of walkers on their way up. In the next half hour I passed three couples in their thirties, two solo men walkers in their fifties who were both a bit taciturn, a solo woman in her thirties who was enthusiastic about the walk, a man in his thirties wearing enormous headphones and carrying a 60 litre rucksack and another woman in her twenties. I said to her it was quite crowded today and she retorted, yes and its a Monday but with all this home working its really an extension of the weekend. She had a point on my last two weekday trips in March, there had been only hares on the hill. Today there were 13 of us and it was not yet noon.

I kept a good pace on the descent as I tried to beat three hours, the guide book had said 4 hours 30 minutes. In fact I was surprised on getting home and looking at an old log that I was 2 minutes quicker than in March 2009, a couple of months before I retired. It was 12:30pm when I reached the car, the afternoon was mine, no need to go to work.

Start of the walk at Glen Lednock

Hydro scheme on Invergeldie Burn

Track towards Ben Chonzie south ridge

Summit cairn looking west

Loch Turret Reservoir, our water supply

Stob Binnein and Ben More

Starting the descent

Gone Boy

Unmasked and dozing PM at COP26 next to David Attenborough

"He's just a boy," was my mother's refrain when my friend's parents complained that I was leading their sons astray by going out of bounds on long bike rides to distant towns, or breaking curfews when coming back from adventures in the nearby woods or playing football after dark. It is a term that could be applied equally to our current prime minister, Boris Johnson.

I have met no one in the past two years who has had a good word to say about the man and I have been banging on about his unsuitability to hold any public office since his time as Mayor of London when he behaved like Benny Hill on steroids, most notably when he got stuck on a zip wire over the Thames, he was defying both gravity and gravitas. 

He has always been a loose cannon, someone whose self-esteem and sense of entitlement make him unreliable, incoherent, and unhinged - an inchoate man or just a boy really. Someone totally unsuited to public office as Max Hastings, his editor at the Telegraph said many years ago: “a cavorting charlatan, exhibiting moral bankruptcy rooted in a contempt for truth who cares for nothing but his own fame and gratification.”

Yet he has surfed his way to the top of the Tory party as an MP, the Mayor of London, a mouthpiece and champion for Brexit, the Foreign Secretary and, most disturbingly, as Prime Minister. He is becoming an albatross for the Tory Party as they have rumbled his assumed reputation as a serial winner. His career was greased by inheriting the safe Tory seat of Henley from Michael Heseltine, by the London electorate growing impatient with the incumbent Labour Mayor, Ken Livingstone, by the Tory Party losing confidence in Theresa May and by facing an unelectable Jeremy Corbyn as the Labour opposition leader. Like any bully, he has picked his contests, losing would have been difficult if not impossible in any of these contests. 

It is staggering that it has taken so long for his authority and popularity to perish. Maybe it's a result of the nascent English Nationalism and the still substantial power of the fourth estate who have championed his quasi-authoritarian government. But even the Mail, Express and Times have turned on him following his attempt to rescue the disgraced former cabinet minister Owen Paterson who has been paid over £500k  to lobby government departments. This has been the last straw following his failures in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit is far from done, it has become the car crash that economists, the financial sector and most serious political observers always warned against. He constantly avoids decisions and then changes them, sacks anyone who challenges his authority, breaks rules, and trashes diplomatic relations with the EU and many other nations. He has destroyed the soft power that the UK enjoyed through International Aid, the BBC and the network of Foreign Office postings. 

The boy has done more damage to the UK economy, its public services and its self-respect than anyone or any event since the last World War. It is difficult to think of anything good that has happened during his two years as prime minister. OK, the vaccine rollout started well but lapsed as the government overdosed on self-congratulation and announcing freedom which has led to the UK once again having one of the highest COVID rates in the world.

Perhaps there is a silver lining. The Brexiters who have controlled the Tory Party for the past six years are also under the cosh. The popularity of Boris Johnson is at an all-time low, parliament seems likely to pursue the PM over his failure to follow the rules and to accept bribes for seats in the House of Lords. His cavalier attitude to funding his flat refurbishment and accepting free holidays from donors merely confirms his lack of a moral compass. When Lord Evans, the chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, berates the government for failing to maintain ethical standards and suggests that our "soft power abroad depends on our country’s reputation for integrity at home," you know that we are on the slide with stories of sleaze and corruption appearing every day. 

The Prime Minister's unwillingness to accept recommendations from the Standards Commissioner adds to the impression that he is addicted to entitlement. These decisions fit his personality which is bereft of integrity, consistency, empathy and gravitas. If the Tory Party do not take action, and they have never knowingly avoided getting rid of their leaders when they are deemed to be losers, who do we appeal to? His father, Eton, Oxford University or Her Majesty, she gave the boot to the Australian PM, Gough Whitlam for far less serious breaches of protocol. Our unwritten constitution was not designed to deal with a problem like Boris.

He has shattered many protocols, ignored common practice and undermined institutions but perhaps he has provided much evidence for modernising and enhancing democracy by freeing ourselves of the confusion that arises from our outdated unwritten constitution. There is no shortage of actions that could be undertaken to relinquish the UK from these dark democratic days that the Gone Boy will be remembered for. Here are some starters.

• An opportunity to adopt a written constitution like most mature democracies.
• Establish a federal state where the regions of England and the three nations assume responsibility for a far larger share of governance. 
• Introduce a proportional voting system, not one that allows just 30% of the electorate to vote in a government with a majority of 80.
• Reduce the number of MPs in the UK government that will be responsible for far fewer functions and in doing so make the UK a far less London-centric state.
• Create a second chamber in the UK comprised of democratically elected representatives.
• Revisit the relationship with the EU including customs and trade agreements, environmental standards and the Schengen Information System that have had devastating effects on the UK.
• Restore independence and transparency to the operation of institutions such as the BBC that have been subject to increasing political interference.
• Devolve power and functions to the most local level through a genuine commitment to subsidiarity.
• Take decisive action on reducing flying within the UK and eliminate subsidies to fossil fuel industries.
• Commit to eliminating UK-protected tax havens
• Restore International Aid to 0.7%
• Restore the UK's soft power in tackling issues like climate change, poverty, and health and increase support for global institutions like the UN and WHO.

The Clocks Go Back

Morning walk/run on Lime Craig

Topping out

The last few weeks have taxed my patience with 2021. The mainly dry summer has given way to grey days with no frost, just mild windy wet autumn days. The clocks going back has always signalled the reduction of outdoor activities amid the gloom that descends on life. I have never seen the sense of British summertime reverting to Greenwich Mean Time at the end of October. If we had summertime all-year-round time, there would be light at the end of the day, which is more useful for most folk and most activities than in the morning when for a couple of months it is dark anyway on the way to work or school. 

Life is still very restricted with Covid cases higher than they have ever been, 1 in 16 people have Covid in England according to research from Imperial College with children having the highest proportion of cases and England seemingly encouraging a free market in herd immunity. The other home nations do not have the same levels of Covid but they have retained mask-wearing in shops and public transport, social distancing and adopted a less cavalier approach to opening up. Devolution seems to have been more adept at handling the operational issues than the centralised managerialism that Westminster has foisted on England.

I am still managing early morning exercise 4 or 5 times a week by climbing a local hill and running down. It gives some purpose to the day. My 40 kilometres a month seem paltry compared to Gregor's 100 kilometres a week, even after the London Marathon where he managed a very respectable 2 hours 23 minutes and 24th place. He competed on the day the clocks went back in the local 10k race starting from his old school and made it look easy when winning in 32:02 over a tricky undulating course with hills and some trails. The number of entrants was almost 600, a figure that would have been impossible pre-Covid, so there are some positives beginning to emerge as we slowly ease out of lockdown.

For the first time in two years, I travelled by train to Edinburgh to meet with former colleagues who have become firm friends during weekly Zoom sessions that began during the first lockdown. We have written papers, produced videos of lived experiences and had occasional competitions on such topics as what was our first record, earliest job experiences, the favourite car we have owned, best national anthems or what colour loons did we wear. Reliving the 1960s and 70s was fun and kept us vaguely sane. 

Meeting these colleagues again, now 3% older since the last meeting with them in late 2019 was strangely reassuring. The prizes for our competitions had been appealing until they were presented at the splendid flat of one of our group by the Mercat Cross on the Royal Mile. I had won my colleague's Heinkel Bubble car for my detailed memory of my first job but was presented with a Chinese Dinky Toy equivalent version of a bubble car instead.  I had to catch the train home. Friends!

Start of the 10k

Gregor winning Callander 10k

Stirling Station for the first time in 2 years

Mercat Cross, Royal Mile

A Budget full of Contra-speak

It was another dull grey day and there was little to do but watch Rishi Sunak deliver his first budget to a full house at Westminster. He had leaked most of it in advance and was mildly rebuked by the Deputy Speaker for failing to observe the protocol that the House of Commons is the proper forum to divulge his box of tricks. It fell on deaf ears and the fact that Sir Keir Starmer had tested positive for COVID-19 and could not respond for the opposition just seemed to add to the Chancellor's excitement. 

He rattled through his well-rehearsed speech as if he were Freddie Mercury top billing at Wembley. Every sentence was upbeat and appeared to make Britain even greater. The Tory benches played their part; clapping, stamping their feet and taunting the opposition as the little Wizzard cooked the books and threw money to every Tory constituency and cause. Only Boris Johnson looked glum, he was being upstaged by the boosterism of his Chancellor. Those ministers on the front bench were twitchy, they knew that too much applause or smiling could see them out of a job as the PM handed out punishments later.

After spending an hour racing through his lavishly claimed giveaways, (the truth will emerge over the next few days), his voice rising in a crescendo of self-importance, the Chancellor slowed the tempo. Astronomical figures of public expenditure, £150bn over three years, had been gifted to the grateful 4 nations of the UK by the Chancellor, he is surely the greatest philanthropist since Andrew Carnegie. 

He then confessed that he did not really believe in all this public spending and was really a fiscal conservative and wanted to reduce taxes and let the banks and private sector do the heavy lifting. It was true to character, he had to appeal to all parts of the Conservative Party, and being the smart guy he is, he figured that they would fall for his 'contra-speak' as the Prime Minister's popularity continued to wane. Rishi was obviously overwhelmed by the sheer bravura of his performance and fell back onto the front bench expecting more of a gushing response than that the Tory benches were prepared to give him.

Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor had to give the response and she had only 20 minutes to prepare. She nailed it immediately, she didn't need to say that most of the giveaways had already been announced or that they were spread over 3, 4 or 5 years, the media and think tanks would do that over the next few days. She reminded the House that for the most part, the dozens of announcements made by the Chancellor did not even take public expenditure back to the levels that existed in 2010 and that the collapse of public services over this period had led to the lowest productivity increases in Europe or the G20. 

Moreover, with inflation at over 4% and rising, the increase in National Insurance, and the loss of £20 a week Universal Credit for those not working there would be a fall in living standards for the majority of working families as well as the 1 in 6 people living below the poverty line.  The collapse or reduction of many public services from GPs, social care, social housing, education and a host of community and environmental services merely makes a mockery of the Chancellor's claim that this is a "government of public services".

Rishi was slumped down on the government bench and the Tory boo-boys were trying their best to heckle the shadow chancellor, who was hitting too many home truths. Boris Johnson was looking less angry than when Rishi was in full flight, perhaps Rachel Reeves was on his side. Particularly when she admonished the Chancellor for cancelling fuel duty increases and removing taxes on internal flights. How did that chime with the Prime Minister's claims to be a world leader in tackling climate change?

The panto was finally over and the analysts began to delve deeper into the numbers in the red book. Like any other budget I have witnessed in recent years, it will not be what it seems. The new money for public services will not be sufficient to keep up with inflation. Councils will be expected to take on additional responsibilities without the required funding, many of the announcements will be a repetition of previous unfulfilled promises and funding will have been bulked up by double-counting or end-loading. 

Climate change and levelling up have been ill-served by a Chancellor whose fundamental concern seems to be to safeguard the banks and financial services and to protect low taxes for the highest earners and mega-corporations. But then what did we expect, contra-speak is the lingua franca of this government, The Chancellor's 'age of optimism' is just another example of slogans trumping actions.

Dollar Glen

National Trust trails open, Historic Scotland buildings closed

In a rare foray to the east, we were collecting some curtains from Tillicoultry, and we decided to make a day of it. Dollar is a douce town at the foot of the Ochils that boasts an impressive independent school with its original buildings designed by William Playfair, some mighty impressive sandstone villas and a fine glen that climbs towards Castle Campbell, nestling above the gorges that held various minerals that were exploited in earlier centuries. My good friend Ian from the crazy days of Glasgow flat life hailed from Dollar and we often went there for Sunday lunch and would charge up Dollar Glen onto the Ochils for some exercise to recover from Friday night and Saturday exertions and excesses.

Dollar was dead, it may be that the demographic profile of its inhabitants does not trust Boris Johnson's concept of freedom from Covid. There is little freedom for older, thoughtful citizens who may be shielding or anxious to protect other family members and friends. These qualms are not without foundation, there is plenty of evidence on TV and in the press that many of those wallowing in freedom are unvaccinated and super spreaders. Those reluctant to reclaim their freedom are waiting for vaccine passports, booster doses and a fall in the proportion of UK Covid cases to be reduced to levels achieved in most of Europe. 

UK Covid levels have spiked significantly since the July freedom day as the graphs show and vaccinations alone will not bring Covid under control, Many European countries have now overtaken the UK in vaccination rates, they have made faster progress with teenagers and are providing booster vaccinations, whilst the UK seems to have lost the impetus of our vaccination programmes. Just as important is that most European countries have retained social distancing, the wearing of masks and introduced vaccine passports. Will the UK government never learn those lessons that they are always promising to learn?

All the cafes in Dollar were closed and only the Inn at Dollar was open for food. We gave it a miss and collected a roll from the bakery and drove to the start of the walk to Dollar Glen. It was the only decent day of the week, there had been a morning frost and the views had been exceptional on a pre-breakfast climb up and run down Lime Craig. It is a steep climb to Castle Campbell that sits on a ledge between the Care and Sorrow burns. Like most Historic Scotland buildings, it is still closed so we explored its perimeter walls before heading down the steep but excellent footpath to the west of the Sorrow Burn. 

It was still mid-afternoon so we decided to visit the Japanese Garden- at Cowden Castle, a couple of miles east of Dollar. The signs said bookings were required in advance but we decided to try and blag our way in. When we arrived the car park was full, this is where all the baby boomers were hanging out. But they were beginning to leave and we had no difficulty getting tickets. The gardens were emptying and the late afternoon sun was giving the gardens the sharp focus that is the essence of their beauty. An hour or so later we were almost the last to leave at 5pm, the gardens had generated enough ideas to give me back-breaking garden projects until the end of Covid, a life sentence in an alternative sort of freedom.  

Castle Campbell and the Ochils

Castle Campbell

Castle Campbell from Dollar Glen

Japanese Garden

Don't bring the children

Solace

How am I going create something like this?