Dave Hill's Big Britain

An Interlude

I'm off with the kids to see my mum for a few days.

Back by the end of the week. (P.S. My mum doesn't live in Brighton).

Garden Centre, North Somerset

George Orwell:

"Here it is worth noting a minor English trait which is extremely well marked though not often commented on, and that is a love of flowers. This is one of the first things that one notices when one reaches England from abroad, especially if one is coming from southern Europe. Does it not contradict the English indifference to the arts? Not really, because it is found in people who have no aesthetic feelings whatever. What it does link up with, however, is another English characteristic which is so much a part of us that we barely notice it, and that is the addiction to hobbies and spare-time occupations, the privateness of English life."

From England, Your England.

We're Doomed

The Guardian's Ashley Seager:

"We're going into recession. That's all you need to know. Actually, not quite all you need to know. It may be worse than that - we may already be in one. The turn in the economy, although it has been lurking out there for some time, has come swiftly and sharply in the past few weeks, as is often the case with recessions. When the economic history books are written, they will almost certainly say the late-noughties recession began in earnest in the late spring of 2008...You can search all round the data - and we have - for signs of strength in this economy and there are virtually none."

Oh joy. Read on, if you dare.

Forgotten Voters

Jon Cruddas MP and Searchlight editor Nick Lowles:

"The New Labour project relied on the assumption that its traditional support, although declining, had nowhere else to go. But this is now changing, and the BNP has emerged as one beneficiary. The party received more votes last month than Labour in seats such as Dagenham and Rainham in east London and the new Morley and Outwood constituency in West Yorkshire...

It is no coincidence that the BNP is doing best in those communities, often overwhelmingly white, where there has been the greatest economic change, such as the former coalfields and car manufacturing areas. For too long a basic formula has underscored much New Labour thinking - a counterbalancing of so-called aspirational, Middle-England swing voters with our traditional supporters. Its adherents have remained tone deaf to both the aspirations and insecurities of those who fall outside this tight political calculus.

Ministers' rhetoric of 'aspiration' fails to address the real aspirations of voters across huge tracts of the political landscape, where even decent housing or good jobs are in too short supply. So our language, policies and tactics all fail to hit the mark."

I'm starting to regard the prospect of a Conservative government much as I do my deepening middle age: there's not much I can do about it, maybe it won't be so bad, and being in decline can, if nothing else, encourage fruitful reflection about the future. Labour's leadership should to reflect on this thoughtful piece. It might have a rejuvenating effect.

Losing Labour

I've been wondering lately what there is left to like about Labour nationally. It's been a struggle. Then I read this from the Guardian about the Henley by election winner:

"In his victory speech, Howell claimed that voters had sent an anniversary message to Brown, 'to get off our backs, stop the endless tax rises and do a U-turn on the road tax rises.'"

Sounds like the moany, me-first Tories of old. Well, it's something.,,

Asset Management

Waiting room of a west country IFA.

Danger Davis By Election Dare

I'm trying to get up to speed on this. Is David "Danger" Davis driven by principle, personal ambition, an addiction to political risk or all three? Should opponents of "42 days" - such as me - get behind him on the grounds that it will be a single issue by election, or is there too much about Davis to dislike? Some viewpoints. First, Davis's old mate Iain Dale:

"David Davis doesn't make emotional decisions. He makes them with a military precision. He won't have done this on the spur of the moment, he will have thought about it deeply and played some war game scenarios. In the end he will have come to the conclusion that the only way to defeat the 42 day agenda is to start a massive public debate. And that's what a by election will do.

This isn't about one man's vanity. It is about the ability to sacrifice personal and public advantage for a greater cause. As he said in his statement, Sunday is the anniversary of Magna Carta. Over the last 800 years people have fought and died to protect our civil liberties. If it falls to one man to sacrifice political advantage to try to make a stand against their further erosion, then so be it."

Hackney Labour Councillor Luke Akehurst:

"Absolute belief in liberty at the expense of all other political goals seems to me just as dangerous as the absolute belief in equality at the expense of freedom promoted by communists. Real politics involves trade-offs between liberty, equality, economic prosperity and security (and probably some other values too) to try to achieve a society that maximises the happiness of its citizens. On 42 days, like the Government, I've come to the conclusion we need to trade in a bit of liberty to get a bit more security, just as we use taxes to trade a bit of people's economic freedom to deliver more equality."

Here's Jackie Ashley, pondering the complexities:

"It is too early to know if Davis's gamble will succeed. But the first thing for both Cameron and Brown to watch is that he seems to be trying to reconnect popular debate with Westminster's arcane shenanigans. Byelections can be low-down, dirty, chaotic and farcical. But they cannot be won by bribing Northern Irish MPs or twisting arms in private. They are about going back to ordinary people, and asking them - something that never happened over 42 days or indeed the Lisbon treaty."

For me that's that's what's attractive about Davis's move - the possibility it creates for a proper debate on civil liberties, one that might expose Davis's inconsistencies in the process.

At The Guardian: Oh No, It's Footie

My latest Cif, posted on Saturday:

"I’ve written before on the great philosophical question of what football is 'all about'. This great debate centres on two categories of thought. One contains the conventional wisdoms: football is 'all about' pride, passion, opinions, competition, winning-and-losing, balls-in-the-back-of-the-net and so on. The other comprises the more unofficial definitions, the type identified only by unbearable pseudo intellectuals like me.

These include the view that football is 'all about' complex moral paradoxes arising from the conflict between the urge to win and the virtue of fair play; generating a populist narrative that argues for the inevitability of wealth and power becoming ever more concentrated within a self-serving elite; and providing a social context where men who would sooner eat quiche than give expression to a homosexual feeling can get naked together under a shower."

My Mum, Her Chicken Tikka & The Miners Arms

It's good for me to visit my mum, who lives far from Deepest Hackney in the small west country town where I grew up. It means I get to watch some telly, especially the sorts of programme I never see when I'm at home because I'm too busy cooking, working or supervising homework, or because the kids are in command of the remote. I recommend The One Show: proper, popular magazine journalism co-presented by Adrian Chiles, who I've always liked. And Springwatch: red-clawed nature as reality soap opera, if you can bear an hour of Bill Oddie.

Another benefit is closer acquaintance with the economics of growing old. Since my father's death a year ago, Mum has employed a carer for one hour a day. Every penny is well spent, but it comes to a lot of pennies and Mum is neither poor enough to qualify for benefits nor well-off enough to absorb the expense without anxiety. Any political party that gets to grips with this issue is on to a big vote-winner.

Then there's the local history. This photo is of a long-disused Great Western Railway ticket office. The tiny station it served was used by my father when returning home on leave from RAF duties during the war. The same line also served the local colliery, which closed in the 1960s. I retain childhood memories of decrepit coal trucks and pit head machinery, but stronger ones of the pub the ticket office adjoined, the Miners Arms. I was surprised and intrigued to see that it's become an Indian restaurant.

"We must go there, Mum," I said.

"Oh, I don't know. I don't like anything too spicy."

"Don't worry. I'll choose you something mild."

It turned out they'd only been open for two weeks. Mum had chicken tikka, which was served, sizzling, on an iron skillet. She told the young waiters all about the ticket office, the trains and the mines. They packed up our leftovers in a takeaway carton - Mum reheated them for her lunch the following day - and promised to visit the local museum.

At The Guardian: The Final Nancy

This went live on Saturday afternoon:

Not long after Oliver Twist first arrives in Fagin’s den – in Saffron Hill, very adjacent to where the Guardian presently lives – two young ladies pay a visit. “They wore a great deal of hair,” wrote Charles Dickens, “not very neatly turned up behind, and were rather untidy about the shoes and stockings. They were not exactly pretty, perhaps; but they had a great deal of colour in their faces, and looked quite stout and hearty. Being remarkably free and agreeable in their manners, Oliver thought them very nice girls indeed. As there is no doubt they were.”