Onset...
In retirement I have become an inveterate writer of "letters to the editor". And, given that for two periods in my journalistic life I had to edit letters pages, that must be a strange thing indeed!
Of course letter writing is in effect blogging without the internet. A way to get your views seen by a wider audience than your spouse/partner across the breakfast table. And an audience less well placed to hit back!
The big difference is that within a newspaper it is the editor who provides the opportunity and the readers' pennies that provide the conduit. The internet might be 'free' (it is not but more anon) but the audience is self selecting from an almost inexhaustible array of choices.
It is this homogenous nature of the beast that leads to extremes and eccentricities in the search for visibility. I have to say I shall not be going that way. But I have decided to include here a few snippets or briefs as they were called when the news was hot and the print was metal from my utterings (or ouevre as it might be called...).
(All exclusions are mine, as are all errors...)
2009...
Back in August 2009 I was angered by the perenniel injustice to women. A court case caught my eye in which the local police took satisfaction at a money order made against a brothel keeper. But there was a discriminatory sting in the tail I thought:
"The local police take satisfaction from the money order against a brothel keeper and the public should also applaud the workings of the Proceeds of Crime Act. But, and there is always a but, just as in the excessive leniency shown too often by judges in other serious cases it is the judges involved here who should come under scrutiny.
This man was sentenced to just two years for exploiting women through his massage parlour. But if he fails to pay the £2m ordered he faces seven years in prison. As if that strange comparison between causing suffering and fiscal value were not enough there is another unhappy suggestion that the judge lives not in the real world.
If our villain decides to keep the £2m then he will do about four years of the seven. That is £500,000 a year - more even than a judge is paid. Given average earnings of about £30,000 a year one dares to suggest a term of 60 years would have been more persuasive. Maybe he will open the box by taking the money!"
By September 09 I was on a familiar hobby horse however:
"Are we really to be treated to days of speculation on the savagery of the cuts in public spending without so much as a reference to the perpetrators of our crisis? Do we really have to accept pundits speculating gleefully on the demise of public sector jobs when it was the private sector bankers whose greed and foolishness led us to this precipice? Must we really suffer the transfer of fiscal culpability from the weevils of Threadneedle Street to the workers of Carey Street?
Oh please. Cannot The (newspaper title withheld) at least be honest and reject the pusilanimous maunderings of Clegg, Cameron and Brown and demand a reasonable response from government? A proper re-alignment of fiscal responsibility? A return to significant super tax so that the national coffers can be re-filled almost as quickly as the banks' wilfuly depleted vaults were emptied? Or are we really going to have to wait until the people themselves finally realise that only they can correct matters. Oh I hope it does not come to that."
Well it has been months not days and the students have been in streets. Blogging can be scarey... And it gets worse. The same montn I though:
"Not being in any way trained in economics I haved been wondering just lately what I have missed. If I lend £800 million to the banks I don 't have a near billion pound debt. What I have is a near billion quids worth of assets in the banks - in shares mostly. Indeed we taxpayers now own some of the banks and their shares have been doing rather well lately.
"So I need a bit of help here. Who did we borrow the £800 million from if it is debt? Or did the taxpayer underwrite the busted banks existing debts in return for shares in their (at the time lowly valued) liquidity. And if that liquidity has gone up now are we not surely doing rather well?
"Along with most people I am just beginning to wonder if this need to slash public spending isn't just a ruse to, well, turn the UK into a clone of the neo-con US that poor old Obama is trying to sort out post-Bush. "
Well, deary me. Just recently it was announced that the "debt" that saved the banks is half what it was. But the cuts and those difficult decision still go on. Here in the rural parts of Britain road speed is a real issue. In October I was at it again:
"X (name witheld) is committing the sin he accuses another of. Reading statistics is difficult but I took from the same DT report a similar inference to his attacker - the trend to lower speed limits is reducing accidents. That is what the statistics infer - but they also show that at higher speeds, accidents are still killing and maiming the same or broadly the same number of people.
"Surely no one argues against the idea that at lower speeds it is possible to avoid an accident entirely or to limit the outcome to a non-injury event. At 40 mph in a country lane I may well avoid the emerging tractor but I will probably hit and kill the mother and child on their way to school and end up in prison myself. At 20 mph we may well smile and carry on with our lives. Even at 30 there may be more shock than injury.
"I would like to see 20 mph in every village and within 150 metres of all schools along with flashing lights at arrival and departure times and absolutely NO parking. As we find on the continent I am afraid to tell you! "
That last jibe was of course about how mnuch better we do things in the UK, says someone! The topic kept us busy that month because the end of the speed camera was being trumpeted:
"A brief but helpful lesson in arithmetic would assist (one writer I suggested haughtily) An average is the overall speed achieved between two fixed points. On the road this will usually include some time at 0 mph. Thus, if the average speed is given as 17 it is absolutely inevitable that some of the time the vehicle will have been travelling much faster, indeed probably at or above 34mph.
"If a 20 mph limit "only has" a 1 mph effect on AVERAGE speed (which will vary by location) this is still worth the price if it saves a life or gives Mr X that extra fraction of a second to avoid hitting someone or something.
"Once again we have opposition to lower speed limits based on a false understanding of the realities on the road. Here's a question for Mr X: If you have to be hit by a car which of the following speeds would suit you best - 20, 30, 40, 50 even 60 mph? Delete as chosen and with whichever limb is still available for use.
"Let's all just slow down eh? Let the children live... "
Of course others who just hate being told to slow down or photographed not doing so hit back. But November is a funny old month...
"It hurts me to have to say it but I was wrong. Some years ago I took the view that to get better local councillors it was necessary to offer allowances. It would mean working men and women and not just the wealthy or retired would be able to stand for election. I believed, and I was wrong, that the good and public spirited sense of all would ensure these allowances remained reasonable. It was of course too good to last.
"Today we have a situation in which, for example, one member of the district, county and police authority will consume all - yes all - of the council tax paid by me AND by a further 30 or so similar council tax payers. That will be without our contributing a jot or tittle to any of the services provided by these authorities. Our hard earned will merely pay these bloated councillors. Indeed, glancing at the list in the EDP (well done by the way) it looks likely that the entire council tax contribution of Dereham, for example will be needed just to pay the allowances bill for the twin hatters.
"Shame on you all. And if so much as one of you has said anything against our worthy Members of Parliament who have had to struggle by on mere pittances for their second homes, duck houses and moat cleaning then double shame. Such hypocrisy does none of us any good. Why I bet you have even criticised the bankers for their obscene greed and stupidity.
"Solution? Its a recession - end ALL allowances now and start again AFTER an election. Just see how many stand!"
I feel good about that since it was written almost a year BEFORE the idea of cutting allowances began to take root. I think they will be having a leaner new year, don't you?
But Cameron had my attention later in the month but the topic was close to my campaigning heart:
"The government - whether this one or Cameron's - seems to face a serious threat to their current policies unless they do something fast about rural deprivation. Another timely report about the appalling rural broadband service must be added to the continuing threats faced by most rural services. Privatising our service providers like BT has made the situation worse. And it is not just BT who will not invest. Our mail delivery, our post offices, our village shops, the pubs, local schools - all are currently under pressure. Hospitals get further out of reach, GPs and dentists are consolidating, when do we see a police officer and bus services steadily reduce. Yet our government seems to expect thousands even millions more of us to live in the country. For this is largely where they plan all that new housing growth.
"Urban dwellers sometimes complain that they subsidise the rural economy - yet this is absurd since commuters live rurally and work urbanly for the most part. And last time I looked (last week!) the council tax and other service charges paid by my urban dwelling children are equal to if not actually lower than in the country. And country pay lags wildly.
"Unless we are all to be forced back into the urban and suburban environment, Messrs Brown and Cameron need to get a consensus on how to treat us well enough to ensure anyone is even willing to buy all those new houses. Ah! Maybe they could get the developers to contribute towards decent levels of local service? Put some fibre in the ground? Improve the overhead infrastructure? It would be a sort of economic planning gain?"
My final jibe remains true: "Yours, at a measly 1 meg (which is actually 350k upstream and 650k downstream because the UK chose ADSL!)"
Later in November 09 and the topic was still hot:
"Your writer is correct to accuse BT of providing inadequate equipment in their network for effective broadband. His experience of a falling 'speed' since first connecting is shared by many. BT's rural network is more than adequate for telephony but wholly inappropriate for broadband, or Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Lines as they are known.
"Once many people are connected the speed will fall due to contention between users of 'space' on the old copper lines. Effectively the line becomes congested and traffic slows. You get 'always on' Internet but without fibre, true broadband is not possible.
"Sadly however, it is not enough to break BT's monopoly because that has in fact already been done and across the country in towns and cities fibre has been laid. My daughter in west London has up to 48 meg available - 48 times 'faster' than the best Donald or I can ever get.
There is no hope of BT or any other service provider running fibre into the villages on the basis of the currently available return on their investment.
"As I shall keep saying until someone listens - we have to incentivise them. And that also means that in the interests of us all, the nation and the environment ALL development from now on must include broadband communications along with water, electricity and drainage. It is the 21st century for heaven's sake and no one should consider buying a new house or business premises that does not have modern communications installed. You wouldn't buy it without plumbing, would you?
"It isn't difficult to legislate for it. And the developers will pass the cost to the buyer just as they do with all the other services. With that part done there then needs to be some incentive for BT or OtherPhonesCo to connect up. Meantime, a match-funding grant for Parish Councils could get us all into gear to roll out broadband to our existing homes, farms, shops and offices. Come on folks, write to you MP today! "
My winters are not spent in the UK entirely so I don't write much here. But in April 2010 I was at it again:
"BT really knows how to aggravate its customers. I have today been "Cordially invited" by a letter (snail mail of course!) from them to "become one of the better connected". I wish, along with the rest of the rural environment. I sit here in Lyng, a mere dozen miles from the city of Norwich and on a date in the 21st century and the best they can deliver is a 1meg service when they promise up to 20meg.
"This mail will have come to the EDP at a mere 320K per second - just ten times faster than in 1998! While the rest of the world can communicate at up to 100 times faster we languish in the slow lane. Thanks BT - when's the party for this invite?
April was also a good month weather-wise:
"Every time I read a climate change denier like (name withheld)I have the same thought - what will you tell your grandchildren when they ask what you did to save their world? I admire such people's bravery of course and I will defend to the death the right to argue that the scientists may be wrong but to rant in quite such a manner smacks more of attempting to defeat the campaign.
"And to accuse George Monbiot of being a 'Judas' when all he has done is accept the reality that on this occasion the scientists had feet of clay (the row over the UEA emails) and that may have damaged his case is at least bizarre or obtuse. Shame on you sir.
"We are not being asked to do much to help save our world. The electricity that will come from our sockets will be the same however it is made. The oil and gas is running out anyway. Yes, we might have to accept public transport more often in future. Flying so much may be impossible (more for its terminal impact than its aerial bombardment perhaps). And we may have to pay a bit more for food and clothing (if only to avoid the starving of billions).
"But if we can avoid being asked to eat only once a week, drink water on odd days only, stay at home five days out of seven, have only one child per first-time family and even to breath less often it will be worth it. Your grandchildren won't care if the scientists were wrong. But if they are right then exactly what will you tell them?"
Then in June the die was cast.
"The people of Britain gave no party a mandate at the election. Indeed, so far short of a mandate were the two main parties that they had to gain the support of the third even to achieve government.
"Of course, all three parties showed they saw the need for cuts and all three in their own way vowed that this would be done fairly. And yet here we have David Cameron launching himself on a policy of cuts that will savage the weakest and protect or even enrich the richest. He is determined to avoid the fairest measure of all - tax rises for the better off - while seeking to remove the protections that keep vast numbers out of poverty, illness and despair.
"On the way he seems still to believe that this crumbling economic power can support development of a new nuclear deterrent costing billions while simultaneously decimating the armed forces that provide work for thousands of our young to save mere millions. And in the face of his own commitment to maintain an entirely non-nuclear military presence in nations east of Suez.
"If the Lib-Dems are worth anything they will smash the coalition and Davey will be where he belongs - out of power, out of office and wondering who to vote for as leader. Sadly of course his failure to be moderate, reasonable and fair will also have finally done for our economy, since the city will panic.
"Get real Mr Cameron - you were not elected and only govern through a form of consensus. Moderation and fairness might just keep you in office. Scrap Trident, increase taxes for the better off, levy financial institutions to secure their investments and yes, by all means improve efficiency and trim back on unnecessary government interventions. But whatever you do, be fair - its what you promised. "
Sometime you read your own words a few months later and despair. Still, what do I know - I marched against Barbara Castle (whom I knew slightly and great admired) and her In Place of Strife. If I had had an inkling of Thatcher I would have taken a very different view.
Of course some wilfully thought I was against any cuts at all so I had to respond:
"X would have done himself more credit if he had read my letter properly and commented fairly. I did not write against 'cuts' just against choosing to hurt the poorest. What I wrote in favour of was tax rises. I pay tax and would happily pay more if it meant the least well off could be spared the pain they did not cause. It was the likes of me and indeed my extended family who have benefited from the greed and avarice of the bankers who got us into this mess. It is they and we who should pay.
"If that includes you, X I am sorry but raising taxes is fairer than cutting benefits. And if you really think Britain can afford Trident you have not understood recent events. We are virtually broke, we are a country with virtually no resources and a proven unwillingness to work for low pay. Do you seriously think anyone would bother to invade us now?
"Trident is a waste of money. As I said in an edited paragraph, we need flexible military resources if we believe we have a role in world affairs. And governments need a mandate, or we have despotism not democracy."
And now they do away with Harriers. Even the US still use them! I was well into my stride later in June:
"Well there we have it. Brave Dave and his Dodgy Ossie have shown their colours. Which I have to say appear to be like the emperor's - pretty invisible. He has hammered VAT it is true but not yet and while those who buy small things regularly on a lowish salary will find it pretty hard those who buy Rollers and yachts will probably not really notice at all.
"He has done a bit on capital gains but it goes down in future not up. There is a small nudge against the banks who really helped us get into this mess - but not too much chaps; calm down. He is dickering about with tax allowances in a blind attempt to make the less well off feel less targeted. But he has also given the better off - who will hardly smart at the other changes - a bit of break up the salary incline.
"But did he have the guts to raise income tax at all, never mind for the better off? Did he heck. Is he willing to hammer the less well off? Oh yes. Are they keen to crucify the benefit dependent. Oh yes, easy targets. Daily Mail will love it. Do they have the faintest idea what it is like being a single parent mother? Of course not; that's all below stairs. Let them eat cake.
"Will he now set about destroying our welfare state? You bet he will, mandate or no mandate. Does he plan to undermine public service. Yep. In fact if he is going to achieve anything like the 'correction' to our national debt he claims is needed will then he has no choice. It will be cut and cut again. And the people he casts out of work and home? Well there will be no decent safety net so they will freeze, starve or more likely turn to crime. They certainly won't be paying him any sort of tax at all. Nice one Dave. Must have gone down a storm in the common room. Just keep sending your little Lib Dem fags to face the flak and all will be well in la la land."
I was back on the road, literally in September when the county highways had announced a 34 mile diversion for some roadworks:
"Yet another extraordinary diversion is in prospect in Norfolk but it is by no means the last. An even more bizarre diversion is planned when work starts in Lenwade on the A1067 later this month. But reading your latest report and the material on the Norfolk County Highways web site I am puzzled that this might be a new phenomena which is not truly sustainable. I am hoping that someone at highways will be able to explain.
"My concern is that there seems to have been a major and largely undiscussed change to the way in which road works is being done. Not so long ago when a road was 'closed' it actually meant that for most of the time it was reduced to one-way working, often for the protection of the workforce. But the work at Nordelph in your report and, it appears, the work at Lenwade due soon is different. Here something called "restructuring by a recycling process" is being undertaken which appears to mean the entire 16-plus foot carriageway being worked at the same time thus genuinely closing the road.
"Now here is the problem. This may well save the county money if it re-uses existing road materials but it appears it will cost residents and commercial road users a great deal and burn up a great amount of extra, greenhouse-gas generating fuel. In your report the diversion is up to 31 miles and at today's fuel costs that is about £1.20 each way for cars and probably five to 10 times as much for an HGV. And then there is the time. The Lenwade diversion looks longer on the county's own map.
"So my question is this - has the county done a full environmental impact survey on the true value of this way of repairing roads? Well, what's the answer? Is it really worth the disruption and costs in money, time and to the environment? We should be told."
We were not and I realise I need to return to the issue soon. Watch this space (please?). But the issue rolled on:
"The news that the Lenwade roadworks has overrun will disappoint everyone in the area and further increase the true cost of these works. You quote the county highways figure of £200,000 but this does not take account of the high price paid by local businesses in lost trade, the increased fuel cost for motorists and lorries taking diversions (not to mention the lost time) and the extraordinary cost of removing dangerous mud from local roads, re-forming wrecked roadside banks and clearing the gullies that will have been inundated by mud flows. Next is Nordelph and, I believe, Swanton Morley.
"Of course we have to repair the damage to our roads caused by last winter's weather, aggravated as ever by the European imposition some years ago of 8-tonne HGV axles on roads hardly constructed well enough to take the original 6-ton limit. But my question remains - why are we totally closing roads when earlier practice kept one lane open using traffic control? Has anyone actually done a study to see if this is truly cost effective to the environment as a whole? I have my doubts but wait to be convinced."
Well, you can ask... But its the same with BT. This is October:
"BT's failure to deliver proper broadband into the rural community has an unfortunate and equally unfair side effect. They offer a free service called FON which is a worldwide network meshing service that delivers wi-fi hot spots; around 1,500 in the UK and growing fast. BT subscribers to broadband can sign up and then use secure wi-fi anywhere they can find a wi-fi hot spot. When they do they will use a proportion of a nearby BT customers' bandwidth via their home hub router. At least 200k and up to 500k or half a meg is partitioned for this use, BT tells me. meg BT tells me.
"So the message to rural Britain is simple - DON'T sign up to FON under any circumstances or you will see up to half your meagre broadband disappear. Indeed anyone already signed up may consider leaving the service. Of course if you travel a lot you could benefit - after all most urban area BT customers get 4, 8 even 12 meg. They won't miss half a meg and you might get better connectivity than you get in your home village!
"Given BT's rather dubious Race to Infinity on offer now - commit fast, commit now and you MIGHT get fibre - FON could look a bit like an excuse for NOT rolling out fast broadband to rural England. Now that would be too unkind."
Later that month I was back to Cameron and co:
"So desperate was David Cameron to shield his chums in the City from blame for the ruinous state of our economy and pile it all on new Labour that he used the worst lie of all to his own party - a statistic. The claim that the NHS was paid for in toto with borrowed money is untrue, misleading and deliberately mischievous. It would be as untrue to say that the entire defence budget, along with the wars in Afghan and Iraq not to mention Trident, was being paid for with borrowed money. So I won't.
"But I will note that what makes it all worse for a true blue collusion government man is that it is 'foreign' borrowed money. Apparently illegal immigrant pound notes are now a threat to us all. Not half the threat this Prime Minister presents."
Of course if he were correct then it would be true of Trident too. Wouldn't mention that though, would he?
I don't always moan. There was reason for celebration later in October when I praised my regional newspaper, the Eastern Daily Press:
"Your entirely justified celebration of a long and successful publishing record has reminded me that the EDP nearly got me back into journalism. Although I knew of the paper in the 60s working in Cambridge it was not until I had left journalism in 1978 that my new business brought me to Norwich and Prospect House. I was at the time pretty disaffected by the previous few years in newspapers, characterised by strikes, lock outs and very bad management and trade union practices.
"But when I walked in to the EDP offices and met the likes of Ken Holmes, a very young James Ruddy and a fairly youthful Peter Frantzen I very nearly changed tack again. It was not just the happy atmosphere and committed professionalism that was attractive. It was the fact that both the evening and daily paper staff were producing first class newspapers and were proud of them. And they still do and I guess they still are. Well done and thanks to you all. It is a tribute also to Archant who seem to be as committed to proper journalism as we could hope.
"For the record you have weaned me off a national daily - who needs one when the EDP is more than enough."
I was back on BT again at the end of the month with another shot at FON:
"This I hope is a timely warning to rural victims of BT's broadband service who may be tempted to subscribe to something called FON. This is a service which uses BT subscribers' wireless connections to provide roaming access to other BT customers. This would mean free use of thousands of 'hot spots' around the country. It sounds wonderful and, if you have an urban connection of four or eight or even 24 megs of broadband it probably is, security assumed.
"But be warned - you have to agree to be a FON hot spot provider if you want to subscribe. That means allowing BT to siphon off up to 20% of your bandwidth to give to passing FON customers. But worse, from the rural point of view, is their pledge to deliver 200k of bandwidth via FON. Now we victims of BT's rural internet service are lucky to get 300k or 500k of our own. We simply cannot afford to hand over 200k!
"It gets a little worse when you discover by chance that visiting the FON site on BT's web site is hazardous since it is all too easy to find you have subscribed without actually wanting to. I am a long time savvy internet user but they caught me out with a tick box trick! I only found out when a BT e-mail about FON arrived. It read as if I was subscribed. So I went to check my account and indeed I was! I had not wanted to be and have unsubscribed very quickly.
My system had seemed a bit slow but now appears to be normal again. I wonder why?
"I urge your readers NOT to sign up for FON if they live in a rural location and need a home connection to be reliable. Of course, if you are always away from home you could get faster access across the UK via FON than you will get at home! "
November saw me in rage mode after a columnist suggested the end justifies the means:
(A columnist ) ..."like so many others, hands victory on a plate to the fanatical terrorists of al Quaida. Their objective is to undermine and corrupt Western society. That society has existed in defence of the rule of law and justice for the people. If those moral positions are abandoned then we have lost the war he so earnestly wants us to win. We continue to award them victories they do not deserve.
"He is also possessed of a very short memory. For some 30 or so years after 1968 and for the second time in the 20th century Britain fought a terrorist war on its own territory. Hundreds died, thousands were injured and the pain was very great. And yes, in the country of that terrorism's origin, we did move beyond the bounds of human justice to constrain the fanatical few in the H-blocks. But for the most part we resisted the temptation to abandon our principles on our own soil in the face of the enemy.
"As a nation we have a sadly long experience of the horrors of war falling on our own territory. Not so our American cousins whose last experience was of a dreadful but civil war. And no, I do not diminish in any way the horror or immorality of 9/11 but within days of that event the USA also handed victory to the terrorists by abandoning their constitutional and cherished moral certainties. They even resorted to actions that went far beyond either the Hague or Geneva conventions on torture. And we like sheep have followed.
"It does this writers and his ilk no credit to pour scorn on honest and principled people like Sharmi Chakrabarti (who needs no defence from me I can assure you!) in the attempt to justify the unjustifiable. He needs to be aware that while Theresa May was in opposition, fear of being wrong was not an issue. Now she in government it has taken no time at all for the security services (who have a vested interest in all things terrible) to convince her that the media would crucify her, right or wrong, if a single person died on her watch. I feel for her but had hoped for more moral backbone.
"What is needed is a truly heroic person to stand up and tell the world how it really is: that you do not beat fanatical terrorism by bowing to it; you cannot actually stop their fanaticism by bowing to it; that to win there is a price in life and pain to be paid by both sides; and that, in the end, all such wars are ended by negotiation.
"To use a modern turn of phrase, in my humble opinion, the origins of this terrorism lie in the middle east, in a millenia-old religion and in the failed efforts of modern politicians to meet the expectations of the dispossessed by sharing out lands they do not own. Until everyone gets back to those basics the war will go on, unpredictably and horribly. The best we can do is try to walk tall. And that means sticking to our guns, not theirs. "
Phew! But re-reading it I still believe it. I was working, when 9/11 happened, for an American company and a lot of colleagues were trapped for days in Canada. One of them, highly regarded by me and now a mentor, said in terms: "I am not at all sure the Americans know how to handle this" She was right.
But the issue rose up again that months when a US general with more scars than stars it seems told a terrible truth. My local paper took and rather jingoistic line, in my view and I wrote (but this was not published until now):
"So exactly how will we win the war against Islamist militancy Mr Editor?. Where exactly is the finishing line that will allow us to claim this victory that a seasoned general warns is probably unachievable? Against Hitler it was in Berlin and we had to fight and die all the way to his bunker. In the earlier dreadful conflict of 1914 there was no true finishing line - both sides fought until they were finished. And it was no victory we celebrated until 1945 but an Armistice. An end to dying. And yet we could not let it lie and peace at Versaillles led to Hitler and Hitler to another conflict.
"I don't know about your other readers but I can remember earlier conflicts and earlier ends that were not victory. In the sub-continent we bailed out to let religions at each others throats. In Korea only attacking China would have even offered a victory so the conflict rumbles on. In Kenya and Malaya we defended our indefensible rights and then left the bloodshed. In Vietnam we bombed empty fields rather than admit we were fighting Russia. And then we went home.
Communism was not defeated in Russia; it collapsed under its own weight to leave a trail of unsettled scores across Europe to blaze on and cost us all dearly. And leave us to clear up. Now Russia labours under a regime of criminality and corruption.
When Churchill rallied this country to its finest hour he neatly avoided mention of the pogrom that we had already ignored in Germany, Poland and the rest. But he knew who the enemy where, where they were, how they were financed and where the finishing line might be.
General Sir David Richards did not choose a bad time to say what he said. He chose a time when our minds should have been focused on the price of victory. No general would choose to deny a victory in a winnable war. But this general bleeds for the loss of men and women in a war against an unseen, unseeable enemy that has no fixed base, no single homeland and no discernible source of funding. It wages a millennia old war against two other millennia old religions. What do you want the general to do? Nuke Iraq, Iran and Saudi? Level Mecca? These are your options Mr Editor, unless of course the idea of parley suddenly appeals.
"The general is right - it is as ever time for the politicians to take over the war - it remains too important to be left to generals."
In November there was news that our local hospital trust might abandon the national pay scales. Recently they have said they won't but at the time it looked a possibility:
"Not having seen the details yet of what Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital is proposing regarding the scrapping of NHS national pay rates it is all too easy to lump this in with all the other euphemistically called 'difficult decisions' people in authority are having to make. Frankly my heart bleeds for them.
"They have been sitting on a gravy train for years now. There is nothing difficult surely in deciding that your gravy is too valuable to be risked and that instead you will take it out on the poor, the poorly paid, and the defenceless to take your pain for you.
"A correspondent rightly attacks the Trust for even considering this abandonment of reason. They put in jeopardy the very status they have fought to win. What price a "University" hospital that pays poverty wages to the people tasked with ensuring infection is not rampant on the wards (assuming anyone will work for them). She calls for courage to oppose this but in this cruelly selfish age it would take a lot of that to be honest and tell the taxpayers (especially the rich ones) that they have to pay for what they get. And that rescuing bankrupt banks with money we did not really have means our assets in the crippled banks is a debt not a benefit!
Worse still the Trust is doing this to subsidise the very city financiers who conned the government with the PFI deal that we continue to pay exorbitantly for.
"When I was a lad there was ditty: Its the rich what gets the gravy; its the poor what takes the blame. Ain't it all a ruddy shame." Yes, well it should be a crime really. Roll on the revolution... fat chance!"
Bit of a rant that really. But then came the student grants issue - actually when you see it all lined up lunacy is too good a word for it:
"Your writer makes some good points about the relative madness of the Government's position on tuition fees. This is a Government that tells us we don't have the money to increase spending on education. It tells us we have to let colleges levy tuition fees. It clearly thought swinging the bill on students would save money. But they seem to know nothing and care less about anything. For they find they will be landed with the cost anyway, only now it will be as debt. A lot of it indeed and what a fine start that makes for our future graduates' working lives. Not.
"The writer notes that here in Norwich alone 30,000 students will be borrowing tuition fees, probably nearer £9,000 a year than less. Which is a cool £270 million debt at the end of year one. Treasury debt but owed to them by the students. At the end of year three it will amount to some £810 million. In Norwich alone. But some students will get jobs that pay enough to start paying some back. Not much mind you, at first anyway.
"So by three years later another tranche of students will have run up another £810 million of debt. Let's be kind and reckon a third had now been paid back by the first group. So now we have a mere £1.3 BILLION of debt for Norwich alone. Clever people these coalition blokes - they can make debt go away by increasing debt. Pure genius. Or have I missed something? Maybe there is a nice fairy somewhere wishing all this debt away. Trouble is I reckon that we need to scale this up for the nation as a whole.
"Hmmm, let's see I think that could be a national debt of £13-17 BILLION six years ahead. All at low interest rates. So long as anyone anywhere will lend to us or buy the bonds and gilts that must back this.
I was told by a later correspondent that the number of students in Norwich was "only" 13,000. I have checked and the number I was given look closer to the actual but the joy is that my accuser had missed my point anyway. Buit like this governmnent then!
And then it was December...
"No one should be surprised at the outrageous hike in the price of heating fuel. It is entirely in accord with the times in which we live. The winter fuel allowance of £250 is being paid right now and the letter announcing it arrived at the start of December. That was the trigger for the oil companies (the suppliers more than the distributors) to rack up the price as quickly as possible. After all, their plan was simple. £250 per household just before Christmas - lovely jubbly. Oil at 40 odd pence a litre goes to 60 odd and 1000 litres costs an extra, wait for it, wait for it - £200 plus. Well how about that!
"Still, its a tough year for business too. Especially the poor old oil men. Nothing but huge profits all year and worthless shares and banks to invest in. Difficult decisions, difficult decisions. Now, do I eat today, or tomorrow?"
So now its Christmas and I have given myself a blog. What shall I say next then? Have a good one and a better new year than look likely.
