Poultry

At the battle of Hastings in 1066 Harold Godwinson's troops had a commanding position over the battlefield. From the top of the hill that they occupied, they could repel the attacking Norman army to great effect. Indeed it looked for a time like in the space of two weeks Harold Godwinson would have repelled two invasions at the opposite ends of his country with a 500 mile march in between. 

Then the Normans retreated; this was not a rout, but a ruse, a tactical move by William of Normandy to draw the Saxons off the hill. Harold's tired troops, believing the battle to be won, ignored the orders of their commanders and pursued the retreating Normans; their ranks were broken and they were slaughtered by a counterattack. This is one of the only times in history that retreat has been a good idea, and even then it was a sneaky French good idea. The victors of that battle went on to form the rump of the elite that still govern our country today, many of whom have decided that once again retreat is a good idea. Of course for them it is: they have seen their power eroded and dissipated across the continent of Europe by a partially elected political body over which they can have limited influence. Obviously, they don't like that very much, so they have designed a process to take back control: convince the people of Great Britain that they would be better off giving power back to the English elite. Of course it's an easy message to sell: finding and highlighting inefficiencies in an imperfect political institution, or simply making up stories about the current situation and how that could change if only we would walk away. When you own much of the popular press, it is easier to spread an unquestioned version of your made up stories. I have spoken before about how much we are willing to accept made-up realities when they are repeated to us by the media and our superiors over and over again. Just to be clear, these people do consider themselves our superiors and they do think they can fool us into doing their bidding because, despite what they are trying to tell you, they have utter contempt for the people and for democracy. So next time someone tries to justify their proposed retreat from Europe by talking about "taking back control", think about who is going to get that control and why they are so keen to get it. Please don't be deluded enough to think it will be you. 

In the 'debate' around the referendum both sides have evoked the Second World War, and I can't help thinking of that war's most famous retreat - the evacuation from the beaches of Dunkirk - when I think of our current situation. That event marked the symbolic low point in the war for Britain, but it defined us as a people, we got the Dunkirk spirit and muddled through, we regrouped with our allies and went back to the continent. In Europe's darkest hour we planned a way to free it from the spectre of extreme nationalism. We increasingly find ourselves in a comparable situation: this is not a war, but make no mistake, it is a battle for the soul of Europe. We have retreated as far as we should and it's got us nowhere. It's time to regroup and return to the beaches. We have to fight for the Europe that we want and we can't do that if we walk away. 

Plebiscite

I took a few days off over the second May bank holiday and went to Herefordshire and the Welsh borders. Anyone who knows me, knows that I go there quite a lot, partly because of the availability of free accommodation provided by my in-laws, but also because it's a beautiful part of the world. Our holidays there may seem a bit boring and habitual to many people, but we both like low maintenance holidays and have yet to get bored of any of our habitual activities. I won't list them all, but they mainly revolve around cooking, eating, walking and reading. 

We always go to Hay-on-Wye and buy some books. I always buy old science fiction - way more than I have time to read - and end up stockpiling it in my bedroom there ready for the day when my life has enough spare time to devote to unloved sci-fi. Given the frequency of our visits, it was perhaps surprising that this is the first time we've been during Hay festival. Naturally, we bumped into someone we know from London. "It's crazy," she said, "and so far away!" 

I'm happy for other Londoners to think that, they can all hang out in the Cotswolds and Gloucestershire with David Cameron and Giles Corren. I don't really want to share Herefordshire with others. Several times over that sun-drenched weekend I sat in the garden or outside a country pub drinking in the sheer beauty of the British countryside and feeling glad I didn't have to share it with many people. I don't even actually live there and I want to keep it from 'incomers', so I can only imagine how the locals feel when a bunch of London dickheads like me turn up. To be honest, I doubt I strike fear into the hearts of the people of Herefordshire: they know I'll go away again, having spent lots of money on old books and 'authentic' local produce. Londoners are part of the problem though, they might not 'come over here and take our jobs', but they do buy holiday homes and retire to the countryside reducing the stock of affordable housing, or pushing up house prices in general. Unable to afford to live in the countryside, the young migrate to the cities and the countryside becomes a haven for retirees and holiday makers. Of course in working countryside, someone still has to do the labour, so immigrant labour is brought in because only immigrants will suffer the living conditions that the associated wage will allow. Of course the countryside's affluent new residents - just like me - don't want to share it with incomers and the most obvious incomers are those who don't speak the same language, so they become the focus of fear and loathing. Certain politicians look to exploit that natural fear of others, stating that it's the cause of our problems rather than a symptom of some of them. Perhaps not surprisingly I saw a reasonable number of very large 'Leave' posters as I drove around the countryside (note: that is very different from a large number of reasonable ones). I understand the desire to preserve our green and pleasant land, I feel it keenly, but I cannot legislate to keep Londoners out of Herefordshire, I can only rely on their natural laziness. Besides which, as I have already intimated, outsiders bring a much needed chunk of the wealth and labour into the county. 

Since that weekend, I have tried to listen to the arguments of people who want our country to cecede from the European Union, and the only concrete one I have actually heard beyond some vague notion of 'taking back control' (as if our country is suddenly going to become palpably more democratic) is so that we can control immigration. It's the word 'control' that is key here; I think many people who may vote for it would be wildly disappointed should it come to pass. The talk of Australian-style points systems give the lie to any assertion that Brexit would mean an end to immigration, and those who fear immigration are not going to be comforted by the fact that the people coming in to the country are better qualified to take their jobs. Unfortunately subtleties of the argument such as this are not even hinted at in the idiotic shouting match that will determine the future of our country. I find the level of debate (especially the level to which the old right wing trick of simply dismissing any fact that is inconvenient has been employed) so depressing I tend to turn off. I increasingly look for escape and find myself spending more time reading the one work of old science fiction I did bring back from Herefordshire. It is a book written in 1978, partly about a colony in space (of course), but mainly about a cynical cabal of coporations (one called 'International News' owned by a belligerent old Australian man) who ferment (and fund) a series popular nationalist revolts against a benevolent but slightly ineffective international government so that the weakened national governments that result will be no barrier to the power of the corporations. What fanciful ideas they had in the seventies: who could imagine a cynical elite blaming a political organisation for social problems that they themselves are at least partly responsible? And seeking to gain more power though it? 

Who indeed. 

Parental Responsibility

I got in a Twitter spat. It wasn't really a spat as such, more like a half-arsed argument that happens sporadically and in 140 characters or less. I can see why people get pulled into these things: there's the compulsion of trying to complete a comprehensive argument through a series of short questions. Un/fortunately this particular conversation petered out because I: 

a) had a lot of work to do

b) got a bit bored 

c) discovered, on going back to pick up the thread again, that my conversant was some kind of weird natural law ideologue and left it at that. 

I had started this post before this all happened, but the argument is fundamentally the same, it's just here I have put it in complete sentences and paragraphs (and bothered to finish it), which in my opinion is a much better way to construct an argument. 

On that day a man went to the high court to defend his right to be utterly selfish (and won). At least, as far as I can see, that's his motivation. His interview on the Today programme that morning was one of those events that leaves you wondering whether a person has ever stopped to listen to what they are actually saying. His argument was broadly the usual libertarian rant about the state telling him what to do, but the justifications were amazing. He claimed that those of his children who go to a 'non-selective' fee paying school (surely by dint of the fact that it requires fees, it is selective) have shorter terms and yet the schools have better results than state schools. Of course the key point there (apart from the one about the school actually being selective) is that whilst the terms may be shorter, they are uninterrupted. Also I can't see shortening the terms of state schools being popular with the many other parents who struggle to find childcare for the existing holidays. 

The other part of his argument was that because his children have a good attendance record the rest of the time, they should be allowed to miss two weeks of school. I imagine this is a logic that he would not tolerate elsewhere in society. 

If I never drive under the influence of alcohol, but a few pints down one day, find that my child needs a lift to a friend's house, given that I know I am a good driver, I know the route and I have a good track record with drink driving, should I be able to exempt myself from prosecution? Even if I were to accidentally hit one of this man's children on that journey (maybe one of the ones he doesn't care about enough to send to a fee paying school), that's just an unfortunate consequence of the child being in/near the road and not because I broke the law. Right? This is clearly a preposterous argument; no one would defend their right to drink and drive (although it's not so many years since people would have done), but the principle is the same: if a law exists, who gets to decide that it is unreasonable? The initial answer given by my friend on Twitter was correct: 'we do', unfortunately when qualifying the 'we' bit was when he got all weird and nonsensical. We do agree on what laws are reasonable by two methods: 

1. voting for and lobbying the politicians who make them

2. testing the law in court. 

Clearly our man on the radio had decided on the latter course, and I'm afraid this is the bit that I think is rather selfish of him. I don't object to him taking his child out of school (I think it's stupid, but I'll come to that), but I do object to him attempting to change the law because he didn't want to pay a fine he could easily afford. If he thought the law was unjust, he could have campaigned against it or set up a petition to establish the unpopularity of the law and the desire for it to change. Instead I imagine he decided that as he knows what is best for his children (the monotonous chant of all his apologists), that must mean he also knows what is best for everyone else's children. He took his case to court and won, so now parents much less 'responsible' than him have an excuse to disrupt their childrens' education (and potentially the education of others in the same class) because he wanted to prove a point. Furthermore, the government has already said that it will change the law to make sure that the legal loophole he has opened by this court case will be closed again, so that's a whole bunch of civil servants' time plus the various sittings of parliament that we will all have to pay for, just so this guy could have his 15 minutes. Indeed the likelihood is that by challenging a law that he saw as infringing on his rights as a parent, he'll probably end up with an even more restrictive law. Well done, here's the sound of one hand clapping.

In many ways this is just the law working as is intended: the courts challenge the detail of the legislation and the legislation is modified to accommodate the weaknesses exposed by the legal process. As part of the social contract implicit in being the citizen of any country, we agree to abide by the laws and to accept the consequences of the laws; if we collectively agree that they are unreasonable, then we change them. Anyone who thinks that we can live together without engaging in such a social contract is either deluded, an anarchist or both. We learn about this at school, not necessarily by negotiating our own social contract, but by abiding by the rules and facing our punishment if we break them. As we grow up we gradually learn how those laws are agreed and how we can negotiate them. It is not a simple relationship and we all navigate it as best we can. There will always be things that we personally think are unjust and we have to find our ways of negotiating these, from our first detention* onwards. However, if someone in authority comes along and says that the rules do not need to apply, that we can just opt out of the ones we don't like, how do we learn to engage properly with them? We grow up thinking that we can always be excused, that we are exceptional, that we don't need to engage with society because we can change the law on a whim to suit our personal preference. We grow up believing in the primacy of selfishness. 

* detentions probably aren't allowed any more because some parent who knows what's best objected to them.