Did I Say That?…Next Question!

Posted on March 2, 2025 by Stephen Shellard

Arguments for Defence and Foreign Aid Spending in a Volatile World. 

[2130 words]

I’ve spent a good part of my life arguing in favour of defusing conflict by means of unilateral disarmament and negotiation.  I now find myself in the somewhat uncomfortable position of accepting that the United Kingdom, together with its European allies  should  be spending more money on arms. I don’t really need to explain the reasons for my personal turnaround  to anyone who has been awake in the last week or so.  A few key words will suffice.  Vladimir Putin.  Ukraine. Donald Trump. 

The moral challenge of this shift in my thinking has been compounded by Keir Starmer’s announcement that in order for the UK to increase its defence spending the foreign aid budget will be cut by a comparable sum.  This trade-off will appeal to a certain constituency which considers any money spent in favour of the poor and downtrodden overseas to be equivalent to pouring it down the drain. Generally this view is based on the notion that foreign aid is in large part siphoned off by  corrupt officials in those parts of the world which are the intended destination for the funds with little of it ever reaching the people who are truly in need. 

I dare say there is some truth in this picture. Not every foreign aid programme has produced a benign outcome.  The matter deserves study. However, relentless hostility towards foreign aid is clearly a  politically motivated distortion intended to please a populist constituency.  It is a distortion which disregards the many documented achievements of foreign aid in famine relief, eradication of disease and the provision of tools and skills which have enabled people to rebuild lives shattered by the whole gamut of natural disasters.  

Regardless, this hostility to aid is a perspective which utterly fails to understand the way in which a sovereign currency functions.  Any funds in sterling directed by the UK towards foreign aid can only have value so long as they may ultimately be redeemed in the UK economy.  If this was not possible the aid would be no better than monopoly money. 

Foreign aid in sterling will in part be converted to local currencies in order to purchase goods and services in the context of immediate need. However, this  conversion  is a balanced  transaction in which the equivalent sum in sterling enters the money markets. It does not simply evaporate but in fact continues to be traded. It passes into another financial realm where it may be sold to people wanting to travel to the UK or purchase goods in the UK market. Investors and speculators also have a part to play, buying and selling sterling on the international money markets. 

Even if those funds pass through corrupt hands and are invested in poorly run projects, they are in effect an extension of the UK economy.  Looked at in this way, foreign aid delivered in pounds sterling, may be seen as an expansion of UK economic activity into other territories and domains. Unfortunately, on our balance sheet, this is counted as a deficit rather than a  credit. 

Naturally one  hopes that money given as aid is spent wisely on projects which may stabilise a crisis situation and result in the restoration of a sustainable local economy. The benefits of this outcome are obvious not just to the community which has been given help. Successful foreign aid projects are one of the more humanly decent ways of reducing the flow of migration into Europe and the United States, a phenomenon which is clearly causing  much of our current cultural and political turmoil. 

I do see a possible flaw in this economic argument in favour of foreign aid. In order to maintain the existing foreign aid budget, whilst also increasing our defence spending, we may be obliged to increase our national debt. In the absence of tax rises this could require cutbacks  to service delivery within the United Kingdom, unless the economy grows sufficiently to make this unnecessary. That would indeed be a perverse outcome. However, I am going to suggest that we don’t actually need to borrow money to both  increase defence spending whilst maintaining our foreign aid budget. 

So far as foreign aid is concerned, if we look at this expenditure as an extraterritorial extension of the UK economy then it becomes possible to consider it as an investment rather than a deficit. So long as the  demand which results from the aid budget does not compete for scarce UK resources, then the impact will be a modest stimulus to the domestic economy. It is quite possible that prices for domestic consumers might even come down given increased levels of production of some goods and services and consequent efficiencies.  

Clearly foreign aid should not expand to the point  where it undermines the domestic economy, but it is safe to say there is plenty of head room in this respect. Indeed there is a case to be made, at the very least, for restoring aid to levels which were sustained during the tenure  of the previous government. 

While foreign aid is an important tool in building good international relations, the current geopolitical climate also demands a reassessment of defence spending. Historical precedents, such as the US economy during World War II, offer valuable insights. 

The US economy grew fat on the back of weapons manufacture during the Second World War. It was, at that point, an economy in recovery. It did not have a huge surplus to spend on arms manufacture. Funding was in fact supported by the sale of war bonds to the American public and increased taxation. 

Whilst the logic of these funding measures is obvious, it is not at all clear that they were a necessary part of this massive direction of US resources into the armaments industry. Only a few years previously, with the US economy in a much more dire situation, the US Government had decoupled the price of the dollar from the price of gold. This, together with other measures, “enabled the Federal Reserve to increase the amount of money in circulation to the level the economy needed.”  This increase in the money supply was the foundation of Roosevelt’s New Deal spending. 

The process of the New Deal lays bare the reality that, if a government in command of a sovereign currency deems certain works to be vital then, it has the power simply to add funds to the bank accounts of companies and individuals who contract to carry out those works. Assuming the necessary resources are available within the jurisdiction of the government, It is not necessary to borrow money or increase taxation to achieve this objective. Such a view is rooted in Keynesian economic theory but supported also by Modern Monetary Theory as expounded, for example, by Professor Stephanie Kelton. 

The US could have increased the money supply in World War Two to facilitate rearmament. Indeed, if that had been its policy, it would not have been necessary to pay the interest on the war bonds which were sold to raise money. In other words, the same objective could have been attained more cheaply. 

Undeniably, funding rearmament through direct payments carries risks. Overuse or poorly judged application of such a policy could lead to inflation. If spending, for example, is targeted at or results in demand for resources which are in short supply, the price of those resources will rise and that may be a problem for the economy.  Central banks have a role in managing such inflation by controlling interest rates but, in the case of any economic policy, there are judgments to be made.  There will be opportunities to use the money supply to activate resources of labour and raw materials which are readily available or under used.  Owing to the dominance of conservative economic thinking in recent times, such opportunities have been under exploited. 

Though left leaning, the UK Labour Government languishes under this baleful economic constraint. It has, with greater reason, rejected the idea of issuing bonds in order to raise  money for defence spending. This would increase an already worrying debt burden. The obvious option of increasing taxation has repeatedly been ruled out, though there are signs that a tax on the wealthy might be popular. Shockingly, the shoddy decision has been made to raid the aid budget for the purpose.  As a result, Annaliese Dodds, International development minister, has felt it necessary to resign from the UK Cabinet. 

The United States is a clear leader in the field of high tech armament production. It is possible the UK will use its increased defence budget to purchase these cutting edge weapons. That option certainly would require increased borrowing or taxation. Alternatively, the Government might direct funds towards our home grown armaments industry without increasing either debt or taxation. 

Rory Stewart has pointed out that  arms purchases from the US is increasingly compromised by the terms on which contracts  are agreed.  In the case of the most advanced military aircraft, the US demands that all  surveillance gathered by these aircraft remains the property of the CIA. The US is also, understandably, secretive about the manufacture of their most advanced armaments. They retain control over supply of  spare parts and other backup and training and have already shown some signs of not treating these as matters of priority. 

With the US becoming less dependable as a defence ally, relying on them for the supply of weapons is looking increasingly unwise. Added to this, as Rory Stewart has also pointed out, the way in which the Ukraine war has been fought raises many questions about the type of weapons we would need to develop. Drone warfare has become very important in the Ukraine war, for both sides in the conflict. 

The lesson may be that the UK, together with its European allies, should coordinate investment in their existing arms industries in order to develop the technology, expertise and weapons most appropriate to the threat posed by Russia. Such investment would have the obvious advantage of  being a stimulus to the UK and European Economies. This should be an encouragement to defence spending,  whichever of the funding options available may be chosen to make it happen. 

As I write, President Zelensky has been ejected from the White House after being set upon by President Trump, an encounter provoked by Trump’s attack dog Vice President, JD Vance. This squalid piece of bullying took place in a press conference which was  intended to herald the signing of a deal, a deal which promised that it might offer a  foundation for a peace agreement.  This prospect of peace now appears to be in tatters.

It seems improbable that the United Kingdom and Europe will, even with good intentions, be able  to plug the  armaments deficit which threatens as an immediate consequence of the capitulation of the Trump administration to Vladimir Putin. Nevertheless, it seems imperative that, in order to defend Ukraine and the other vulnerable European countries such as Poland and the Baltic States, the effort is made to do so. And whatever the scale of this challenge, we should continue to consider our foreign aid commitments as a complementary and potentially sound investment in both global stability and economic growth. It’s either that or submit to the hydra-headed monster that has emerged in the form of Donald Trump, JD Vance, Vladimir Putin,Viktor Orbán and other lesser bullies that are propagating in their wake.  

Endnotes

Modern Monetary Theory  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_monetary_theory 

Full Fact – UK and NATO Defence Spending  Explained   In 2024 the UK spent just 2.33% of its GDP on defence, whereas the United States spent 3.38% of its much larger GDP. Only two European countries currently spend  at a higher level on defence than the United States.  They are Poland, on 4.12%, and Estonia on 3.42%. Not far behind them are Latvia and Lithuania. Their desire to protect themselves from an escalation of Russia’s current aggression is clear.

Our World in Data  Foreign Aid

Roosevelt’s New Deal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal   The dollar was allowed to float freely on foreign exchange markets with no guaranteed price in gold. With the passage of the Gold Reserve Act in 1934, the nominal price of gold was changed from $20.67 per troy ounce to $35. These measures enabled the Federal Reserve to increase the amount of money in circulation to the level the economy needed. 

Anneliese Dodds resigns over Keir Starmer’s decision to cut aid budget

The Rest is Politics  Question Time: How Will Europe Defend Itself  Also worth listening to is the following “special” episode, a post match analysis of the Oval Office showdown with President Zelensky. 

With thanks to Florian Seriex/Action Against Hunger for the featured image, cropped from the original on Flikr.

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Indebted

Posted on February 16, 2025 by Stephen Shellard

Why and How the UK Can and Should Invest Now in Grid-Upgrade and Solar Power

The national debt is a perpetual and festering sore in any discussion of our economy. The more we borrow, the heavier the millstone we pass on to future generations. Yet, without taking on more debt, we find ourselves trapped in an austerity riven with inequality—a situation that seems unjustifiable in a world where a small number enjoy improbable riches. Some economists argue that taxing the rich is not only a just measure but would stimulate growth. The idea, however, has not gained enough traction with the public in recent times. There is a lingering fear, stirred up by segments of the conservative media,  that punishing the rich would  risk stifling the very individuals who drive economic growth.  

Economics can seem like a strange blend of superstition, alchemy, astrology, and religion.  Consider the financial crash of 2008. Only a handful of economists saw the tidal wave coming. Even Gordon Brown, who is credited with orchestrating the rescue package, admits to mistakes in the lead-up to the crisis. Given his expertise, it’s reasonable to assume he understood the risks posed by the financial products flooding the market. While they made many wealthy, they contributed little in the way of meaningful goods or services for ordinary consumers. I suspect Gordon knew a crash was inevitable—he just didn’t know when it would arrive and hoped it wouldn’t happen on his watch. But it did.

Since the financial crash of 2008, our economy has grown at a slower pace, while national debt has increased significantly. Is this debt burden really  a necessary evil, or a symptom of deeper failures of vision and economic policy?

Dharshini David, the BBC’s Chief Economics Correspondent, hosted a very penetrating radio programme summarising The Story Behind National Debt. She interviewed a series of luminaries, beginning with Sir Robert Stheeman, former Chief Executive of the UK Debt Management Office. It has been his job to organise the auctions which sell  government bonds—also known as gilts—that are used to provide the finance which makes up our national debt. 

Apart from explaining these technicalities, Sir Robert had a number of striking things to say about the inscrutable character of government debt.  Just to begin with: it is “utterly different  to every other kind of debt.”  It is “all about credibility.” It’s not just about the numbers. In the context of Covid, huge sums were borrowed—but he said, “That was relatively easily absorbed…the market was willing to give the Government of the day the benefit of the doubt.”  In this statement the role of “the market” i.e. primary and secondary traders in bonds, can be seen as crucial. If the markets don’t like what is happening that spells trouble for the government. At a later point in the programme Sir Robert says he doesn’t know whether we are approaching the limits of debt—“Nobody does!”  He goes on to say that he does not think increasing debt is sustainable and concludes: “Something may have to give.”

I’d like to focus for a moment on the importance of credibility. What Sir Robert is saying is that if government debt is used to finance investment that is in the clear and immediate interest of an economy then investors will recognise this. They will see their investment as secure. Sale of bonds to finance the investment may be possible on the back of a credible plan, one which will clearly lead  to increased growth and productivity. 

Thinking about the current situation of the UK for a moment, it is clear that some infrastructure investments have been bedevilled by delays and cost overruns. Inevitably, this has undermined their credibility. HS2 was one such infrastructure black hole. There are signs that a third runway for Heathrow could be another. It will take years to complete, is likely to meet with consistent opposition and to cost vastly more than was first supposed. 

Perhaps that is an unnecessarily gloomy projection but the point in this case is that the bond markets will almost certainly be influenced by that gloomy view of the matter. The Labour Government has been attempting to mitigate this problem in the case of new nuclear power installations. A range of measures has been introduced to facilitate the construction of Small Modular Reactors. Given the nature of the technology it is hard not to see a few pitfalls along the road to completion.  

While large-scale infrastructure projects like HS2 face challenges, smaller, more innovative investments—such as solar energy—offer immediate returns and greater credibility. One of the panelists on a recent addition of Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Greg Jackson, CEO of Octopus Energy, spoke admiringly about the way China  completely turned around the air quality of its big cities with the introduction of electric vehicles. 59% of cars on the streets are now electric. This has been made possible because China  is surging ahead with the installation of solar panels. In 2023 alone, explained Greg Jackson, they “added more solar energy than the entire installed capacity of the United States.” 

I might not have thought installation of solar panels was an obvious route to go down in the UK. It is the installation of wind turbines which has most captured  public attention but there have been obstacles to development at every turn.  Tom Heap, however, in his book Land Smart: How to Give People and Nature the Space to Thrive makes it clear that there is huge and immediately available potential for roll out of solar in the UK. Many of the ideas he suggests are innovative, but they are far from untried. Exploitation of warehouse roofing, building solar panels over car parks, floating solar on reservoirs, and so on.  

Solar panel technology already exists and is coming down in price. In the examples Tom Heap suggests, space is already available and installation unlikely to prove controversial. The principal obstacles are complicating factors of ownership relative to the spaces concerned and also the need to upgrade our electricity grid to make it compatible with   developing renewable capacity. 

An increase in the pace of solar installation and improvements to our electricity grid could begin immediately. Further development can happen incrementally, and as logistical problems are solved, with increasing rapidity. The contribution to bringing down energy costs and insulating our economy from the vagaries of imported oil and gas are undeniable. The clear potential of such investment to lower UK production costs and to make output more efficient is what would provide the necessary confidence for investors to purchase government bonds to cover the costs. But I have a different  suggestion. 

There is another way to raise finance for a project which is so manifestly in the interest of the United Kingdom. The Government could use quantitative easing—a process where the central bank purchases assets to inject money into the economy—effectively creating new money. 

The importance of this capability is greatly under discussed, because it is inclined to seem like a kind of dangerous trick which may be played by a government. Certainly, quantitative easing has the potential to be inflationary and if done for frivolous purposes is dangerous.     Even talking about quantitative easing is liable to undermine confidence. However that fear of QE is at least in part promoted by economists who believe that deregulation of markets is the solution to all problems. 

By “frivolous”  use of QE I mean, for example, spending on day to day expenses, such as, f  giving nurses a decent pay rise – obviously very tempting. To do so in a time of economic stringency is going to undermine the aforementioned confidence of investors and so the international markets would not treat the pound well. Its value would fall, and less money would flow into the UK economy—bad news all round.

However, if quantitative easing is used for investment in needed infrastructure then this has the potential to build confidence.  Upgrading our electricity grid and building more renewable generation will obviously secure the energy resource in the UK, make it less vulnerable to international fluctuations in the oil price etc. The outcome will be to make the UK a place in which investors can invest more confidently. 

This strategy of injecting money into the economy was first suggested by John Maynard Keynes.  It was he who laid the theoretical foundation for President Roosevelt’s New Deal.  This investment lifted the US out of the economic slump of the 1930s by organising and providing funds for the building of “useful works such as government buildings, airports, hospitals, schools, roads, bridges, and dams.”  

Keynes‘ legacy has taken something of a beating since his death soon after the 1944 Bretton Woods conference. Bretton Woods was profoundly  influential in establishing the economic world order and US dominance in it, following the war. Keynes did not entirely get his way at Bretton Woods but his opponents fought back in any case and growing belief in an unregulated free market as the solution to all problems established a dominance beginning in the 1980s. Keynesian principles saw a resurgence after the 2008 financial crash, as governments turned to stimulus spending to revive their economies. This did not prevent  austerity policies and a desire to cut taxes  dominating UK Government policy while the Conservative Party held power.   

Yet there are economists out there who continue to insist that a government with control over a sovereign currency, such as the United Kingdom, can do more in the interests of its citizens than cut taxes and expenditure in order to stimulate growth. Professor Stephanie Kelton makes a powerful case for a different approach in her book The Deficit Myth.  She  was a senior economic adviser to Bernie Sanders in the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. Another strong voice proclaiming the unused potential of our currency is economist Ann Pettifor who explains in her book The Production of Money,  “how to break the power of bankers” and has explicitly made the case for a Green New Deal. Whilst these ideas remain controversial, the Keynesian fundamentals have a strong track record which could be particularly well fitted to the needs of the present moment.

As I write these words, the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the United Kingdom, Rachel Reeves is coming under pressure for alleged misdemeanours relating to her previous career. It is suggested that she has exaggerated in her CV the amount of time she spent working at the Bank of England. My concern however is that she spent too long working there and has become possessed by its orthodoxies.  I have no serious doubts about her integrity or ability to do her job. She seems to me to be both formidably capable, well-intentioned and, above all, possessed of unshakeable self-belief. However we are at a moment  when the need for  decisive and immediate investment in our renewable energy infrastructure is an obvious way to reinvigorate our economy.  

If our Chancellor is unwilling to act, she should step aside. The choice is clear: invest now or burden future generations. The tools—debt or QE—are available, but the political will must match the urgency of the moment.

Endnotes

Guardian 2010 – The weekend Gordon Brown saved the banks from the abyss

BBC News 2011 Gordon Brown Admits Mistake 

Wikipedia Roosevelt’s New Deal 

Gov.UK Government rips up rules to fire-up nuclear power

Tom Heap Land Smart: How to Give People and Nature the Space to Thrive

BBC News 14 February 2025 What we’ve learned about Rachel Reeves’s expenses – and the Labour response

Stephanie Kelton The Deficit Myth

Ann Pettifor The Production of Money: How to Break the Power of the Bankers

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On Street Fighters, Gladiators and Philosophers

Posted on February 9, 2025 by Stephen Shellard

When I first heard news of the spat on Elon Musk’s X between US Vice President JD Vance and former Tory politician, Rory Stewart it brought to mind the Sunday school classes  I reluctantly attended over sixty years ago. JD Vance, a practising Roman Catholic, has been attempting to justify his alliance with Donald Trump’s America First agenda, particularly its hostility toward migrants and its cancellation of overseas aid programmes.

My Sunday School teacher for that half hour each week, Tommy Caldwell, was a small and earnest man, but I was a poor pupil. One  detail of his instruction, however,  has remained with me: his insistence that the church of which we were members was ‘catholic’ in the universal sense. That seemed odd, for in Northern Ireland when one spoke of “the Catholic Church” one was referring to the Roman Catholic church, and I assumed that the word ‘catholic’ was reserved for that purpose. But no, insisted Tommy. Our church, the Church of Ireland was a catholic church. Tommy may perhaps have explained that the word catholic comes from the Greek and means “universal”, “world-wide” or “all inclusive.” The message is a simple one: a catholic church is open to every person, without exception. 

JD Vance’s argument is a simple one: Charity begins—and, it would seem, ends—at home. He has, apparently, drawn on the work of St. Thomas Aquinas to build a theological case in support of his position.

 It is an idea that clearly has much appeal to those who prefer not to see the problems of people elsewhere in the world as their business. The increasing flow of migration from poorer to richer countries has heightened suspicion of philanthropy. This, in turn, has fueled the rise of right-wing populism and nationalism.

But how then can JD Vance square this with the idea of a catholic church based on  the principle that none are excluded and all should be made welcome?  Indeed, consistent with the principle of inclusion is the missionary idea, shared in general by Christian churches, that it is a duty to spread biblical teaching throughout the world. Perhaps JD Vance would not argue with this obligation, but would insist that spreading the word of God is quite distinct from an obligation to be charitable beyond the national boundary. Splitting hairs, I think.

In the pre Christian era, the Roman Empire showed neither missionary zeal nor charity in its conquest of the world. In general it permitted the different subject tribal groups within the boundaries of the empire to follow the religious practices which had defined them prior to conquest; it was a policy which, in general, made for stability. As in the case of all empires prior to the Romans, conquest was concerned principally with the enrichment of the imperial elite. In the case of the Romans this was achieved by means of their military prowess and ability to build a sophisticated infrastructure of roads and settlements sufficient to sustain their empire. Those who resisted were taken as slaves, used as fodder for gladiatorial contests, or crucified. The notion that those living in and working for the interests of the Roman Empire should all be raised up as equal citizens was completely absent. It was very much a “Rome First” approach to the government of the Empire. Perhaps this is the vision JD Vance has for America, presumably absent the fodder for gladiatorial contests and the crucifixions.

Christians, however, were exceptional  in being systematically persecuted by Rome. Only when Constantine became emperor from AD306 to 337, and converted to Christianity, did things begin to change. Critical to these changes was the universalist character of the Christian religion, a foundation of which was the revolutionary notion that all members of the faith were equal before God, regardless of their tribal, ethnic, or cultural antecedents. The same idea was to become integral to Islam when it emerged in the 7th century CE, and so it too became a world religion.

The historian Tom Holland presents a strong case that Christianity is a foundation stone of western liberal enlightenment thinking. He is clear that this is true even where those ideas are expressed in a secular context. And so, in his poem ‘A Man’s A Man For A’ That,’ Robert Burns expresses an idea that would have been inconceivable before the Christian era.

For a’ that, an’ a’ that, 

   It’s coming yet for a’ that, 

That Man to Man, the world o’er, 

   Shall brothers be for a’ that.

And when Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,  in the Communist Manifesto say, Workers of the world unite!  they too are inheritors of an idea that first came to fruition in the teaching of Jesus Christ. Variations of this theme persist in modern politics and appear across the political spectrum.

However, the Roman Catholic church was to become the first truly international expression of these ideas and in so doing, developed an institutional character and theology designed to protect and extend  its influence. Such a vast enterprise was inevitably susceptible to corruption, as is evidenced by the rebellion of Martin Luther and the emergence of the Protestant churches. 

I notice that, in discussing his disagreement with JD Vance on BBC Radio, Rory Stewart cites the parable of The Good Samaritan as evidence that Christianity challenges its adherents to look beyond tribal allegiances when considering their obligations.”

The story is told by Jesus in response to a challenging question from a Rabbi, an expert in Jewish law. He asks: “And who is my neighbour?”

Anyone brought up in the Christian faith will be familiar with the narrative, but others may not or, like myself, not have paid the story much attention for many years. Here’s a quick summary. 

A traveller is robbed, beaten and left for dead at the side of a road. It is implicit in the telling of the story that the victim of this crime is  Jewish, as was Jesus and the Rabbi who asked the challenging question. 

A Jewish priest passes by but avoids the man, as does a Levite, a member of a tribe within the larger Jewish family. Eventually a Samaritan arrives at the scene.  Samaritans and Jews were generally antagonistic toward each other, but this individual binds up the wounds of the injured man, takes him to an Inn and provides money so that he can be cared for as he recovers. At the conclusion of the story, Jesus asks:

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

The Samaritan makes no attempt at a deal in his philanthropic transaction. He does not ask the injured man, in exchange for help, to be anything other than what he is. There is no suggestion in the parable that one should not help family and friends who are in need. That is a natural and proper thing to do and in general something  that comes easily. 

The point really is that humans have the capacity to transcend the condition of their animal and tribal nature and to empathise with others who are different or not known to them personally. Christ makes it clear that this is a  challenge to which we should all rise.  His concluding words bear repetition:  “Go and do likewise.”

In arguing what seems a contrary position JD Vance, someone with a record of high academic achievement, resorts to an ad hominem attack on Rory Stewart, suggesting that he has a low IQ. It’s rather as if Vance instinctively realises he  may do better in a street fight, all snapping and snarling, than in a civilised theological discussion. Perhaps he might prefer to think of himself in more gladiatorial terms, as a man trained to fight in an arena with other men, or animals. 

The online commentary on the spat seems to relish the fight more than engage with the argument. It reminds me of the playground of my youth where, on the odd occasion when a fight would break out, a tight circle would immediately gather round to witness the spectacle. 

I’ve listened to Rory Stewart in discussion with others on a number of occasions and he is quite capable of becoming tetchy with his interlocutor.  On this occasion he is maintaining a more characteristic equilibrium.  JD Vance, however, has fully aligned himself with the presidency of Donald Trump, a man who has no interest in civility and has built his career on such ad hominem attacks. But here’s the thing: Trump’s enablers do not represent America. The coalition which holds him in power will come apart.  

But not just yet. Until then, the spectacle continues.

End Notes

Rory Stewart interviewed on BBC about his argument with JD Vance  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0knl0zy 

Parable of the Good Samaritan, explained on Wikipedia. 


Tom Holland, Dominion, The Making of the Western Mind  It is a book I have yet to read. I am familiar with Tom Holland’s thoughts on the subject mostly through following the podcast he hosts with Dominic Sandbrook, The Rest is History

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The Most Beautiful Words

Posted on February 4, 2025 by Stephen Shellard
Comic Strip Superhero
You’re fired!

I have occasionally listened to radio discussions in which poets have let slip their partiality for a particular word, usually arising from some resonant quality, something mellifluous in the sound or sounds of which it is composed. I find myself unmoved by such talk. For me it is the way words come together that matters.  

Donald Trump’s favourite word, it seems, is “tariff.”  I can’t imagine the 47th President of the United States having much time for the aforementioned poets and I am guessing the appeal of the word for him is something more akin to, “big stick,” which is to say, something with which he can threaten and intimidate those who he wishes to bully. 

The consensus amongst economists is that the imposition of tariffs by the United States will be an act of self-harm and will have the immediate impact of driving up prices in a manner which seems destined to hurt most of all the very people whose votes returned Trump to the White House. 

It’s just possible that Donald Trump, purported author of The Art of the Deal — ghostwritten, it is generally accepted, by Tony Schwarz — may have some tricks up his sleeve. Certainly his tariffs have been accompanied by demands. I notice for example that he has accused the Mexican government of being in league with the drug cartels which are rife in that country and are flooding narcotics into the lucrative market of the US. The implication is that Trump will lift the tariffs once this “alliance” has been broken. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has responded robustly:  We categorically reject the White House’s slanderous claim that the Mexico government has alliances with criminal organisations, as well as any attempt to intervene in our territory … If there is anywhere that such an alliance in fact exists, it is in the United States gun factories that sell high-powered weapons to these criminal groups.  

The Canadian Government also seems particularly up for the fight, no doubt energised by Trump’s threat to swallow them up—along with Greenland and any other territory of strategic or commercial interest to the US. There is no doubt, however, that the US does have some real big sticks in its arsenal and so I will make no predictions regarding how this may all play out. 

Trump, though, may not be entirely wrong in believing that the problem which underlies his strategy — the trade deficit with China — is at the root of many American woes. Outsourcing the production of  goods to places where Labour costs are cheap has killed off  productive capacity across the US leaving many communities in a limbo of low wages and precarious employment. 

The imposition of tariffs on imported goods might, in time, regenerate US productive capacity. This strategy alone is unlikely to make America great again, but it might at least make it a little more resilient and self reliant. 

But Trumpian tariffs are fraught with risk, for even if industry does return in time to the rust belt it will be under new terms which exploit artificial intelligence to keep the labour component of production to the barest minimum. And in the hiatus, the US economy will flag, and even rich folk will feel the pain—not perhaps in their day-to-day consumption, but certainly in the all-important bottom line of their businesses.

The global economy operates on an obvious imbalance: sweatshops and cheap labour in one part of the world supply low-cost consumer goods to far wealthier nations elsewhere. Yet this has been the mechanism by which China has raised its economy.  Their endgame is obvious: that Chinese citizens ultimately should be as prosperous, if not more prosperous, than those in the free world of Europe, Australia and  North America. A trade war may stall their progress towards this objective but a command economy such as China has many more strategies to fend off economic turbulence than the one-trick pony of a deregulated free market. 

There is a vogue in the current era for politically themed musicals, for example, Clinton: The Musical is a satirical exploration of the life and presidency of Bill Clinton, and unsurprisingly contains “adult themes.”  It remains to be seen whether some latter-day Stephen Sondheim ever comes up with a script for “Trump: The Musical,” and, if so, whether it will be presented under the banner of tragedy or farce. My money, currently, is riding on the latter. Just as likely, though, is that, in the wake of his presidency, Trump will, in similar manner to Art of the Deal, “author” a script and, regardless of the wreckage he leaves behind him, add his own story to the great compendium of comic book superheroes. That, perhaps, is the only fitting place for his legacy to rest.

Endnotes

Fury in Mexico over Trump’s ‘slanderous’ claim of cartel links

With thanks to ChatGPT for providing the comic strip images, to which I have added a few comic strip words. My instruction to ChatGPT was to provide some comic strip panels showing Donald Trump as a superhero. This it declined to do owing to “restrictions on creating images of public figures in specific roles.” It has been pointed out to me that the superhero image it eventually generated looks a little more like Boris Johnson than Donald Trump, but I think the theme of the strip fits quite well in either case and the more generic image works fine.

The most beautiful word …The only single word that has ever become slightly obsessional for me is Stephen Sondheim’s “Maria” [from West Side Story, music by Bernstein] which, very occasionally and despite my better judgement, I find myself trying to sing. Maria, Say it loud and there’s music playing Say it soft and it’s almost like praying Maria, I just can’t stop saying, Maria. Sadly I just don’t have the operatic chops to do it justice.

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Inauguration Blues …

Posted on January 23, 2025 by Stephen Shellard

I  was not paying a great deal of attention as President Donald J Trump went through the ceremony of his inauguration. Clearly, it was a great day for Trump’s admirers and the 1,500 felons he pardoned for their complicity in the January 6th insurrection. Naturally, for those on the left of the political spectrum it was a somewhat dispiriting spectacle to witness the triumphalist prodigality of the inauguration.  Suddenly, the very foundations of democracy seem  to be crumbling. The world looks on either in horror or bemused fascination. 

I noticed on Facebook some very forthright comment on the line up of tech billionaires present at the inauguration.  Key words in this angry litany were “nazis,” “fascists,” “scum” and “totalitarian.” Perhaps the moment has  come  to retire to some remote place and live out a quiet life?

And yet, for all its disquieting character, this was not the Nuremberg Rally, a vast and highly disciplined choreography of stentorian speeches, banners, swastikas and jackboots. By contrast, there was a sense of an uneasy set of alliances.  Trump, looking as though he’d just cheated his way to another win at golf; beside him, Melania who, by all accounts, would rather be home in Trump Tower. Adjacent in the front row, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, a bit bewildered in the snapshot I saw, next to  Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, a distinctly uneasy presence, and  Google’s Sundar Pichai, seemingly relaxed, but more interested in his phone than the proceedings. Inevitably, there too was Elon Musk engaging not with his tech peers but also, with his phone. Photographs appear to show him giving a Nazi salute at one point, but that certainly wasn’t part of any choreography, though we should perhaps be watching for further evidence of these Dr Strangelove tics.

The presence at the inauguration of these figures all linked with technologies that, not so long ago, were thought to be the key to a brighter and more democratic future, is disconcerting. Now it seems the tech behemoths are aligning themselves with the political leadership of a clown and stranger to the truth. It is not hard to see self interest in this positioning consistent with the notion that tech oligarchs believe themselves above regulation. They see in Trump a licence to do whatever they like so long as they play nice with Donald. 

It’s early days for that move to the country however, and the very tools created by those tech oligarchs may yet play out in ways that they do not anticipate. It’s true these tools are being abused and misused by some of the darker forces at loose in the  world. Yet of one thing we can be certain, those tech tools are here to stay and will remain a potential threat to those in power. Elon Musk posting to his followers on X does not spin out, week by week, like a latter-day Charles Dickens, a  tale full of complexity, intrigue  and richness of character. He is in fact a purveyor of half truths and innuendo which sooner or later will have to contend with the realities of Trump world as it unravels. His followers will lose faith in him and become bored.

 I don’t believe that the vast majority of people who support Donald Trump are anything other than decent. Their understanding of the Trump presidency will evolve as it proceeds. We are at the very zenith of the Trump phenomenon. Conversations will develop across myriad subnetworks and the apparent homogeneity of the Trump base will gradually be revealed as complicated and conflicted. In many cases they will quickly become tired of their favourite. People, in particular younger people, will start to shift politically and culturally. 

Such shifts take time to gestate. The evidence of change may not be visible at every turn but there will be a tipping point, perhaps triggered by events which dramatically undercut the faith of those who believe in Trump. It could be an economic crisis, or climate catastrophe, or the fallout from an untidy free market driven transition to an economy powered by AI. In four years time, Donald Trump’s presidency will be at an end and a great deal then will depend on the unpredictable “events” that have spun out in the interim. After all, his previous Presidency ran into the sand and there is no reason to suppose that some similar fate does not await him this time around. 

My judgements on matters of cultural shifts may have been skewed by the story of former Texas Governor, George Wallace. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Wallace was a staunch opponent of racial desegregation, a leading figure in resisting change to the Jim Crow laws. In 1972 an attempt was made on his life and he was shot four times. As a consequence he was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. However he was later to recant his opposition to desegregation.

I first really paid attention to Wallace’s story when I listened to an edition of Alistair Cooke’s weekly BBC Radio broadcast, Letter from America.  In this broadcast Cooke recalled an interview with Wallace in which he was invited to reflect on his change of heart.  In a gentle imitation of Wallace’s southern drawl Cooke intoned the response: “Times change. People move on. I was wrong.”  I did not write it down but, over the intervening years, this resonant declaration has repeatedly surfaced in my consciousness and perhaps this is one reason why, like Sam Cooke, I say: “A Change is Gonna Come.”

You don’t have to believe in my theory of a gestating counter-revolution within the very demographic that brought Trump to  power but I suspect that believing in the essential decency of that demographic will make that transformation just a little more likely.  

Endnotes

Sam Cook  A Change Is Gonna Come

George Wallace – I have been unable to find a source for Wallace’s words exactly as I render them, but Wikipedia does record hims as saying “I was wrong. Those days are over, and they ought to be over.” My own version maybe a Chinese whisper, but it is what I remember.

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A New Year’s Wish for the Blogisphere

Posted on January 3, 2025 by Stephen Shellard

And a Sauerkraut Starter

Leaves
Midwinter Leaves

For most of us who blog, I suspect, it is a relatively thankless pursuit. WordPress “Stats and Insights” makes it depressingly clear to me that only a small band of people subscribe to my blog and of these I am guessing only a handful read it regularly and with attention. Part of this may be a consequence of the variability of my subject matter. For example I have written occasionally on food and health. That has appeared to generate quite a lot of interest and been the source of one or two subscriptions. But those hopeful subscribers may have been very disappointed when my next post  was on proportional representation or the optimal number of political parties to make democratic politics function well or something else that has momentarily caught my interest. 

If I were in it for the big time, I’d drop the politics and the passing distractions and just focus on food.  Well why not? It could be fun to share my latest ideas on sauerkraut and how it’s possible, in no time at all, to whip up a starter based on the doubtful ingredient of live fermented cabbage mixed in with some spring onion, pickled peppers, a sprinkle of dried seaweed, and a little of anything else that comes to hand. I tried that out on some guests today and it went down surprisingly well… or maybe they were just being polite. Regardless, whether you love it or hate it, it’ll do wonders for your microbiome. But the well of my culinary knowledge is not a deep one, and it is mostly other things which feed my impulse to share my thoughts with a world that is directing its attention elsewhere.

But then, like all creative or craft activities, blogging has its own rewards. It’s pleasing to work out ideas that might otherwise fester and an engaging challenge to present them in a way that may catch the attention of some curious wanderer in the netherworld of the Internet.  

I read a piece in the Guardian recently about the disappointment you should expect if you write and publish a book. Hamiliton Nolan tells us  “most books sell shockingly few copies…You  should not write a book to get rich or famous. That won’t happen.” However he goes on, from his own personal experience, to offer some more encouraging advice: 

You should write a book because you have something to say. You should write a book because – long after all of your essays and blogposts and op-eds have been lost to time – that ragged, dusty hardcover book will still be sitting on the shelf of a library somewhere. And someone that you have never met, in a place that you have never been, can pick it up and look at it. And when you’re dead and buried and forgotten, that book, that tangible thing, will be read by a person, and the thing that you wanted to say will live on. That is enough….They might even like it. 

That’s a rather dismissive view of “essays and blogposts and op-eds” suggesting they are necessarily ephemeral, written for the moment and inevitably lost to posterity. So far as I am concerned my blog posts are already on the shelves of the vast library of the Internet. Indeed my blog “Stats and Insights” provides evidence that occasionally a new visitor to my shelf is sufficiently curious to pull out a post from a few years ago, blow off the dust, and take a look.  

It is probably safe to assume that all bloggers believe they have “something to say” and probably also that they are saying it with  style. I cannot exclude myself from such a slightly self satisfied self assessment, and yet I am also fairly sure that a failure in critical self awareness results in a good deal of what is being presented as wisdom in the blogosphere falling well short of that standard. Worse still a good deal is probably marred by a mixture of long windedness, pomposity and alternative facts.

But here’s the thing. Some of what’s out there is good and in many cases probably not getting the attention it deserves. Can something be done about this neglect?

There are already awards for bloggers but, so far as I can tell, they focus on existing big names and influencers. They are not of the kind that sift through the dross of the blogosphere in order to discover buried treasure. That’s a huge task and it’s hardly surprising that no one has taken it on. But artificial intelligence could offer a solution to this problem. 

I have taken to using ChatGPT to check my own blog posts with reference to spelling, grammar and readability. I don’t agree with all of its feedback. Occasionally it is just plain wrong, but it can also make very helpful suggestions. Provided with a brief specification of what is required,it delivers its feedback in about ten seconds flat. 

I am quite sure that, with a well written brief, ChatGPT could run through a hundred thousand blogs and deliver a shortlist of the most impressive work for a judging panel of real people to make a final adjudication. And if those judges think the short list unsatisfactory, then all they have to do is to tighten or adjust the brief and instruct ChatGPT to have another go. It never complains and willingly accepts correction.  

All it needs to make this happen is a sponsor. WordPress maybe would see it as in their interests to take on such a project but I am sure there could be other corporations interested in the idea. Like all awards, there would naturally be complaints about the winner and aspersions cast on the manner of drawing up the short list. Good  work will certainly be overlooked. But still I think the process would shine a light on an area of activity that deserves a little more attention. And if there was a category remotely descriptive of what defines my own blog activity, of course I’d enter. Who knows? I might get lucky. 

Endnotes

1] Envy, ego, pride and pain: what I learned from publishing my first book Hamilton Nolan

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The Monarchy is Dead …

Posted on December 30, 2024 by Stephen Shellard

But We’re Not Quite Sure What to Do About it

Irish Presidents from June 1938 to Present – all images from Wikipedia.

So far as I am aware the only significant political party which openly opposes the monarchy in current UK politics is Alba and their ambitions are stated in orderly and respectful terms. Yet my attention was recently drawn to some angry and uncompromising remarks on our current King and his family. It was the kind of conversation where I felt invited to join in the kicking or be branded a hopeless sycophant, but I declined the offer.

I grew up in that part of Northern Irish culture which was inclined to see the British Monarchy as the only trustworthy part of the UK constitution. The word “loyalty” was all about loyalty to the Crown and nothing beyond that. To quote something I have said in another context:  “In the late 1950s the Queen was young and beautiful and had a handsome husband with a distinguished war record. They were a dazzling couple, their growing family respectfully presented in a compliant media, quite unlike the aggressively intrusive paparazzi which lay waiting in their future, ready to overturn at least some of this idyll.”  

In other words, in that post war era, for those who wished to be loyal to the crown, the first family was a class act in every sense of those words. 

There were others in Northern Ireland, who had reason to be less easily seduced by this glamour and indeed, in my own home, there were no pictures of the Queen on the wall. I do  remember, in the first house I lived in, Avoca, Balmoral Park, Newry,  what seemed a huge Union Jack, folded up in the attic. However, it was never run up any flagpoles and when we moved house it must have been left behind in the flitting for I never saw it again. 

I think my parents, who had lived  most of their lives in the Irish Republic, at times betrayed some nostalgia for the President they had left behind. Eamonn Devalera had only escaped the death sentence following his part in the 1916 Easter Rising because he was an American Citizen. He was an uncritical observer of the prominent role taken by the Roman Catholic Church in the nascent Irish State. These credentials were an obvious challenge to the protestant and unionist heritage in which my parents had both grown up. Yet I  recall my father referring more than once, during Eamonn Devalera’s tenure as President from 1959 to 1973,  as “Dev”.  To my young ears this seemed almost affectionate. 

Whatever thoughts my parents may have had on the comparative merits of President Devalera and Queen Elizabeth, they kept them to themselves. I was given no instruction on the matter but gradually formed my own opinion. I don’t use the word “republican” to describe myself, for in the context of Irish politics, that has a very loaded meaning. But, for as long as I can remember, I have thought the British Monarchy an anachronism which should be swept away at the first opportunity. The Monarchy is a symbol of inequality and inherited privilege which has no place in a modern democracy. 

Yet the angry tone of that conversation which I overheard was troubling to me.  I have no particular animus against our current King who I think takes quite worthy stances on issues such as the environment. I am less enamoured of his thoughts on architecture, but  I’d be perfectly happy to sit down and have a chat with him on the subject. I feel sympathy for him in his very public endurance of a prostate cancer diagnosis. Andrew, on the other hand … well I don’t really want to go there.

Some time during the 1980s I wrote a song about the then heir to the throne. It was at a moment when his marriage to Diana was beyond repair but his relationship with Camilla was yet to be acknowledged. I sang the song at least once at the Dumfries folk club. I won’t say it was received with great acclaim, but I thought it worthy of a tape series being organised at  that time by John Grieg, formerly of Inverness, but based in Edinburgh. The title of the series was Songs from Under the Bed. I’d already recorded three songs for No. 3 in the series. However the song I’d written on the heir to the throne did not make the cut. It was rejected, I thought with some scorn, for evidently it did not sufficiently demonise the class enemy. 

Whatever the merits of the song, this judgement continues to rankle. I saw the song not as an attack on the man but as a critique of the institution in all its infantalising glory.   

Let’s Pension Them Off. 

Quite how we deal with a redundant royal family is a minor matter.  I am quite sure that we shouldn’t put them in the pillory. Let us thank them for their service and quietly pension them off, perhaps in a style somewhat less than that to which they have become accustomed. 

Getting the new presidency right is a trickier and more important challenge. Where heads of state are concerned there are two types of president. The first of these has significant political power, as we see in the United States or France. Such a president would make no sense for the United Kingdom where we have a parliamentary system of government and where the monarch, as head of state, is there to provide leadership and a sense of continuity that transcends politics. That would be a starting point for the job description of a UK president. 

The problem with electing a president to take on this kind of role is that they are inclined to seem unimportant and to be overlooked.  Does anyone know the name of Germany’s Bundespresident for example (Frank-Walter Steinmeier) or the current president of the Republic of Ireland (Michael D. Higgins)?  The elections of such presidents are often on the basis of a low turnout – Higgins, for example was elected on a turnout of 43.9%. This undercuts the perceived legitimacy of the elected individual.  People just aren’t that interested in a president without real power.  

It might be better to delegate the task of choosing a president to a group of people who live and breathe electoral politics.  It’s just a suggestion, a conversation starter really, but why not an electoral college made up of all the people who, either in the past or in the present, have been elected to political  office? I’m talking councillors, MPs, MSPs, Mayors.  Let them do the work. I imagine nominations  from ordinary citizens, perhaps accepted on the basis of a hundred signatories. The  deliberations of the electoral college in considering the relative merits of those nominated for the role could be interesting. I imagine several rounds of voting to reduce the field. The individual who emerges on top might surprise us, and perhaps have some of the qualities we would hope for in a national leader. I could imagine a process which might generate some razzmatazz, like Sports Personality of the Year or the Oscars. Or maybe there’s a better way? Suggestions please! 

Endnotes

1] The quotation referring to the youth and beauty of Queen Elizabeth II in the post war period is drawn from my memoir, Remembered Fragments available from Amazon as ebook or paperback.

2] The tape series Songs from Under the Bed is no longer available but here is the cover from tape No.3. The story of the series can be found in the book, The Eskimo Republic: Scots Political Song in Action 1951-1999, by Ewan McVicar. “Ewan McVicar is to be commended for the work of compiling this book which should be in the library of every person with a serious interest in folk music.”

3] The rejected song …

Who are Your Friends Charlie?

Who are your friends Charlie

As you stand there alone

The special branch are at your side

The world peers into your home

You could have been a bricklayer

You could have taught in school

You could have been a bus driver

But Charlie you were born to rule

***

You loved an actress, I have heard it said

But took to wife a pretty child

To please the crowds instead

I am sure you loved her

In a passing way

But who did you really love

When she had come to stay

***

Who do you trust Charlie

Are there a chosen few

Allowed to look you in the eye

To tell your confidences to

Here in the crowd

A flag in every fist

A people pressed against the rails

By a force that they cannot resist

***

Round every corner

Cheats and sycophants await

The subject nation

That is your estate

As the cameras aim

And the onlookers gape

Do you ever wish Charlie

That you could make your escape?

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Bogland

Posted on December 19, 2024 by Stephen Shellard

Tradition, Memory, and the Future of Peatlands

Once upon a time, the burghers of Dumfries would dig and burn peat to keep them warm in the cold of winter. The town had an array of bogs or mosses from which to choose.  The road out to Lockerbie floats on the Lochar Moss, in the midst of which is now located the town dump. The Moss Road, not far west of the town, runs through what was the Mabie Estate, and borders a peat bog, now, to some degree, drained and planted with conifers. The eastern flank of the town too was made defensible by the presence of an expanse of peat bog pushing the access from Annan northwards onto the higher  ground. In an earlier time these were sustainable resources, like the cut and come again magic pudding in the Australian story my Aunt Rose sent me when I was a child. 

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, my family went on caravan holidays from our home in Newry to places in the far south and the west of Ireland, Cork, Kerry, and Mayo. The smell of what we called “turf” fires, burning in the cottages we passed, was one of the fondest of memories that we took home with us. My mother would tell me about the fires in those cottages, that they were never allowed to go out, for all the cooking was done over them. 

Patrick Laurie, writing on his Substack describes, in more recent times, an encounter with  men and women cutting peat in Donegal. He was moved to stop off from his journey to work with them. This prompted him to recall, with obvious nostalgia, his own experiences when a boy with his family in Galloway,  cutting peat for the home fire. He goes on to speak of how he continues to cut peat by hand from the moorland around his farm to feed his own hearth. “I think it’s important to keep the tradition alive.” he says but continues, “I balance that impulse against the growing awareness of environmental damage caused by peat extraction.”

I was at a recent  Crichton Conversation given by  Professor Roger Croft. His subject was planting trees, but bogland and its abuse featured prominently in what he had to say.  He told us that one of the ongoing follies of large scale tree planting in Scotland is that it is often being done over peat bogs. Thus the capture of carbon by the trees is cancelled by the destruction of the bog. Not only is there a  loss of important habitat but carbon that would otherwise be sequestered without the need to plant any trees is squandered.

I cannot comment on the sustainability of turf cutting in the west of Ireland. There it always seemed to me a practice which would have made the subsistence economy I witnessed sixty years ago in that part of the world more bearable. But in Galloway, Patrick Laurie cutting enough peat to keep his own fire burning throughout the winter seems, as he suggests, more like an honouring of a tradition, a tradition that has all but disappeared. A few peats for his own fire, from a cut and come again source, is a minor detail when set against the ravaging, on a large scale, of peat bogs by tree planting, an activity made the more scandalous by the fact that lazy allocation of government grants and a failure to check what is happening is enabling the practice. 

Endnotes

And the Yellow Ale, Substack  Peat Culture  The substack is a recent venture and Patrick’s work may also be found at his blog, Bog Mrtyle and Peat.

The Magic Pudding, by Norman Lindsay   A great read as I remember it!

Crichton Conversation with Professor Roger Crofts   “Roger trained as a geographer and geomorphologist.  He has worked in universities, The Scottish Office, and was the Founder CEO of Scottish Natural Heritage.”

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Far between sundown’s finish and midnight’s broken toll

Posted on December 15, 2024 by Stephen Shellard

I saw a post on Facebook recently, an excoriation of racism. Maybe I thought it a little self-righteous in its sentiment, but I couldn’t think of any comment that wouldn’t itself seem a little self-righteous.  I don’t really know the author of the post other than through Facebook, but I find what he puts up interesting. I clicked the “like” button, felt a bit lame, and moved on. 

But I continued to stew about the matter. I share a visceral dislike of racism – and sectarianism and the gamut of othering responses. For me, openness to difference is a virtue. Yet I know that sometimes my response to other people, on the basis of trivial aspects of their appearance or character or manner or views they express, can be ungenerous. To some extent, my identity as a liberal and open-minded person is an act. It is not entirely genuine and requires effort to sustain.

Many people who exhibit casual racism can also, in other circumstances, demonstrate generosity.  If I am unable to recognise this other side of their character, and if I am too ready to accuse them of being racist,  I may trap them in a racist mindset. This polarisation is a defining feature of the current era.

A less brisk and judgmental response might open someone to a different view of the world. Sometimes, getting along with others requires effort, and the world would benefit from more of that effort. 

These reflections on prejudice  brought to mind two Dylan songs that deal with the same theme in contrasting ways.

I pity the poor immigrant

Who wishes he would’ve stayed home

Who uses all his power to do evil

But in the end is always left so alone

That man whom with his fingers cheats

And who lies with ev’ry breath

Who passionately hates his life

And likewise, fears his death

The song seems to acknowledge that immigrants, often under extreme duress, may face challenges that can complicate their relationships with others.  Elsewhere Dylan provides a message with which I feel more at ease:

Far between sundown’s finish and midnight’s broken toll

We ducked inside the doorways, thunder crashing

As majestic bells of bolts struck shadows in the sounds

Seemin’ to be the chimes of freedom flashing

Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight

Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight

And for each and every underdog soldier in the night

And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing

They’re both remarkable songs: Chimes of Freedom stands as a great visionary piece, while I Pity the Poor Immigrant serves as a reminder of the challenges of realising such a vision.

Endnotes

I Pity the Poor Immigrant

Chimes of Freedom  

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A National Park for Galloway…

Posted on December 7, 2024 by Stephen Shellard

A Chance for Revival or a Risky Gamble?

Landscape in Galloway

A proposal is afoot to make some part of Galloway – as yet undefined — a national park also to include, perhaps, South Ayrshire. This proposal has sparked increasing debate, with strong resistance emerging within the local community. If the placards that have gone up around the region are a reliable indication, the farming community seem mostly to be opposed. Farmers are inclined to present themselves as the guardians of the land and so are no doubt fearful of a blizzard of petty regulation in the wake of a park designation. There is plenty of evidence however that many modern farming practices — overuse of fertilisers, pesticides and more, have been the destroyers of the land and are depleting the soil. But even writer and broadcaster, Tom Heap, a proponent of  “regenerative agriculture,” is sceptical. When interviewed at the Wigtown Book Festival recently about his book Landsmart, he said national parks are “a bit of a red herring” and that “Unlike US national parks, they are not very good for nature as the land is still in private ownership.”

Amongst those supporting  a park are a subset who imagine the designation would halt the march of wind farms. Many clearly believe wind turbines are a blot on the landscape with pylons on the way to add to the eyesore of it all. This reasoning is fanciful. More wind farms and pylons are on the way, like them or not.

My principal experience of a national park is the Lake District.  It was established “to protect the landscape by restricting unwelcome change by industry or commerce.” I haven’t been there for a few years now. It was always a lovely place to visit, unspoiled by economic forestry and the litter and mess of industrial farming that is widespread in Galloway, where little traditional farm steadings are so often surrounded by huge and indisputably ugly sheds. Regiments of Sitka spruce  occupy the hillsides. 

This said, all is not lost in Galloway. Despite these blots, much that is to be treasured remains. It is a beautiful region, its hills and largely unspoilt coastline, its salt marshes and tidal extremes. There is no shortage of places to walk. Whatever I may think of industrial farming and the ecological damage it has done, there are still small and unspoilt farms to be seen, mostly in the hills. In addition to the dairy herds corralled in sprawling sheds, there are belted galloways in the fields, year round. Less common and less showy are rigget Galloway cattle, an older breed, small and hardy with a white strip along their back.

In the Lake District I’ve stayed in bed and breakfasts, I’ve stood in queues to climb Great Gable in the snow, I’ve enjoyed the outdoors ambience on the streets of Keswick, and walked the margins of the lakes. The Lake District was established as a National Park over seventy years ago. Its cultural heritage was already widely celebrated, from Wordsworth and John Ruskin, to Beatrix Potter — who gifted land to help establish the park. There were, from the outset of park status, unspoilt, working traditional hill farms.  The contribution of the landscape was equally clear, the immutability and grandeur of the mountains, valleys and lakes.  

But our understanding of what may be important in a landscape and the environment has changed. The hills and uplands of  Galloway, which were once thought to be as immutable as the mountains of the Lake District, are now recognised as ecosystems: complex, fragile, already damaged—perhaps beyond repair. I was talking with a friend recently and we were lamenting the disappearance of field mushrooms from our landscape, something we were both familiar with in years gone by. That is just anecdotal evidence of species decline in this area but I also read Patrick Laurie’s blog and he paints a very grim picture detailing the decline of ground nesting birds in heathland areas of Galloway. Another friend, more authoritative on such matters than I, assures me that “national parks, in particular, have lower biodiversity indices than  non-park areas.” I would accept that this is not conclusive evidence of the failure of national parks to protect nature. The matter requires further research.

It is suggested that a Galloway National Park designation could be the foundation for an economic regeneration of the region. Given the nature of the proposal, any economic dividend is surely going to be based on tourism. In 2022, the Lake District National Park received 18.14 million tourist visitors. Those are impressive figures, but I feel I must ask a challenging question at this point. Is it possible to increase tourism in a manner that is consistent  with the regeneration and restoration of our environmental heritage? Is doubling the number of camper vans on our roads and increasing the foot fall in the wild places of the region really going to support fragile ecosystems. And then there will be all those toilets we have to put in. And the signs. Signs for every damn thing you can imagine.

The concept of National Park was first developed in the United States.  Huge areas of land were set aside. Access to these areas is, as I understand it, highly regulated. It really is all about the wildlife, the bears, the wolves, the coyotes, the eagles and the myriad other species less well known which contribute to the viability of such an ecosystem.  Such a model depends on the existence of unpopulated wide open spaces, on a grand scale.   

We are a small and rather populous island. Dumfries and Galloway’s status as a relatively quiet backwater is unlikely to be secured by a commitment to a project intended to increase visitor footfall.

And another thing. Yes, more tourism would bring jobs, and in particular shops, restaurants and hotels could hope to see some increase in their business. But tourist jobs, for the most part, are seasonal and poorly paid. Tourism will never be the basis of serious prosperity in the region.  

Of course I believe a national park could be designed in such a way as to genuinely protect the environment, but so many competing interests are crowding in to try and shape the outcome. I’d like to suggest a citizens assembly as the best and fairest way to decide the matter; a genuine cross section of the local population facilitated by a capable team who would bring the expertise required to answer questions and provide a full spectrum of opinion for those selected to make the adjudication.

I might not agree with the recommendations that came out of such an assembly, but I would live with them.  Is it likely to happen?  I doubt it, but I haven’t given up hope yet! 

End Notes and References

Tom Heap — Land Smart: How to Give People and Nature the Space to Thrive  I mention Tom Heap’s visit to Wigtown Book Festival in another post, where he also comments on windfarms and one or two other things which may be of interest.

Information from NatureScot  Information Hub – A proposal for a National Park in Galloway 

The Lake District Known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region and national park in Cumbria, North West England.” Wikipedia  Lake District National Park  

Patrick Laurie, Bog Myrtle and Peat This single post is just a sample of Patrick Laurie’s often challenging thoughts on the matter of conservation.

A Citizens’ Assembly is a representative group of citizens who are selected at random from the population to learn about, deliberate upon, and make recommendations in relation to a particular issue or set of issues. It is still up to elected politicians whether or not to follow the assembly’s recommendations.Citizens Assembly 

How national parks failed nature – and how to fix them This Guardian article lends support to the point that national parks do not score well for biodiversity.

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