BREXIT - PAST AND PRESENT CONFUSIONS

To say that British attitudes to Europe have been exceedingly ambivalent is almost to understate the case. A profound hope that Europe would succeed and that continental Europe would unify were mixed with scepticism that historic divisions could be surmounted and cynicism that political morality could be sustained. Yet the economic success of the EEC galvanised underperforming Britain to apply for membership, achieved in 1973 after two French vetoes. Relations with Europe have often been fractious and the impetus towards EU centralisation has hit many sensitive nerves; the introduction of the Euro, which Britain declined to join, has added a layer of complication. 

It is natural that we should examine our origins in Europe and learn lessons from our erstwhile leaders. Winston Churchill, in a memorable and moving speech in Zurich in 1946, proposed the Council of Europe, actually formed in 1949, as a prelude to the move towards “a kind of United States of Europe” and encouraged reconciliation between France and Germany.

Churchill advocates European unity

It never occurred to Churchill that Britain herself should join in this enterprise. Britain had her large Commonwealth and an intense national post-war pride; he viewed Britain as a great power acting in cooperation with the USA and the USSR. He was personally sponsoring (while in opposition) the recovery of prostrate Europe, mobilising his unique prestige, to inject some new vision into France and Germany, ruined and humiliated by their wartime activities. Back in office in 1951, the conservatives maintained a friendly but remote relationship with Europe, sending only a low-level delegation as observers to the crucial Messina conference in 1955 which led to the 1957 Treaty of Rome, creating the 6-nation Common Market. Anthony Eden was very doubtful about its future success while Labour’s Clem Attlee was gruffly dismissive. Know them all well. Very recently this country spent a great deal of blood & treasure rescuing four of ’em from attacks by the other two…..!

Britain’s faltering economic performance in the 1950s and 1960s, the Suez debacle and the disintegration of the solidarity of the Commonwealth, convinced Harold Macmillan and officialdom that the only solution was for Britain to apply for membership of the EEC. He was frustrated by a de Gaulle veto in 1963, repeated to the Harold Wilson ministry in 1967. De Gaulle was partly animated by a dislike of “Anglo-Saxon” influences, but he was acutely aware of how different Britain was from continental Europe. His analysis rings true today:

 England in effect is insular, she is maritime, she is linked through her exchanges, her markets, her supply lines to the most diverse and often the most distant countries; she pursues essentially industrial and commercial activities, and only slight agricultural ones. She has in all her doings very marked and very original habits and traditions.

MacMillan was an unusually radical Tory (more accurately a Whig) and although he failed in Europe, his lieutenant and eventual successor Edward Heath completed successful accession negotiations in 1973, once de Gaulle gave way to Pompidou. Heath was a moderniser and a managerial type who saw the Treaty as essentially a trade agreement; he had no time for historic legacy (expressed by dissenters like Enoch Powell) and he dismissed as airy rhetoric the preamble to the Treaty which pledged signatories to “ever closer Union”. But it was seriously intended. Some Labour figures remembered the 1962 warning from Hugh Gaitskell to consider membership very carefully:

It does mean, if this is the idea, the end of Britain as an independent European state...it means the end of a thousand years of history.

Heath ploughed on regardless and his policy enjoyed widespread support; but the UK electorate had not debated these issues at all deeply.

The EEC did not provide Britain with the economic stimulus it needed. There were quarrels about the level of farming subsidies, the sharing of fisheries; the long-trusted trade links between the UK, Australia and New Zealand were abruptly broken. Trade with the EEC grew but Britain remained the sick man of Europe. Margaret Thatcher presided for 11 years over far-reaching reforms of British institutions and policies and by the mid-1980s the UK’s economic performance was transformed and has been broadly satisfactory ever since. The abrasive Thatcher style made the EU more accommodating and gradually barriers to the single market in services were reduced.

Best of enemies - Jacques Delors and Margaret Thatcher in 1989

While respected UK politicians such as Roy Jenkins played enthusiastic roles in Europe, Eurocrats like Jacques Delors (10 years President of the Commission) pressed on with an integrationist agenda and John Major struggled to convince his party that this was an appropriate direction of travel. The 1992 Maastricht Treaty formally created the European Union and set out a programme for the introduction of the Euro, the common currency. The UK had joined the ERM but speculation against the pound forced her out on Black Wednesday, a heavy political setback for the Tories but the start of a strong economic recovery. Many Tories swore never again to join a European currency project. Would Thatcher have signed the Maastricht Treaty? Her political secretary, Charles Powell, says yes, but Bill Cash, arch-Eurosceptic MP recently produced a 2002 letter from Maggie declaring she never would have done so.

Whatever, the British tide of disillusion with Europe quickly rose and the uneasy relationship worsened as the economic crisis took hold in 2008. The Euro had been introduced to 18 countries, with Britain declining to participate: its central bank and the EU Commission handled the crisis badly and the dominant economy within the zone, Germany, came to exercise a hegemonic control. This offended many other nationalities in the EU – the Common Market had been founded precisely to avoid such an eventuality. The EU record on Greece, on migration and on combatting terrorism gives no confidence and its undemocratic ways are actually frightening.

In the hope of lancing the boil of discontent with Europe, David Cameron had promised a referendum after a renegotiation aimed at liberalising the EU. The renegotiation failed to elicit any substantial change and the Tory Party in Parliament is evenly split between the Leavers and the Remainers, the Party in the country probably favouring Brexit. Labour are mainly Remainers if they tow the party line, but Corbyn is not an effective leader. Nigel Farage will try to re-mobilise the 3m UKIP voters, strongly in favour of Brexit while the SNP promise Scotland will vote to stay.

Boris and David slug it out

The campaign so far has been uninspiring. Many an assertion and counter-assertion but no very convincing economic analysis, only arid lists of business signatories for In or Out. A rather crude Project Fear from the Remainers has exaggerated the dangers of exit, the threats to security, the unemployment level and the dire fate of sterling. We await some solid sense from cerebral wallflower Michael Gove and some passion from bland David Cameron. Boris Johnson is an excellent comic turn (a cut above Donald Trump) but his national leadership credentials are not obvious. His bumbling, contradictory pronouncements are not a boon to clarity but maybe it will all get better as 23 June comes nearer.

I think Britain does not remotely fit into the EU as it has evolved. I am fortified in my Brexit views by the belief that my political mentors, Gaitskell and Thatcher, would approve. We shall prosper and can only live within the kind of society we want, if we now vote Leave.

SMD

27.03.16

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016

SET IN STONE

The distinguished architectural writer Alec Clifton-Taylor was a particular authority on the materials used in Britain’s buildings and certainly Britain is made more beautiful by the use of some lovely native stone. English cathedrals, parish churches and some towns are often particularly blessed and while the modern world is much dominated by brick and concrete, stone remains the finest of materials, the material which lasts centuries and you cherish in “the deep heart’s core”.

I was raised in Aberdeen and had the good fortune to live my youth in a majestic Victorian house in Rubislaw Den South, one of the finest city streets. The houses there and in much of the city were built of the famous grey, sparkling Granite extracted from Rubislaw Quarry nearby – every day one heard the stone- blasting in the deep quarry, becoming exhausted and closed since 1971. I loved the granite and our house sported two fine cylindrical columns framing the entrance and in the 1960s I used daily to touch the columns and gave thanks for the privilege of living in such splendour.

Rubislaw Den South houses

Aberdeen, the Granite City

 

There was a great Victorian vogue for Aberdeen Granite on tombstones (not always in sympathy with earlier tombs) but it is still used as an expensive building material often as a solid facing for banks, subtly concealing the bankers’ spines of jelly and feet of clay!

Edinburgh’s native stone is a variety of hard Sandstone, most famously from the Craigleith quarries, which adorns much of the New Town and was exhausted by 1895. Register House and Charlotte Square are clad in this stone and architect Robert Adam was so fond of this elegant material he transported it to London for Chandos House, Queen Anne Street in 1771.

Register House, Edinburgh in Craigleith stone

Chandos House, London

London has no local building stone and has imported stone for centuries. Kentish Ragstone, a rough, durable limestone, is plentiful and was much used in medieval Westminster Abbey and in many other churches and to good effect in Kent itself for the Archbishop’s Palace at Maidstone.

Archbishop's Palace, Maidstone in Kentish Ragstone

Much the most famous stone to be imported into London was Portland Stone, from the Jurassic Portland Island in Dorset. Christopher Wren moved tons of this stone to London by barge and gave us St Paul’s Cathedral among many others. The Cenotaph erected by Lutyens in 1919 in Whitehall is also in gravely respectful Portland Stone.

St Paul's Cathedral in Portland Stone

 

The Cenotaph too

                         

Perhaps the finest building to be erected in England in the 20^thcentury was the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott in 1903 and not completed until 1978. It is a colossal building with stunning vistas, much enhanced by the Rose Sandstone used, diffusing light, colour and shadow throughout from its matchless elevated position overlooking the city.

Rose Sandstone for the Anglican Cathedral, Liverpool

There are many other hotspots of cherished stone – Cornwall has its Granite (which I find rather too dark), Wales rejoices in Slate, while unpromising but ubiquitous Flint can look very well if dressed and combined with another stone as in the exterior of the Suffolk churches of Lavenham and Long Melford.

But I want now to move on to my, and everyone’s, favourite English stone, the mellow Oolitic Limestone associated with Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire, the Cotswolds and Bath.

In years past, before the motorway network was developed, we used to drive from Scotland to London by the AI and a memorable stop-over was Stamford, Lincolnshire. A splendid historic town, with surviving 17^th and 18^th century buildings Stamford’s local stone is much in evidence here as it is at Lincoln Cathedral further North.

Limestone delights in Stamford, 

For 7 years I lived in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds in semi-retirement, surrounded by some of the loveliest villages in England. The gentle Cotswold escarpment contains unspoiled settlements and the stone is so distinctive.

Stanton, Gloucestershire

Chipping Campden, almshouses and church

Descending West you soon get to the astonishing city of Bath with its renowned stone and glorious architecture. However to my mind Cotswold stone is best displayed at the University of Oxford where I misspent 3 highly agreeable years in the 1960s.

Brasenose College and vistas from Radcliffe Square, Oxford

How fortunate we British are to live in a beautiful country among unrivalled townscapes, hewn from stone of the highest quality!

SMD, 19.03.16, Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016

BOOTS

Rather breathlessly, (I need to shed a good few pounds), hauling on a pair of stout boots, proof against the perils of the English winter, I thought how useful these workaday items are and how much they have improved in my lifetime. Of course there is also a dazzling selection of up-market wellies, as worn by the plutocrats, the Royals and the country set, British Hunters and Barbours, US Muck Boots and eye-wateringly expensive French offerings from Le Chameau. Seems a shame to make them dirty, but from Glastonbury to Burghley, mud, glorious mud is inevitable.

Le Chameau Chasseur, a snip at £340

Ignoring such exotica, in my youth 60 years ago, stout leather boots were reckoned either exclusively military or irredeemably proletarian. The noisy spit-and-polish parade ground, the factory or the farmyard were the natural home for those hob-nailed or tackety objects. Those days are long gone and the Forces (bless ‘em all) have recently ordered a rather fetching pair of new combat boots.

The new combat boots

No longer all-leather but of light practical materials, rubber-soled, easily laced up, they are now coloured brown – black boots are only required for ceremonial occasions.

We civilians can don our US-influenced Timberlands, our Clark’s or a hundred other excellent outdoor brands while the ladies pose deliciously in their cosy Uggs or elegant Guccis or Chanels.

Boot does not always have pleasant connotations: to give someone the boot is summarily to dismiss them, to kick them out. A boot camp tends to be a military prison with a harsh regime. To submit someone to the boot is to crush their feet and lower leg in a boot-shaped instrument of torture. Not our agreeable kind of boots at all. We British heap all manner of clobber into the boot of our car, especially on that holiday trip. The US calls it a “trunk” – where are the elephants?

In “the good old days” there was a servant known as the Boots who, especially in hotels and inns, scraped, cleaned and polished the footwear of patrons. The most famous Boots was Sam Weller, discovered by Mr Pickwick in the White Hart Inn at Borough, Southwark. His Cockney wit was hugely enjoyed by the 1830s reading public and he was crucial to the early success of Charles Dickens.

Sam Weller, Mr Pickwick's servant

But say the word “Boots” to a British audience and it will instantly assume you are talking about Boots the Chemist, the chain of pharmacies seen on almost every British High Street and shopping centre. The business was founded in 1849 as a herbalist by John Boot but developed by his son Jesse Boot (poor fellow to have such a moniker inflicted upon him!) in Nottingham and prospered mightily. By 1914 there were 560 Boots shops in Britain and Jesse became Baron Trent. The company remained a UK public company until 2006 and then after various private equity transactions and option exercises, Boots fell to the US chain Walgreens. Boots was a philanthropic company, caring for its employees and assisting the city of Nottingham. But the world moves on….

Being an old-fashioned chap, I cherish the now archaic use of the expression “What boots it?” – What does it avail? This 1859 verse from Edward FitzGerald encapsulates the fatalism in his wonderful translation of The Rubiaiyat of Omar Khayyam and undermines our assumptions about Victorian attitudes.

Ah, fill the Cup – what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn Tomorrow, and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them if Today be sweet!

SMD,

 10.03.16,

 Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016

ON THE DEFENSIVE

As I breathe in the bracing air of Folkestone in March, I observe on the coast down to Hythe and Dymchurch a fine selection of Martello Towers, those flat-topped strong-points built to defend Britain from a Napoleonic invasion in the early 1800’s. They were garrisoned by an officer and 20 men and would sport an artillery piece, the flat roof giving a 360 degree line of fire. These Towers, rather like those concrete tank-traps that littered our post-WW2 beaches, were never used in anger and I fell to musing about the defensive mentality and its perils.

Martello Tower at Folkestone

The art of fortification no doubt originated with the Ancients but in the modern era the great names were the Marquis de Vauban, whose walled cities adorn France, and the Russian Eduard Todleban, the hero of the defence of Sevastapol during the Crimean War. The Germans were adept at fortification and could rely on the Hindenburg Line in Northern France in WW1, only finally overrun in 1918. The French at huge cost had already repulsed the Germans at the fortress of Verdun in 1916.

The heroic French at Verdun

The perils of adopting a defensive mentality, somewhere to hide behind, somewhere to be safe, were starkly illustrated by the French Maginot Line, that string of high-tech fortresses and obstacles stretching from the Belgian border to Switzerland. The idea of fixed defensive positions was quite sensible, given French demographic and economic realities, but in the event the 1940 Blitzkrieg by-passed the Line and the Germans invaded through the unpromising terrain of the Ardennes, where the Line was weakest. There is still some truth in the belief that the Maginot Line undermined French morale and dulled more imaginative strategies. The German equivalent, The Siegfried Line, was mocked by the British music hall in 1939, but it took a long wait until 1945 before the Allies could indeed “hang out our washing on the Siegfried Line”. Many fortresses were to see suffering, heroism, triumph and disaster in WW2 of which Tobruk, Stalingrad and Breslau are famous examples.

Just as Churchill said after Dunkirk: Wars are not won by retreats and evacuations, so it must be true that campaigns are won by advances, aggression and mobility, by energy, ruthlessness and enterprise. May the Leavers and Remainders in the forthcoming Brexit Referendum learn whatever lessons they can!

I suppose a typical defender in the wholly different sporting world is abrasive John Terry, erstwhile captain of Chelsea, not everyone’s favourite or Arsenal’s Per Mertesacker, their imposing but lumbering centre-back. In cricket the most celebrated defender is accomplished Geoffrey Boycott, who took a long time to build up his innings, often displeasing the spectators with his Yorkshire self-absorption. The all-rounder who most upset and frustrated the Australians was from a rather earlier generation, Trevor “Barnacle” Bailey, almost impossible to dislodge, his endless forward defensive strokes bringing Antipodean groans especially in the 1953 test series when England regained the Ashes.

Trevor "Barnacle" Bailey hits out

Bailey was of course a useful player in many ways but we all enjoyed much more the cavalier skills of Denis Compton, Ted Dexter or Ian Botham, who really set pulses racing!

SMD

05.03.16

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2016.