Sidney's Place: THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'

It was as long ago as 1964 that Bob Dylan made this plea:

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

In the last few weeks several events have signalled an end to the comfortable status quo within whose cushioned ease many have happily existed.

The first event was not in itself one to shake the world order or bother the chancelleries of the Great Powers but it warmed the hearts of all Britain – The Royal Wedding, between Prince Harry, lively scion of the House of Windsor and Meghan Markle, elegantly poised TV actress and equality campaigner of mixed Afro-American origin. The wedding itself was perfection, bright sunshine, St George’s Chapel, Windsor stunningly decorated, moving music, a rousing American episcopal address, Prince Charles earning Brownie points with his genial tact, a warmly enthusiastic crowd of guests and spectators and the bride and groom clearly much in love.

Delightful Harry and Meghan

The more profound hope released by this wedding was that the monarchy, normally the most conservative of institutions, was truly embracing a multi-racial UK recognising the full rights of her many-faceted UK citizens. This delivers a morale-boost to left-behind groups of people who suffered the horrors of the Grenfell Tower Fire and the bureaucratic injustices meted out to some of the Windrush generation by an unimaginative Home Office. Meghan joining the royal family is a powerfully symbolic reassurance to our immigrant population and to the Commonwealth. With over 2bn people watching the wedding on TV, it was a triumphant “soft power” winner for the UK. Long may the happy couple flourish!

The second ground-shifting event was the developing crisis in Italy, which has thrown the EU into disarray. The Italian economy has misfired since 2008 and 10 years of EU-imposed austerity has tried the patience of the Italian voter beyond all limits. A hung election has left the politicians scratching around to create an effective coalition and the two populist parties The 5-Star Movement (centre-left) and The League (hard-right) looked to be making progress. But the President of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, vetoed the proposed Economy Minister Paolo Savona, who has talked disparagingly about the EU and the euro. Mattarella is constitutionally within his rights but if new elections are triggered, euro membership is debated and rejected and the populists win again, the euro and indeed the EU could start to unravel, as the populist programme runs a coach and horses through the EU’s fiscal rules. Savona called the euro “a German cage” (echoing Nick Ridley’s 1990 remark that the euro was “all a German racket to dominate Europe”).

Personally, my focus is on a quick Brexit and I would regret the end of the EU. Yet diplomacy from Brussels has been cack-handed where it has not been coldly aggressive. We are a tolerant people but I suspect the Italians, the Spanish and the French are less willing to suffer provocations from the EU’s political “elites”, whose visibly slipping hold on power can be observed with much satisfaction.

Times are also changing in the Irish Republic, once a priest-ridden backwater, then a “Celtic Tiger” until corruption and financial crisis overshadowed all. A referendum on abortion and on the notorious 8^th Amendment has given a two-thirds majority for repeal. Irish women feel liberated (asserting the right to choose) and certainly it is a social revolution with Ireland joining the EU mainstream. Agitation for liberalisation in Northern Ireland will mount but early progress is unlikely with no autonomous government yet formed there, opposition from crucial Tory allies the DUP, and a reluctance for Westminster to become involved in a devolved matter.

Celebrations on the referendum result in the Irish Republic

A much more tentative earth-shaker is the on-off diplomacy between America and North Korea, supposedly leading to a summit in Singapore on 12 June. Kim Jong-Un head of the dynastic and brutal regime in the North, put out peace feelers after a series of rocket tests. America wants to de-nuclearize the Korean peninsula and Kim has already destroyed his test-sites (which may have been inoperable anyway). The North suffers under draconian sanctions. A deal is possible and uncharacteristically Kim has jovially bear-hugged President Moon of South Korea (twice). Trump, not surprisingly, is not sure how to read Kim and called off the talks only to revive them soon afterwards. Trump has now earned the epithet of the Inscrutable to add to the Insufferable. We will see if any good comes of all this.

Kim and a bemused Moon

Trump is suspicious

So, our little world toddles on. I had a few days last week in civilised Normandy and visited the splendidly colourful House and Garden created by Claude Monet (1840-1926) at Giverny.