Saturday, 3 October 2015
Travelling discrimination
Times of TW
Why is it OK
to persecute this ethnic minority?
by Kent Barker
There was an unusual email circulated recently around parish councils.
One paragraph read: “They have been very
polite… children are delightful… two little ones have been going to the Elm
Tree [pub], alone in their pyjamas to use the toilets after bedtime.”
“They” referred to a group of travellers who had pitched up at Elm
Tree Fields in Paddock Wood. And promptly had eviction proceedings started
against them.
Now, as a precursor to what I am about
to argue, let me say that I understand the concerns of people, secure in their
homes, who regard travellers as a threat and a nuisance and feel they must
forever be ‘moved on’. I understand it
but I do not share their sentiment.
I’ll quote another paragraph of the
email: “there is a sadness I feel that we
have this conflict and misunderstanding between cultures and way of life… I was
reminded symbolically of the plight of American Indians.”
Shortly thereafter another email
appeared, this time from the Community
Safety Manager for Tunbridge Wells Borough Council:
“Paddock Wood Town Council today were granted a summons requesting the Travellers
appear at Sevenoaks Magistrates’ Court tomorrow… we expect the court to approve
the removal of vehicles from the playing fields – hopefully within 24 hours of
the court appearance. The Travellers insist that they are in the borough for the
Horsmonden Horse Fair.
We fully expect the Travellers to depart before any vehicles or property
are seized, but where they land next we do not know. And when they will leave
is also not known.
So, once again, can I ask
that all landowners ensure that their land is made as secure as possible
against vehicle incursion.”
I’ve put the last paragraph in
bold because it was this that particularly incensed me.
Let’s look at some facts. Statutory
responsibility for councils to provide sites for Travellers was removed in 1994
leading, unsurprisingly, to an increase in unauthorised encampments. So, in
2012, the Government said provision of Gypsy and Traveller sites must be met by
local authorities in their development plans.
A study published later by the Traveller Law
Reform Project found that just four out of 115 surveyed authorities have
implemented the policies. (TWBC was not one). Sites tend to be situated in environmentally
deprived areas—on wasteland, floodplains or under motorway flyovers. This has a
negative effect on physical and mental health that’s compounded by a lack of
access to services geared to Traveller needs.
In August this year, the Government brought in
new legislation clearly designed to make it more
difficult for Gypsies and Travellers to obtain planning permission for sites in
the Green Belt and open countryside. This, and other parts of the legislation,
are likely to be challenged as discriminatory and a breach of Article 8 of the
European Convention on Human Rights.
The Government’s own studies say “Gypsies and Travellers are believed to
experience the worst health and education status of any disadvantaged group in
England. Research has consistently confirmed the link between the lack of good
quality sites… and poor health and
education. The provision of more authorised sites will help contribute to
better health and education outcomes in the area”.
What we are talking about is an indigenous minority ethnic
group that’s been part of Irish and British society for centuries, with a
distinctive way of life, values, culture and traditions. And yet, as a society, we seem to be doing our
utmost to wipe them out.
Let’s return to Paddock Wood where the evicted Travellers
were apparently assembling for the Horsmonden Horse Fair—a 400 year-old Kentish
tradition. (This year’s was a shadow of its former self, swamped with police
and officials, and having been banned altogether in 2000.)
Could the town council not have waited a few days until
after the Horse Fair before evicting them from Elm Tree Fields? Could not our
borough council live up to its responsibility and provide sufficient good
quality official sites? Could not every
parish council—including mine—seek out some land where Travellers could stay
for a period as the pass through? Could not the Government provide peripatetic
teachers and health workers to help with illiteracy and deprivation? Could we
not celebrate this ethnic and cultural group as an important part of Britain’s
heritage?
Instead we have the council’s own Community Safety Officer
perpetuating stereotypes and demonising an entire minority group and their way
of life by warning landowners to secure their property against “vehicle
intrusion”.
And who was the author of the enlightened email saying how
polite had been the Traveller children and how she was reminded of American
Indians ? Why it was the chair of
Paddock Wood Town Council. The very body that evicted them from the field in
the first place. Oh dear.
Tory Badger Huggers?
Times of TW
Blue Campaigners Badger Government
By Kent Barker (with apologies to Kenneth
Grahame)
I must have been dreaming, for
winter had come early and I was lost in the Wild Wood with a thick blanket of
snow covering all about. I was fearful, not just at being unable to find my way
home, but with an inchoate anxiety over the path we, as a society, were following.
I stumbled in the snow barking my
shin. On close inspection, I discovered a boot scraper. Ah, thought I, where
there is a boot scraper there is likely to be a door. And so it transpired. A
low wooden affair giving access, apparently, into the side of the hill. I
knocked loudly, begging succour.
It was dark in the hallway when the
door opened and I could not properly see the figure that beckoned me forth
until we entered a small parlour with a fire crackling in the grate and candles
in sconces round the walls. So, imagine my surprise when he threw off his cloak
to reveal a long furry face with a white stripe up the centre of his muzzle,
twitching whiskers and sharp bright eyes. But the most singular aspect of his
appearance was a blue velvet smoking jacket with a Conservative Party rosette
on the lapel.
Having made me welcome with a plate
of cold meats and a glass of port, he took up a copy of The Telegraph and pointed to an article whose headline proclaimed
‘Badger Cull to be extended to Dorset’. “Shocking”, muttered my host. “I have
friends and relatives there. Whatever will become of them? And after one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-one senseless deaths in Somerset and Gloucestershire two years ago. What
is the world coming to?”
Perhaps made argumentative by the
port wine, I ventured an opinion that, sad though this undoubtedly was, 260,817
cattle had been slaughtered since 2008, having in all likelihood contracted bovine
TB from members of his species, and this placed an intolerable burden on dairy
famers.
My furry friend rose to his full
height (which it must be allowed was not great) and proclaimed vehemently:
“There is absolutely no evidence, no evidence whatsoever, that bovine TB is
caused by TB among badgers. It’s even possible that my friends the fallow deer
could be responsible. And, anyway, what is all the fuss about? An independent
survey commissioned by the Government’s own Department for Rural Affairs
concluded that ‘bTB control in cattle is irrelevant as
a public health policy. In the UK, cattle-to-human transmission is negligible.
Aerosol transmission—the only probable route of human acquisition—occurs at
inconsequential levels when milk is pasteurized…Furthermore, there is little
evidence for a positive cost benefit in terms of animal health of bTB control.
Such evidence is required; otherwise, there is little justification for the
large sums of public money spent on bTB control in the UK.’ That’s the Government’s
own independent analysis!”
He sat back in his armchair and put
his kerchief to his face. I could not tell if it was to mop his brow or to wipe
away a tear. “Surely”, I ventured, “something must be done for the poor cattle.
They, after all, are fellow creatures too.”
“Yes, of course I grieve for them. But,
don’t you see, their deaths are as senseless as those of my kind. Cattle no
more need to be culled than do badgers. Infected cattle have little probability
of developing the disease and seldom show symptoms during their (often short)
economic lives. Bovine TB can remain dormant in an animal for many years, or
indefinitely. If an animal reacts to the skin test this does not mean that it
will go on to develop symptoms, be infectious, or become ill. And if you really
want to stamp out bovine TB, then vaccinate against it. If you really want to
attempt to prevent TB in badgers, vaccinate against it. Do you know that not
one of my eighteen hundred murdered friends in the last ‘cull’ (what a horrible
word) was even tested to see if they carried the disease!”
We sat in silence for a few moments before
I pointed to his rosette and asked how, given his views, he could support a
government that was undertaking such slaughter?
“Ah, well, I’m a member of the Blue
Badger Campaign—it’s an offshoot of Conservative Animal Welfare. There’s also a
Blue Fox group. We’ve got to combat the farming lobby and change opinion in
government.
Perhaps the brandy wine fuddled my
brain, but I cannot recall how I got home that night. I just remember waking in
my own bed clutching a piece of paper from the Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB which read: “Culling can
make no meaningful contribution to cattle TB control in Britain.” Could it be
it was not a dream after all?
Roundup - the culprits
Times of TW
Countryside Chemicals
Conceal Rural Divide
By Kent Barker
Myrtle and I love our country walks at this time of year. The bines
in the few remaining hop gardens are being loaded onto trailers. Grapes which
have replaced so many of the hops round here are still on the vine waiting for
the harvest. The friendly foreign fruit pickers are working their way through
the orchards, while ancient tractors scuttle about with bins of ripe apples.
Most of the arable harvest is in and the fields have yet to be
ploughed so it’s easy to walk or, in Myrtle’s case, run over them. Soon we’ll
have to wend our way round the edges to avoid the furrows. But I have recently discovered
some extremely scary facts about arable production.
It began when I volunteered to write a regular feature on farming in
our revamped village magazine. To be honest, I don’t know a huge amount about
the subject, despite having lived in the country on and off for half a century,
and being a habitual Archers’
listener. But, as a parish councilor, I’ve found there is a huge disconnect
between residents of the countryside and those who make their living from it.
It’s most keenly felt on planning matters. A farmer wants a new barn
or an anaerobic digester or an array of solar panels and there is an outcry
from other rural residents—mainly, I have to say, from those who have most
recently relocated from the city. So, the job of my column will be to try to
bridge the divide and get both sides to see the other’s point of view. It will
not be easy, as I am about to demonstrate.
Talking to one farmer, I discovered that arable land is no longer
ploughed every autumn. Instead, they adopt a minimum cultivation technique or
Min-Till. Essentially, instead of
turning the earth over with a deep plough, they use discs which do not
penetrate nearly so deeply and which anyway, leave up to 30% of crop residues
on the surface. This method is designed to be friendlier to the soil. But is it
friendlier to us?
Before being drilled (seeded) for
next year’s crop, quantities of herbicide are used to kill off ‘volunteer’
plants or weeds. And the herbicide of choice is Roundup, and the active
ingredient of Roundup is—glyphosate.
Now the news may have passed you by
earlier this year that the World Health Organisation deems glyphosate to be a
‘probable human carcinogen’. Which is to
say that it can or does cause cancer. Which is bad. But possibly not as bad as
all the other things that glyphosate does.
Just last month, the august if unfortunately
acronymed body ISIS—the Institute of Science in Society—launched a campaign to
ban all levels of spraying of glyphosate. Why? Because it has also been linked,
among other things, to: coeliac disease, autism, diabetes, birth defects,
increased levels of aluminum in the brain and to arsenic in the kidneys
resulting in acute renal failure.
And this is the herbicide that you
quite probably use in your garden. Come
on. Hands up who’s got a little bottle of Roundup spray in the shed? And don’t
look smug because you don’t have a garden. Most local councils use it routinely
to kill weeds in public parks and spaces near you.
Now, for the sake of balance, I
should say that the manufacturer of Roundup, the chemical giant Monsanto,
denies these links and repudiates the scientific studies that established them.
But it’s worth noting that around a third of the company’s earnings come from
Roundup and the associated GM seed business. And since, in 2014, Monsanto’s
revenue was $3.14 billion, that makes Roundup worth more than a billion dollars
a year to them, so you can draw your own conclusions.
Dig a little deeper and you find just
how deeply embedded glyphosate is in agriculture. A number of farmers use Roundup
on their crops immediately before harvest as a ‘desiccant’ to get more even
ripening and to reduce moisture. Something like 75% of all oilseed rape in the
UK is subject to this regime. But it means that greater quantities of the
chemical are likely to remain on the plant as it enters the food chain.
And then there are the superweeds. These are glyphosate-resistant
plants that seem to be spreading at an exponential rate in the US, South
America and South Africa. How long before they appear in Britain?
The question is, though, how am I going to raise this all
with the farming community round my village? I just have the feeling that few
divides are likely to be bridged if I start telling them they should return to
bio-diversity and crop rotation as the non-toxic way to control weeds.
Armageddon?
Times of TW
Mammon,
Jehovah and the Witness of Armageddon
By Kent Barker
I fear I may have been a bit rude.
I mean, once I knew who they were I virtually slammed the door in their
face. It’s true I was in a bit of a
hurry. But what I wish I had found time
to say was this: “Look how would you feel if I turned up at your house on a
Saturday morning and tried to persuade you that your beliefs were wrong and
there was no God, or supreme being, or single deity, and no Jesus Christ and no
heaven or hell? In fact, in short, you
ought to convert to Humanism or Atheism pronto.”
A friend pointed out, they’d probably actually engage in the debate
and keep me arguing for ages. But my
general point holds good. Surely it’s a
tad arrogant for them to think that their ‘beliefs’ are better than mine and that
they have a duty to persuade me to adopt their view? It’s the proselytising
nature of so many religions that causes half the problems and has led to
religious wars down the ages. Arguably
it’s what’s behind the current rise of militant Islam. (Though before we rush to condemn, perhaps we
should remove the mote from our own eye and remember the nine Crusades
Christians launched on Islam between 1095 and 1272).
Of course the strife is not only between different religions, but
often between branches of the same religion.
Catholics and Protestants down the ages and still evident in Northern
Ireland. And what about the poor Cathars? A couple of weeks in the Languedoc and you
realise just how brutal the Roman Catholic armies of the early 13th
century could be. Not content with
subjugating Muslims in the ‘Holy’ land they rampaged round southern France
maiming and slaughtering families and entire villages for no other reason that
they followed different branch of Christianity.
Anyway I didn’t have that conversation with the Jehovah’s Witnesses at
my door and, instead, rushed off to Hastings with my anti-TTIP petition and
posters and leaflets to try to persuade the good citizens that they were in
error if they believed that the proposed transatlantic trade agreement was a
good thing.
What depressed, if not entirely surprised, me was that so
few people had even heard of TTIP. Come
on, put up your own hand up if you know that it stands for the Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership. Mind
you if you didn’t know about it, it’s not unduly surprising– that’s the way
they want it. TTIP is a series of trade
negotiations being carried out, mostly in secret, between the EU and US designed
to hugely reduce regulatory barriers to trade for big business. Things like
food safety law, environmental legislation, banking regulations health
provision and the sovereign powers of individual nations.
So I harangued Saturday morning
shoppers about the dangers of deregulation that TTIP would bring in. I told them how I was convinced it could end
effective food labeling, and allow the use of Neonicotinoids
which would kill the bees and that the government wouldn’t be able to do
anything about it because the pharmaceutical corporations would be able to sue them
if they stood in the way of their profits.
But as I handed leaflets to people quietly lunching al
fresco in George Street I did see some parallels with that couple who’d knocked
at my door earlier in the day. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that destruction at Armageddon is
imminent, and that the establishment of God's kingdom over the earth is the
only solution for problems faced by humanity.
TTIP opponents believe that it could effectively lead to the
destruction of democracy by the multi-nationals. As Lee Willams pointed out in
the Independent recently: “One of the main aims
of TTIP is the introduction of Investor-State Dispute Settlements (ISDS), which
allow companies to sue governments if those governments’ policies cause a loss
of profits. In effect it means unelected transnational corporations can dictate
the policies of democratically elected governments.”
One of the results of TTIP would be to open up public
health, education and water services to free competition. But that would mean that US companies could
effectively take over – and privatise – cherished European institutions like
the NHS. And there would be nothing the Government could do about it without the
risk of being sued.
After witnessing the recent rapaciousness of the Banking
sector, is it entirely fanciful to argue that TTIP, the multi-national corporations
and and the forces of capitalism are the very things that are leading us to
destruction? Perhaps we could do with
something like an Armageddon to beat them back and establish a new world order
based on people rather than profit. But
I am not sure I’m prepared to give up my Saturday mornings to knock on doors to
proselytise these beliefs.
Knole Nothing?
Times of TW
Give me a toy
dog over a sofa in Perspex.
By Kent Barker
I’ve been having problems with the roof recently. I won’t bore you
with the details. It’s nearly as dull as asking someone how they are… and
having them tell you! But I will say that, inevitably, the latest firm of
roofers blamed the previous ones: “Cor, whoever did this didn’t do you any
favours. What they should have done is….” And ten minutes later your head is
reeling with valleys and flashings and holing gauges.
But mine is a pretty modest roof so,
as you can imagine, I was more than a little sympathetic to the homeowner who
has 7.5 acres of roofing to maintain. No, that’s not a misprint. Seven-and-a-half
ACRES – that’s 326,700 square feet.
However when I say ‘home’ owner, perhaps I should have added the prefix
‘stately’, for this is Knole—an extraordinary medieval edifice of (at least)
365 rooms, 12 entrances, 7 courtyards and 52 staircases—very few of which, as
Horace Walpole opined in 1752, lead where you want to go!
The homeowner in question is the
National Trust. Knole was handed to it by the fourth Lord Sackville in 1946—presumably
after an estimate for roofing repairs. (“Cor guv, you’ve got a job on here and
no mistake. Even for cash it’s going to set you back a bob or two….”). And the
National Trust has recently embarked on a series of repairs, including
recreating a massive pitched tile roof to a barn which has been missing since a
fire in 1887.
Now, I’m a fan of the National Trust
and have been a member for many years. And, because of the building works, I
may not have seen Knole at its best. But, even so, I have to say the visitor ‘experience’
that I did have was pretty dispiriting. To start with, the whole place is so dark.
I sort of understand that 400 year-old fabrics fade in bright sunlight, but
that means that there are blinds down over most of the windows. This has the
added disadvantage of preventing you gazing out over the magnificent deer park
or into any of the seven courtyards. So murky
is it that the enthusiastic volunteer guides are issued with powerful torches to
show you some intricate piece of frieze or moulding.
Thus, one gloomy corridor leads to another, each lined with
threadbare furniture and vast, melancholy, portraits. Everywhere were roped-off
sections and exhortations not to touch any of the exhibits. So extensive were
the exclusion zones that it came as a real shock actually to be invited to walk
on a carpet—though it turned out this was merely a cheap imitation rug. One
prize possession—the Red Knole Sofa—was entirely encased in ugly, utilitarian
and anachronistic Perspex to keep wandering hands (or tired bums) off it. Mind
you, it was we, the visitors, who were confined to a glass cage when entering
the splendidly ornate ‘King’s Room’ lest, presumably, we should sully the
exhibits with our foetid breath.
And don’t get me started on the portraits. Room after room, wall
after wall. So many dead people it felt like a mausoleum. I was so turned off I
missed the nine by Sir Joshua Reynolds. And, although I understand that a cartoon—or
even a copy of a Raphael Cartoon is not, in fact, a cartoon as the Disney generation
understands it, but rather a preliminary drawing for another work of art (in
this case tapestries in the Sistine chapel)… although I understand that, I’m
not at all sure that everyone else would. Nor was there anything that readily
explained it.
But, before this becomes a complete rant, let me get to my main
point. The problem is that nothing at
Knole suggests any sense of FUN. Dusty, dry, academic, worthy, yes. Where,
though, is the human touch? Who lived here?
What did they do? How did their lives differ from ours? I’m not always
in favour of audio-visual displays or actors talking to you from cobwebby
corners. But, heavens above, there must be something
the Trust can do to make a tour round these rooms more exciting. How about a
few holograms or some modern interpretation boards or signage? Build me a
reproduction red Knole sofa and let me sit on it. Put it next to its precursor,
the wooden settle and its successor, the overstuffed DFS jobby, so I can see
the progression.
The most exciting things in any of the rooms are small toy Dalmatian
dogs hidden in corners for children to spot and tick off on a list. Initially I
thought them ludicrously out of place and time. By the end I came to enjoy searching
for the fluffy dogs more than looking at the dull old exhibits.
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