John Marriott

2023 is my eightieth year and, in many ways, our country has changed so much since I came along. I and my fellow baby boomers spent a good deal of the time after WW2 worrying about WW3.

We thought we knew who the enemy was back then and it came as a massive relief and surprise to many of us when the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites in Eastern Europe seemed to indicate that our western way of doing things appeared to have triumphed and the nightmare prospect of a nuclear Holocaust was finally over. It looks as if that ‘enemy’ never really went away. I wonder whether some of us feel as euphoric now as we appeared to be some thirty years ago.

In the run up to Christmas, The Lincolnite published a series of end of year thoughts from local worthies about the year just ending and about the prospects for 2023. I also added my bit of doom and gloom as well. Most tried to paint a positive picture of the past year (and I admit it wasn’t all negative) and offered hopeful messages for this one, although the word ‘challenging’ appeared in quite a few articles. What they all had in common was that they seemed to accept the way things are and offered little insight as to why we have reached this sorry state or how we could make things better. But surely we can’t go on making the same old mistakes. I’m sure I’m not alone in believing that it doesn’t have to be like this.

In my lifetime we’ve had quite a few difficulties to overcome. It started with an economically clapped out country with years of postwar austerity, the rationing of most things until 1954, various balance of payments crises, with inflation peaking at 25% in 1975, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 as well as numerous wars, both minor and major, and financial crises, none of which were thankfully serious enough to upturn the world order. Somehow, we managed to muddle through. However, the present situation in Ukraine has the potential to change all of our lives unless wiser heads on both sides prevail. Besides this conflict we need to add the continuing strife in the Middle East between Jew and Arab as well as between Muslim sects, while China, upon which we in the West appear to be reliant for so many consumer goods, continues to push the boundaries. With a climate crisis threatening to get worse, this ought to be a wake-up call to us all.

The COVID pandemic has shaken many of us out of the complacency into which some of us had lapsed, and has revealed corruption and sharp practice in many areas. Recent revelations do not place some individuals in a very good light. Let’s not forget the financial crisis of 2008, which burst the Blair/Brown bubble and necessitated taxpayers bailing out the bankers whose casino financial dealings got us into trouble in the first place. They and many politicians do not appear to have learned many lessons. Equally damaging was the decision by the UK Coalition Government in 2011 to use austerity to try to balance the nation’s books by using local government as a human shield against any backlash from voters to their cuts in public spending. Then there was Brexit and you probably know the rest.

In 1956 John Osborne’s ground breaking play ‘Look Back In Anger’ first appeared in the West End, heralding the arrival of the ‘kitchen sink drama’ and the so called ‘angry young men’. While lead character, Jimmy Porter’s ‘anger’ was largely domestic and class based, it spawned a movement that has never really gone away and has permeated many aspects of life since. It’s often called ‘the blame game’ and many of our citizens have become experts at it!

Anger, usually but not always controlled, epitomises many pre and postwar popular movements, from the suffragettes at the beginning of the 20th Century and the Jarrow Marches of the 1930s to the CND’s ‘Ban the Bomb’ marches of the 1950s/60s and the ‘Insulate Britain’ and ‘Black Lives Matter’ activities of more recent years. Nearly all do look back in anger at wrongs they claim were committed in the past and continue to be committed in the present. Many movements were successful, but by no means all.

You see, it just doesn’t have to be like this. Why not look at a few areas where thinking outside the box could breathe new life into what we still like to call democracy? So, rather than heed the words of John Osborne in 1956,  I would prefer the advice of Noel Gallagher of Oasis forty years later: “Don’t look back in anger”.

In an effort, therefore, to stimulate some debate or just to ruffle a few feathers, I thought I might revisit a few of the topics that have attracted my attention in articles I have written in The Lincolnite over the past few years. Whether it’s how we organise our politics, how we pay for services, how we live our lives, or how we treat people less fortunate than ourselves, for example, let’s not get angry, let’s be prepared to take a step back and see whether there could be a better way of doing things. My main motivator is that it really doesn’t have to be like this.

You may be quite happy about how things are. Even if they aren’t, you may reckon that nothing is likely to change in the foreseeable future. It doesn’t have to be like that. The late Robert Kennedy famously said: “Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream of things that never were and say why not”. I agree with Bobby.

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Some of you may be old enough to remember a groundbreaking BBC late night satirical sketch show that brightened up our black and white TV screens all too briefly back in 1962-63. It went under the title, ‘That Was The Week That Was’. It used to start with its signature song performed by Millicent Martin, and the second line of the song went “It’s over, let it go”. So, paying homage to 1960s satire, here are a few of my specially selected ‘highlights’ (or ‘lowlights’, if you prefer) of this eventful year before we “let it go”.

THE WAR IN UKRAINE – BECAUSE, MR PUTIN, THAT’S WHAT IT IS!

I have to start with Russia’s ‘special military operation’ to drive out the ‘Nazis’ in Ukraine (well, that’s what Putin called it and that was his justification). What was reckoned by the president and his cronies to be a walk in the park has so far turned out to be a slog in the trenches, reminiscent of WW1, ending up with Russia being in the dock. So, if you can’t beat the Ukrainian army fair and square on the battlefield, or win over the hearts and minds of its people, you retreat to a safe place and pummel their cities, communities and infrastructure to destruction with artillery and missiles. Now, that’s what I call brave!

The tactics are now clear. With what has now become a war of attrition, the real victims as usual are the civilians on both sides. It has certainly been a wake up call for us here in the west and, as usual, despite all our problems, our country and many of its citizens have stepped up to the plate in many ways. It makes you very proud with all the acts of kindness on display. Next year could prove crunch time especially if the conflict drags on, both for Ukrainians and for the western allies as well. With autocracy masquerading as nationalism raising its ugly head in many parts of the world, it is clear to me at least that, if we value democracy, we must be prepared to defend it, whatever that costs. It strikes me that we have for too long taken democracy for granted and have largely allowed those with vested interests to populate the centre stage. This must change if we really want democracy to prevail.

COVID ON THE RETREAT – ARE WE SURE?

Is it really only three years since COVID struck? Whether it came from eating a corona virus infected pangolin or whether it escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, it certainly left its mark on us all in one form or another. This year has thankfully seen us here emerging from lockdown and uncertainty, although the virus is still around and likely to cause more trouble. It’s clearly messed up the world’s major economies, some more than others. Hopefully, next year we can look forward to a few of the modern day ‘spivs’, who clearly made a packet out of providing dodgy or non existent PPE getting their comeuppances.

I do hope that next year we stay vigilant and learn a few lessons. The more humankind infringes on what is left of the natural world, the more likely it is to see more potentially deadly viruses crossing the species barrier. Surely, there’s a lesson to be learned here.

CLIMATE CHANGE – MYTH OR FACT?

I reckon our climate is changing, as the floods, droughts and other catastrophes in this and recent years have shown. You can debate how much of it is down to human activity and how much to naturally occurring events if you like, but I’m prepared to believe that mankind has played a significant rôle. Perhaps you would prefer to side with people like Tory freemarketeer John Redwood MP, who once said that if climate change might lead to warmer summers, that might be quite nice. So, unless we go for carbon capture in a big way, phasing out fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine, domestic gas powered boilers will continue — as long as we don’t run out of the so called ‘precious metals’ required in battery manufacturing.

Given the unreliability of wind power and the reluctance to use agricultural land for more solar farms, I’d like to ask why wave and tidal power as a source of electricity generation isn’t making more progress. Let’s also not forget ‘green’ hydrogen either. With current energy costs mounting, partly as we in the west and Europe in particular try to wean ourselves off Russian oil and gas, 2023 could be make or break year for domestic energy consumption both here and on the continent. Let’s hope we have another mild winter. It makes you wonder why we sold off the whole shooting match to the private sector in the first place – and I include our railways as well. Also, 70% of our water is foreign owned. Is that a good idea? Whether it’s our railways or our utilities, is privatisation really the panacea any more?

WE GOT BREXIT DONE – OR DID WE?

As a ‘pragmatic Remainer’, I am tempted to say; “I told you so” when viewing where we stand regarding Brexit and the European Union in particular. This year has exposed the economic illiteracy of many of the Brexiters’ arguments. That said, as there is realistically no chance of our applying to rejoin the EU in the near future, if at all, we have got to make Brexit work somehow for all of our sakes. I hope that our government will seek a rapport with our erstwhile trading partners on the other side of the Channel and the North Sea. Even more urgent are our trading relations with our former partner on the other side of the Irish Sea. Sorting out the Irish Protocol would be a massive step forward in searching for a better modus vivendi with the rest of the EU. It will require compromise on both sides. Can we really afford to ignore what, despite claims of its decline, is still our biggest trading partner? It might be interesting to speculate whether things would have been different had COVID or the Russian invasion of Ukraine not happened; but they did.

HOW MANY MORE PRIME MINISTERS BY THE NEXT GENERAL ELECTION?

As Lady Bracknell might have said ; “To lose one Prime Minister in a year may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose two in a year looks like carelessness.”.No, I’d call it incompetence. I’ve already given my verdict on the Truss/Kwarteng experiment with the British economy. Let’s face it, most governments eventually run out of steam. Twelve or so years seem about par for the course. As I wrote last time, this current lot resemble the Major government in the run up to the 1997 General Election.

However, I should never completely write off the Tories. I’ve seen how they operate in my own low key political career. They are an incredible winning machine, which knows how to exploit our ‘first past the post’ voting system. That’s why they have largely been able to dominate the parliamentary scene in particular, with a few notable exceptions, over the past one hundred years, without ever getting over 50% of the votes. It looks as if we shall be spared a General Election next year. The Tories would appear to need the maximum time afforded them still to cobble together a believable narrative as why we should stick with them. It would take a motion of no confidence to dislodge them sooner and, as they say; “Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas”. With multiple strikes planned for the Christmas period and into the new year, our new ‘Winter of Discontent’ is proving positively arctic!

The late Harold Wilson famously remarked; “A week is a long time in politics”. Despite Labour’s lead in the polls, I still think that tactical voting may be the only way to guarantee a change of government. The 1992 General Election result should serve as a warning to all who think it’s a done deal. Times have changed over the past quarter of a century. A purely Labour government may not be the ideal answer, but it would appear that this is the only alternative at the moment. However, before we get ahead of ourselves, you have to wonder whether our latest Tory PM will make it to Election Day, whenever that is – and, to think, I always thought that trying to herd cats was a prerequisite of any Lib Dem leader!

AND FINALLY

Those of us who grew up after WW2 know a lot about inflation. For our younger generation, inflation, like the ‘three day week’ and the ‘Winter of Discontent’, was something their parents might have told them about. Not any more. Given that much that has befallen us over the past few years has largely been self inflicted, it still surprises me that so many people I speak to would like to see Mr Johnson back in Number 10!

With what might lie ahead for many of us next year, perhaps we deserve to be able to put our worries aside for a while and enjoy the festive season. After all, if the Mayor of Kyiv, of all places, can insist on putting up a Christmas tree in the city’s main square, then why should we feel guilty about celebrating?

One person with something to look forward to (if that’s the right phrase), as all royalists may well do as well, is our new king, as he plans what is likely to be a scaled down coronation. It’s unlikely to be as lavish as the one that flickered out of the 9 inch B/W TV that I watched as a nine year old, together with what seemed like half our street, at one neighbours’ house back on our council estate in Leicester. Mama will be a hard act to follow. Little did the late Queen probably imagine when she pledged herself as a twenty one year old to a lifetime of duty and service during her father’s state visit to South Africa back in 1947 that she would be doing her duty just about until the day she passed away, some 75 years later. I reckon King Charles III has not made a bad start, which, coming from a Republican like me, is praise indeed.

Perhaps now is the time for me to let this year go and await with a mixture of hope and concern what the new one will bring. So, finally I would like to wish all of you who have managed to stay with me to the bitter end of this rather long meander through 2022 a Happier New Year!