Kiron ReidLeave a comment

Marina Lewycka ‘Two Caravans’. Penguin, 2008.

Marina Lewycka is well known as the author of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, albeit people might not recognise the name. This sequel is not blessed by a catchy title (published in America under the better ‘Strawberry Fields’) but it gives a great deal of insight into the problems faced by migrant workers in Britain and also the tensions in modern Ukraine between Russian / Soviet looking mostly former industrial south east and intellectual European looking modern Ukrainian youth. This from a book that is ten years old – I was surprised as I didn’t think the Short History of Tractors (which I have never actually read) was as old as that. Sourced for me by Nicholas Willmott, bookdealer of Cardiff,* I was surprised to find this book was published in 2001. It is a tale of Ukrainian, Polish, Chinese, Malaysian, and a Malawian worker picking strawberries in Kent, of Russian and Moldovan gangsters, dodgy agri-business practice, and English and European eccentricities. It visits, in reality (a eco-protest camp) or in the personal tales (Moldovan / Transdniestrian border / post industrial post Soviet Ukraine) places I have been and paints pictures that I recognise (albeit the world of people trafficking is something I only read about in reports and articles).

Ukraine of course is not in the European Union (many people in Britain don’t realise it is in Europe) so the novel illustrates the truism that there have always been European migrant workers before the EU and from non-EU European countries. The difference in treatment is played out in surprising ways. Does Brazilians pretending to be Portuguese explain why there are so many South Americans in Liverpool more than ten years ago (which I think is great) despite Labour and Tory governments being ostensibly anti-immigration? Just as in the book, the mix of people makes for a much more interesting city and country, but a key problem is that the new workers and existing residents get little chance to meet and interact. Hence the difficulties of the young hero and heroine (intellectual student Irina from Kyiv, and ex-coalminer Andriy, from Donbass) meeting the English gentleman and glamorous lady of their dreams or textbooks. The picture that Ukrainian / Russian textbooks paint of idealised English men and women in an idealised England is what students in Ukraine still tell me today (though they also believe our country is covered in fog, has terrible food, and we are cold because we can’t afford to heat our homes).

David Blunkett gets an affectionate cameo role, as do a large cast of supporting characters from Australian chef to African care home nurse. Some of the poetry of the cheerful young evangelical Christian from Emanuel I find a bit much (he is infectiously cheerful) and I come to like the mysterious dog that just appears but wonder if the explanation for tragi-comic dog was somehow cut out by mistake. At the time of the acclaim for A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian I assumed that the author was a young emerging or new Ukrainian writer. I had no idea that Marina Lewycka is the daughter of Ukrainian refugees, born in Kiel, grew up in Yorkshire and elsewhere; educated at Keele and had her first book published at 59.
I don’t know the situation for migrant workers in Britain today. Would the book be the same if written now? A new account for our times is needed.

* & father in law.

Kiron ReidLeave a comment

M H Baylis ‘Black Day at the Bosphorus Café’. Old Street, 2015.

I don’t read a lot of crime fiction just as I don’t watch much crime drama because it is always about murder. This annoys me as murder is a very infrequent crime, so the dramas are always very misleading about crime in society, and because they are not very sophisticated or interesting as they are always about murder.* Of course Agatha Christie, Morse, Endeavour, Foyle’s War (often filmed in Liverpool), occasional Taggart and Hot Fuzz are exceptions. I made an exception for Black Day at the Bosphorus Café for two reasons. Firstly because I liked the brightly colourful cover, second because the author is my old school friend Matthew Baylis. I’d bought and never quite read his first two books so thought I’d better read this one. And it helps traffic in my local library, the wonderful Sefton Park, a Carnegie on Aigburth Road in Liverpool. I then bought a copy. It is the best book involving crime, north London, and planning law I have read since former Python, Terry Jones’ Trouble on the Heath (an excellent ‘Quick Reads’).

Baylis’ hero, Rex Tracey (nice homage there?) is a Okocim Polish beer drinking (don’t try it) cynical local newspaper reporter who also solve crime. Set in the fictional borough of ‘Harringay and Tottenham’, amid the very real multicultural and frequently changing north London, the backdrop is the death of a Kurdish girl, Mina, and murky goings on at the Council. In step with the mid-2010’s the Council is run by a charismatic former Lib Dem lay preacher turned independent. The book is a bit hard on the Council (it makes the Mayor of Liverpool look like a good public image), illuminates Kurdish and Yazidi identity, puts thought into the atrocities of the partition of Cyprus in 1974 and implications for communities today, and gives real insight into the challenges for local journalism amid rapidly changing technological and consumer times. It does this while Baylis weaves a colourful picture of the districts covered by Tracey. I have three minor criticisms. A map would be useful for those of us who don’t know these parts of north London, the real Haringey and Tottenham. Some of the political narrative is a bit jammed in. And it will be nice if some of these characters that the author spends so much time introducing us to survive into the future novels. The ambitious young female Labour candidate, Eve Reilly, perhaps or the now disgraced Council leader. Of the nicer characters, at least the local paper’s art reviewer Lawrence isn’t killed off. He’s quite like the old Daily Post arts reviewer.

* It is ironic, because as a Lecturer in Criminal Law we always teach the law largely through the rules about murder – because they are the most serious cases, the leading authorities and just a lot more interesting than the actual real crime, minor theft, assault, sex and criminal damage. Despite being a liberal cosmopolitan to his bones, Matt is tv critic for the Daily Express. This has often made me ponder the question posed by Professor Clive Walker in an article on directing terrorist organisations that I assisted him with “Does the IRA’s cleaning lady direct the cleaning for the IRA and therefore is she guilty of directing a terrorist organisation?” The answer is not clear. When I occasionally see his columns they are not overtly political, but maybe like Al Murray he subverts prejudice and intolerance (ignorance / fear of difference) through intellect and humour.

Kiron ReidLeave a comment

Al Murray’s ‘Watching War Films with my Dad’ Century 2013. Review.

Watching War Films with my Dad is much more than a memoir or the book on war films and growing up in the 1970s. Yes it covers each of those aspects. It is much more interesting than being a memoir (where it is in the Where did it all go right upbeat category) and it does include a lot of anecdotes, career history, tour highlights and some introspection. The latter mostly to reinforce points in the narrative. Yes it is a book about war films and war toys of every type, and with Al Murray being an enthusiast for World War Two history he of course delves into the facts, the errors and inaccuracies in the movies and toys. Told while he is flying a Spitfire at RAF Museum Duxford or filming a documentary about Arnhem. Anyone of our post war generation who grew up in the 1970s watching war movies will find the book interesting (he covers much more recent too). It is a book with anecdotes about modern Britain – in the comic incisive style of the Pub Landlord. What you can’t tell from the ‘A Memoir’, endearing title or comic Al Murray at D Day picture, is this is a book about history. Mostly about World War 2 and also World War 1. But Murray covers many other historical examples and periods as well. He tells you a lot that you didn’t know that you thought you knew about (how close the German victory on Crete was), unless probably you are another war history buff like my mate Dr. Clarkson. I didn’t know that writer Ben Elton was the nephew of Tudor history scholar Geoffrey Elton, which might explain why the first Blackadder, my favourite (co-written by Elton) seems to have some great attention to detail. Murray clearly loves France and Germany and likes to explain about these countries to his British and wider audience. He loves Europe but as a patriotic kid of the ’70s he loves Britain – the good Britain of values and being on the right side. Obviously he isn’t uncritical. His chapter on the history of history is excellent and very educational.

I borrowed Al’s book from Liverpool City Council’s Sefton Park library, Aigburth Road, Liverpool.

Note. I neglected to declare an interest. Al Murray was the drummer in my brother, Pat’s, band at and after Oxford, they’ve appeared in short films together by Martin Pickles, and I once had my hair cut in Al Murray’s kitchen.

Kiron ReidLeave a comment

Three comic books with lessons for Britain today. Al Murray, M. H. Baylis & Marina Lewycka book reviews.

Next I review three comedy related books and find them all with serious lessons for Britain today. Liberator magazine issue 384 (a UK Liberal political magazine) including my reviews of Matt / Matthew / M. H. Baylis’ “Black Day at the Bosphorus Cafe” (aagh, I’ve just noticed the typo in the review heading) and Al Murray’s “Watching War Films with My Dad” is now available here online, https://liberatormagazine.org.uk/en/ scroll down
as the latest issue has been posted to subscribers. Both page 19. Here I post the original unedited (usually they’ve been made more readable) versions of the longer Murray and Baylis reviews. I add a review not published I wrote at the same time of Marina Lewycka’s “Two Caravans”, the sequel to “A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian”.

Kiron ReidLeave a comment

What is the European Commission really like?

Former NW England MEP Chris Davies writes.

The European Commission is both the EU’s executive (government) and its civil service. It has the job of coming up with the ideas and the legislation to put into practice the principles agreed in the EU Treaties and the wishes of the 28 EU governments. It also has the job of trying to enforce the agreed rules and ensure that there is a level playing field.

The Commission does not have a police force at its disposal, nor an army. To enforce the rules it calls in the ‘bureaucrats’ to write letters to governments, and when that fails it brings in the lawyers. The EU is not so much an independent body, more a set of legal agreements between independent countries. Enforcing the rules is often a slow business done mostly by persuasion because the Courts are even slower!

There are 28 Commissioners, one for each EU country, and they serve for a period of 5 years. These are the real ‘Brussels Bureaucrats, but most of them are former elected ministers with an impressive track record in their own countries. They are nominated by the governments of their respective countries, but have to undergo a three-hour interview by MEPs and be endorsed by the European Parliament. MEPs like to find a reason for rejecting at least one candidate just to keep the governments on their toes.

By the way, next time you hear UKIP complain about ‘unelected officials’ in Europe why not ask who elects the government of the USA? We know that the President is elected but all the other U.S. ministers are appointed, very like European Commissioners.

The current Commission likes to think of itself as a reforming one that is tackling the big issues and cutting down on the small ones. It is also big on communication. In the first year of its 5-year term the various Commissioners answered questions from the world’s media in Brussels on 138 occasions; they addressed the European Parliament 58 times and answered 14,467 parliamentary questions from MEPs; they also took part in 45 public meetings/town hall debates.

The big boast of the present Commission is that it is working to curb over-regulation. It says that during the period 2010-14 an average of 130 items of new legislation were proposed annually, whereas last year the number was down to 23. It also points to the fact that 80 proposals already in the legislative pipeline were withdrawn.

This is not a European bureaucracy that ploughs on regardless of public opinion. It’s a political body of people with strong democratic traditions, and they are listening and responding to the mood across Europe.

Liberal Democrats North West Notes & News 3 November 2015.

News from the North West Lib Dems, 19 January 2016.

The European Commission has ordered the Belgian government to collect €700 million of taxes from 35 multinational companies trading in that country.

The EU Competition Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, says that the Belgian government has been doing illegal ‘sweetheart’ deals to attract business from large companies. But these deals are unfair to small companies that don’t get the same benefits, are unfair to other European countries, and break EU state aid rules.

So here we have the European Commission, the so-called ‘Brussels bureaucrats’ so loathed by the Europhobes, playing the role of umpire, doing the job of enforcing the rules intended to guarantee fair play, and protecting British interests from unfair competition.

What would we do without them? If the UK pulls out of the EU there will be no rules to say that competition must be fair.

Incidentally, Margrethe Vestager (47), who is a bit of a star in the Commission, is a former parliamentary group leader of the Danish Social Liberal Party, Radikale Venstre, which is very much a sister party to the British Lib Dems. She was deputy prime minister of Denmark before being nominated as Denmark’s commissioner.

Her husband is a maths teacher. They have three daughters. And she served as an inspiration for the main character in the Danish TV series ‘Borgen’ who has to juggle family life with a thoroughly honourable but intensely time-consuming life in politics. (Highly recommended and utterly absorbing if you haven’t seen it).

Maybe the ‘faceless’ European Commissioners aren’t so bad after all!

Chris Davies

Kiron ReidLeave a comment

Factual comments on Brexiter posts on Otto English’s Daniel Barenboim BBC Prom video.

The comments by nearly all the anti-EU people on this video illustrate all that was wrong with the EU referendum, what failed during the referendum and what failed since. There are exceptions – there are some more informed and well argued comments but most are textbook of the worst lies, fakes, myths and anti-EU propaganda that has been rammed down the throats of people in Britain by the tabloid press, right wing and far left wing politicians / Trades Unions, and the billionaire backers of Brexit. That is what is so utterly shameful about the referendum.

This wonderful principled life affirming passionate plea by the World famous international conductor Daniel Barenboim, at the BBC Proms, has been followed on a You Tube post by a torrent of incorrect and untrue statements about the EU. Argument, much of it by myself, has come to dominate in the thread after the video the humanitarian points made by Mr. Barenboim. The comments and ‘likes’ by many do answer the stereotype of ‘the Proms’ being an English/British nationalist event when I found myself – through the family I married into – that the Proms is for lovers of classical music and culture. As I’ve taken up much time myself on the YouTube thread I’ve put answers to the main factually untrue statements here on my website.

The main anti-EU ‘myths’ or lies put forward in these threads.
1. Bendy or straight bananas. Nonsense.
2. Laws are made in Brussels. Greatly exaggerated.
3. Imperial martyrs or metric martyrs. As daft as the Duke of Essex.
4. Auditors have signed off the EU accounts for many years.
5. “Only the unelected commissioners can propose laws”. True. But Commissioners are civil servants proposed by the member countries and voted in by the democratically elected EU Parliament. Civil servants are not usually elected in any country. Improvement and reform are, as pro- and anti-EU critics agree, greatly needed.

4 untrue. 1 true. So 1 out of 5 to the anti-EU commentators.

For detail see:

Detail. For sources, see below.
1. Bendy bananas. Anyone can sell straight bananas. The EU regulations are a trade system of classifying bananas. Your supermarket can sell them if it wants to.

2. Our laws are made in the UK and most do not originate from European Union regulations.
“An estimated 13% of Acts and Statutory Instruments have an EU influence, whereas that rises to 62% when EU regulations are included in addition to Acts and Statutory Instruments.”
“13% is likely to be too low, in reality, but 62% is much too high”
In Criminal Law – what many people think of as the most serious law – my own field, EU influence is minimal (much of what there is due to environmental, consumer protection and UK agreed fight against terrorism and serious crime measures).

3. Goods can be sold in imperial measures but they have to have metric on. No one is stopping any trader quantifying goods in Imperial – there is no metric martyr just a publicity hungry metric phobe. The UK signed up to metric before joining the EU & it’s why we have systems of weights and measures – why feet and ounces etc. were introduced originally – to facilitate fair trade. No one is stopping me buying my pint of 556ml of beer.

4. Auditors have signed off the EU accounts for nearly ten years and before that highlighted discrepancies that were mostly down to lack of proper accounting for spending in members states – by the public authorities and those given grants in our own countries. “auditors have not signed off the accounts since 1994” This statement has been factually corrected numerous times.

5. “Only the unelected commissioners can propose laws”. True. But Commissioners are civil servants proposed by the member countries and voted in by the democratically elected EU Parliament. MEPs can make proposals to go to the Commission for consideration, just as in reality British MPs can only really make suggestions for policy as the Government decides what the policies are. For more on the Commission see the next article, by former MEP Chris Davies (Liberal Democrat, NW England) on the roles of the Commission and Parliament.

So MEPs can suggest new laws – in reality the same as UK MPs – and have equal power to make law in most areas. This is an intra-country system, not a country’s Parliament. However, I agree that the democratically elected Parliament should have more powers. The EU Commission is more open to scrutiny and transparent than the UK ministries & civil service but I still agree with many critics, and with President Macron, that the EU is too bureaucratic and expensive and needs reform. The failure of British Tory and Labour Prime Ministers and MPs to achieve this is one of the biggest failures of British political leadership over the last decades. I’ve argued this for many years – our representatives have failed to do so.

Sources (there are many more for each one)
1. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/en/media/euromyths/bendybananas.html Of course if you don’t trust the EU (who like any public body provide masses of factual information) you can check one of many other sources.
Banana lie shown false more than a decade ago.

2. https://fullfact.org/europe/uk-law-what-proportion-influenced-eu/

3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6481969.stm

4. “The ECA [European Court of Auditors] signed off on the 2014 accounts as reliable, as it has for every set of figures since 2007. But it did find that payments were materially affected by errors.” Sam Ashworth-Hayes, Last updated: 10 Nov 2015
https://fullfact.org/economy/did-auditors-sign-eu-budget/

5. Apart from the Chris Davies article I reproduce there are good pieces by other British Members of the European Parliament who use their position to explain what really happens in Brussels. Including: Labour Yorkshire & Humber Linda McAvan: http://www.lindamcavanmep.org.uk/how-the-eu-works.php and Green for the South West Molly Scott Cato: http://mollymep.org.uk/european-parliament/how-laws-are-made/
Labour MEP Richard Corbett’s refreshingly clear more political Mythbuster can be found here: http://www.richardcorbett.org.uk/category/mythbusters/

Cover note.

The comments by nearly all the anti-EU people on this video illustrate all that was wrong with the EU referendum, what failed during the referendum and what failed since. There are exceptions – there are some more informed and well argued comments (some from ‘Creme Creme’, although he or she repeats the ‘parity of lies’ nonsense; some from ‘caesarott’ and some from Julian Morgan). Nearly every comment by ‘chrish12345’ is an absolute textbook of the worst lies, fakes, myths and anti-EU propaganda that has been rammed down the throats of people in Britain by the tabloid press, right wing and far left wing politicians / Trades Unions, and the billionaire backers of Brexit. That is what is so utterly shameful about the referendum. The majority of our political leaders – Labour, Conservative and most Liberal Democrat for many years – failed to tell the truth about the EU to people, to explain what the EU does and the BBC gave lies and myths equal coverage to actual facts. During the referendum this continued unabated and in the year since it has been an end to truth. The people who don’t like truth just don’t believe it.

The EU has overseen the longest period of peace between European nations in modern history. The European Community was specifically founded to ensure peace between France and Germany & that other countries are not caught up in a wider European war as happened for centuries. You may not like a quote from the New European newspaper but it sums it up perfectly “The politician who created the European Union did so because they had witnessed war and they had felt its devastation personally. They never wanted it to happen again.” Ian Walker obituary of Helmut Kohl, 23 June.

Really want to see what happens in reality ‘in Brussels’? Go and visit the wonderful Belgium capital which happens to host the EU headquarters and go and see the EU Parliament and Commission for yourself. In reality not in internet and tabloid myth and lies.

Kiron ReidLeave a comment

Answers to the anti-EU untruths on the YouTube post of Daniel Barenboim BBC Prom video.

The main anti-EU ‘myths’ or lies put forward in these threads.
1. Bendy or straight bananas. Nonsense.
2. Laws are made in Brussels. Greatly exaggerated.
3. Imperial martyrs or metric martyrs. As daft as the Duke of Essex.
4. Auditors have signed off the EU accounts for many years.
5. “Only the unelected commissioners can propose laws”. True. But Commissioners are civil servants proposed by the member countries and voted in by the democratically elected EU Parliament. Civil servants are not usually elected in any country. Improvement and reform are, as pro- and anti-EU critics agree, greatly needed.

4 untrue. 1 true. So 1 out of 5 to the anti-EU commentators.

Full post next.

Kiron ReidLeave a comment

An excess of flats planned for Liverpool river side Festival Gardens site.

Festival Gardens site Liverpool 2007 & 2017

How Liverpool City Council repeats the mistakes of ten years ago in its plans for the former Garden Festival site, a prime River Mersey side location three miles south of the iconic Pier Head. An excess of flats are planned for the Liverpool river side Festival Gardens site by the Labour Mayor & Council and its development partners, the same mistake that the Council was proposing in 2007 under Liberal Democrat control. The site is a brownfield former landfill site that was famous as the location of the Liverpool International Garden Festival in 1984, one of the initiatives supported by Conservative Minister, Michael Heseltine, that started to stop the decline in the Liverpool City Region. In fact Mayor Anderson and the Council are wanting to cram even more properties onto the site – 2500 as reported by Your Move magazine instead of the 1400 nearly all flats I object to in 2007. My objection in 2007 is set out in the attached submission to the City Council’s then ‘Executive Board’ (Cabinet) and article / report which detailed my reasons for objecting. The reasons are the same now as then – Liverpool needs a variety of housing stock to encourage a varied population, and that must include houses rather than just cramming in apartments in nearly every available space. Houses should be family sized houses as well, not just one or two bed town houses. This will help ensure there is space for growing families as well as a growing population.

My objection to flats is linked to the student housing bubble. In Liverpool, and every town and city with any University, no matter how new, the apartments complexes of purpose built student complexes have been thrown up over the last ten to fifteen years at an ever increasing rate. In Liverpool new apartment developments seem to be mostly student complexes. I also believe that the student numbers boom is a bubble that will burst at some point, and therefore many student apartments will be left empty. Re-purposing of those will be needed, as well as investment to help areas thrive and support families moving into vacated student houses. Though after more than ten years of making the prediction that the student numbers bubble in the UK (and everywhere else in the world) must burst it hasn’t looked at all like happening yet. Specifically as to Festival Gardens. More apartments will not necessarily help sustainability of the city’s housing but will help keep prices artificially high because of investors and speculators. Whatever happens with the site, I am sure that the former Garden Festival site, now Festival Gardens, will be a wonderful new city district in the future, and all those who have helped look after the site over the last thirty years will deserve some of the credit.

Liverpool City Council’s Festival Park masterplan can be found on the City Council website.
My background information for this post has included articles in Your Move magazine online, the City Region’s premier property and lifestyle magazine, and reports from the St. Michael’s ward Green Party councillors, who represent the effected area and have raised objections to the scale of the plans and implications.

gardenfest-art

gardenfest-object

Kiron ReidLeave a comment

Failure to preserve World War 2 heritage in NW England.

Unpublished letter to the Times, August 2015, reflecting concerns about failure to protect localised World War two sites. I had raised this and concern about the failure of Councils and official public heritage bodies to protect other local small scale industrial heritage relics (as monuments) in 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011 with one effective response from a coastal district archaeological preservation project officer.

Sir,

As much of the country wallows in the World War I nostalgia fest, the visible remains of the fight to save civilisation in World War 2 seem sadly neglected – certainly in the North West. In the Liverpool City region – whether at Crosby / Hightown / Altcar (Sefton district), Wirral, Liverpool, Warrington, West Lancs, the pill boxes and gun emplacements are not so much deliberately run down or neglected but simply unknown and ignored. They are not preserved or enhanced by anyone. I’ve seem similar situations with the reminders in Wales north and south. Notable exceptions being local history signage for key parts played in WW2 at Beaumaris, and along the Wallasey promenade marking ships lost, and popular remembrance of the May 1941 Blitz in Liverpool & Bootle. The pill boxes remain the most visible reminder if you know where to look. Maybe the Government branding change for English Heritage will enable them to assist conserving smaller everyday historic sites from our more recent war time and indeed industrial heritage.

Kiron Reid

Kiron ReidLeave a comment

Lessons from John Buchan for today.

Thanks to David Weekes PhD student at St Andrews University for letting me know that this document had also disappeared from my migrated website. Originally written in 2010 and posted on the website in about 2013.
In a later comment I made clear the similarity between inspirational young trade union leader Joe Utlaw and Nick Clegg in 2010 (doing what they think is right in the public interest and being rejected by the public).
I use many of the same John Buchan references and some of the commentary in this post from 2011 /2011/09/04/two-caveats-on-the-financial-crisis-peoples-irresponsible-borrowing-and-the-finance-sector-cashing-in-out-of-the-economic-crisis-fair-blame-and-fairer-shares/

Lessons from John Buchan for today