Helen

A far more important anniversary

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April 9 was the 200th anniversary of the birth of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, which required a special trip to Paddington railway station, it being the nearest surviving monument to the man’s genius.

As Richard Savill wrote in the Daily Telegraph a few days before that:

“The vision of Brunel – who by the time of his death in 1859, aged 53, had built 25 railway lines, more than 100 bridges and three ships – helped transform the West Country during the Victorian era.”

It also helped to transform Britain, as Richard Alleyne pointed out on the same day:

“Along with a handful of other industrialists he transformed the country from a traditional, rural, agrarian economy to a modern, urban, industrial one. By the time of his death, it was the industrial superpower of the world.”

A legacy to be proud of and a man, whose loss to Britain cost France dear. His father was an immigrant to Britain and himself a notable engineer. Isambard Kingdom was part educated in France but trained on his father’s projects. He was injured on one of them and spent his convalescence in Bristol, thus starting his very fruitful career in the West Country.

Still I can’t help wondering about a comment made by Andrew Kelly, the director of Brunel 200:

“Although Brunel was born 200 years ago, his influence remains with us in Britain today.

We hope that by showcasing his huge breadth of mind, and how he excelled as an engineer, ship designer, architect, surveyor and artist, we will encourage the Brunels of the future to adopt his ‘can do’ attitude and determination to achieve.”

I appreciate the need to encourage the Brunels of the future but what makes the man think that someone born 200 years ago is of little relevance. I seem to recall that in a recent BBC poll for the greatest Englishman, Brunel came second to Sir Winston Churchill.

Mr Kelly must realize, surely, that apologizing for the past is not the way to build the future. He could start by meditating on Edmund Burke’s sayings.

Cross-posted (mostly) from the Conservative History Journal

Green and Gold…

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…does not necessarily mean the Green Bay Packers. I previously wrote about how some millionaires with million-dollar water views were using the language and the tactics of the environmental movement to stop (wait for it…) a clean energy project. Windmills off Cape Code, to be specific, set up in the Nantucket Shoals.

Now their fund-raising manual has been leaked to the Boston Globe. Unfortunately, the text of their manual is not available online, but the excerpts are very funny. If you want a reliable guide to shmoozing people with fat wallets and heads, you owe it to yourself to look. Some highlights:

  • Gifts of $5,000 are considered “tokens”; fundraisers are instructed to regard $250,000 as the minimum.
  • 94% of the group’s funds came from donations of $20,000 or more. If that’s grass roots, the grass is pretty darn tall.
  • The driving force and source of funding is Bill Koch, investor, sportsman, and bon vivant. He does not want his view spoiled, and neither do his neighbors.

You have already heard about NIMBYs. How about BANANAs: Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.

Publicizing a new(ish) venture

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Recent political discussions among my friends and acquaintances in Britain have been rather depressed and depressing. We all start off by saying that we absolutely have to get rid of Blair for all sorts of reasons, too numerous to list on this blog.

Then somebody asks rather gloomily what will happen when (and if) he is succeeded by Gordon Brown. We all groan. The idea of that prissy Scot who oozes hard core socialism as well as misery as Prime Minister fills everyone with loathing. (And I do mean everyone. Gordon Brown managed to lose Labour a safe seat recently in a by-election on his own doorstep in Dunfermline.)

Of course, Blair may well not leave until Brown had completely discredited himself. That is my own reading of the situation and I rather regret not putting any money on that before Blair said that he now regretted saying that he would not be leading the party in the next election.

What many people forget is that the Labour Party elects its leaders and, given its slightly crazy view of the world, it may not elect Brown but go for someone else, like the egregious Prescott. Probably not, but you never can tell.

On the other hand, somebody says, brightening momentarily, Brown will not win another election. (Prescott could not win a three-legged race against arthritic tortoises.)

And that will do what, another says. Well, we shall have a …. um … a Conservative government …. that is to say … the Conservative Party will win an election …. perhaps. That’s when the real groans start. For there is no doubt in anybody’s mind. The government that this Conservative Party with the Boy-King David Cameron and his court in charge might form will not be a Conservative one. Actually, it will not be anything but a tie-less version of a possible Liberal-Democrat government.

So, there we are. What is one to do? In my case, the obvious answer is turning to conservative history (with a small c as it is not just about the party and past governments).

Some time ago I took over the editorship of the Conservative History Journal and, having published three issues, have just finished proof-reading a pamphlet on the career of Sir Michael Hicks Beach.

That is not enough in the modern day, even for a Conservative History Group. So, I have started a blog, which will, in the fullness of time, be turned into an all-singing, all-dancing website.

In the meantime, I anticipate lots of ideas, suggested postings and (hey, if you dream, dream big) even articles for the Journal from my co-bloggers and readers.

(Link to Conservative History Blog)

Cross-posted from Albion’s Seedlings

What is wrong with the European Union?

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What a silly question, you might say. Would it not be easier to ask what is right with the European Union? It would take considerably less time to enumerate. However, I should like to go to the very nub of it: its idea of governance.

One talks much of the way legislation and regulations are passed in the European Union with the peoples and legislatures of various member states being presented with a fait accompli and an assurance that nothing can be done to reverse European legislation.

We also know that the process of legislation and amendment of legislation is so cumbersome and secretive that achieving changes is well nigh impossible.

Most of all, we know that the legislative programme of the EU pays no attention to elections either within member states or, even, to the European Parliament; nor does it pay attention to changes in the Commission. Legislative plans are laid out for five or ten years; the Commission’s work programme is decided every year; the process goes on regardless of any democratic or constitutional developments.

Over and above that there is the problem of the Opposition. The European Union and its supporters do not acknowledge its right to exist. This was summed up very neatly by Professor Jeremy Black in his latest book: The European Question and the National Interest. Writing about the response to the two negative referendum results last year, in France and the Netherlands, he explains:

“Posing long-term issues provides a context for looking at the current conception of the future, which is largely defined by the issue of how best to respond to the rejection of the European constitutional treaty by the French and Dutch electorates. After an election, commentators rush to explain results, and generally over-simplify the situation, but there does seem to be a contrast between French criticism of the process of European change as threatening to dissolve social safety, and Dutch views about the overweening demands of the EU.

If, however, hostility to the real, or apparent, pretensions and activities of the EU comes from different sources, and much was made by Euro-enthusiasts about contrasts between French and Dutch views, this does not imply that the EU is an appropriate via media or necessary compromise, both views voiced by supporters of Euro-convergence. Such an appoach accords with a tendency to see different views to those of Euro-convergence in terms of factious opposition that necessarily needs to be ignored or overridden, a view that is in accord with the ‘official mind’ of the EU and also with a centrist, or generally left-of-centre, political alignment. Politically, this attitude is at variance with the Anglo-American practice and precept of shifts in government control with the concomitant understanding not only that opposition is constitutionally valid, but also that its political place includes the role of gaining power.”

While this summary of the difference between the whole idea of an integrated European state and a political system that is based on democratic accountability is entirely accurate, sadly one must relate that the rejection of the validity of political opposition is gaining ground within British politics, particularly at local but also at government level.

Cross-posted from Albion’s Seedlings

So, does it matter?

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The London Evening Standard trumpeted for all to see: Britons triumph at the Oscars. After the humiliation of the BAFTAs, when all the major and most of the minor prizes were carried away by the Americans, we got our revenge.

Alas, it was not so. Apart from Rachel Weisz getting an award for looking pretty in trying circumstances, the only British film to win anything was “Wallace and Gromit”. As it happens, I have seen it. (Well, how could I resist a film which was titled “The Curse of the Were-Rabbit”?) It is very good, indeed. When it comes to amusing animation, the Brits can occasionally come up with the goods.

This has been the year of the least watched nominations, as anyone who has read Mark Steyn or various other commentators knows. The most popular of the winners is the documentary, “The March of the Penguins” and that only in the United States. The first Narnia film that was awarded various prizes also did well.

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