Dawn

Dawn

Monday, July 08, 2019

Thoughts from Galicia, Spain: 8.7.19

Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable. 
                  Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain
  • I've been known to complain about Spanish individualismo in the context of car-parking, my biggest bugbear being the habit of leaving 2-3 metres between cars parked alongside the kerb. So, I was naturally impressed - as well as amused -by this initiative.
  • Reader María had pointed out that many 'middle class' Spanish families can't afford a chica or an even-more-expensive full-time maid. This has left me wondering how big and wide the middle class in Spain is these days. And whether it's divided - as in the UK - into at least the Upper and Lower Middle Class. I seem to recall someone claiming that everyone in Spain these days is 'middle-class' but this obviously can't be true. But, most of them??
  • As for dish-washing or, rather, the absence of it . . . Another thought is that there's so little home entertaining of non-family folk in Spain - where people tend to go out to eat together - that there's a standing assumption someone else will do the dishes. . . 
  •  The Corte Inglés is Spain's premier (only?) department store. I once thought it meant English Court but now know it means English Cut, or style. Training from Madrid to Pontevedra last night, my daughter caught sight of this establishment near a railway station:-
  • Talking of trains, it's interesting to see that Spain's national carrier - RENFE - will relatively soon face competition from both French and German 'low-cost' operators. For us here in Galicia, the very good news is that one of these will operate a service from La Coruña right down to Oporto. Currently, you can only do this from Vigo. I wonder if it will lead to RENFE ironing out the bugs in its web page.
The UK 
  • If there's a non-cash-related reason for leaking the opinion of the UK ambassador on the US president and his White House, I can't figure out what it might be. Thin-skinned, inept, insecure and incompetent, in case you didn't know. Maybe a fanatical Remainer determined to kibosh the chances of a UK-USA trade deal . . .
The EU
  • Germany seems - not for the first time - to be having leadership problems. Which is probably bad for the EU, especially if it helps M Macron pursue his grandiose dreams.
  • Below is an article on the man who did most to generate my euroscepticism years ago. He won't appeal to everyone, of course, but he was certainly one of a kind.
The Way of the World/Social Media/USA/Nutters Corner 
  • I had a go at the fashion industry yesterday but a UK columnist really goes to town on it in the article below. Specifically on its attempt to paint itself green. Taster:- Fashion, more than any other business, depends on built-in obsolescence and the casting off of perfectly wearable clothes at regular intervals – how can it ever be sustainable?  . . . Fashion by its very nature is only true to itself when it works completely outside the moral framework of society. To expect fashion to be moral is as silly as expecting the stock market to be moral – it’s the nature of the beast.
  • It’s the speed of the thing that is so unsettling. One moment, a word or image is completely safe – banal, even. The next, it has been declared off-limits by the woke Left, and everyone rushes to comply. . . . As in the Salem witchcraft trials, we are in an era where those who know better rush to support any accusation, however idiotic, in order to avoid being charged themselves. 
  • A great example of late-night US TV. Or the anti-Fart satirical branch of it at least. It's quite hard to understand how anyone can admire this man. As opposed to supporting his policies, which is at least defensible.
Finally . . .
  • Yesterday I mentioned rats in my garden. I was reminded of these by these miniscule 'dogs' - actually smaller than they look - yapping at the next table to mine at lunchtime:-
There were 3 of them, in fact, and they spent some time in the laps of 2 guys. I might have got a letter wrong in that last word. Though they were drinking beer from the bottle, so maybe not.

THE ARTICLE

1. Farewell to Christopher Booker, a man whose Sunday Telegraph column was THE one to read: Owen Paterson, Conservative MP for North Shropshire and a former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and Defra

I first met Christopher Booker shortly after I was elected to Parliament in 1997. Among his many accomplishments, he had already made his reputation as a courageous writer, determined to highlight the disastrous effects of excessive EU regulation on many rural industries, from abattoirs to cheesemakers.

Christopher and I shared frustrations that increasingly damaging European regulations were being compounded by the ignorance of an urban Labour Government doing great harm to the countryside. The appalling failures of that regime were typified by the horrendous mismanagement of the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak, during which – as Christopher pointed out – 8 million healthy animals were unnecessarily destroyed.

His weekly Sunday Telegraph article was the column to read. I was able to give him stories from my constituency which demonstrated the consequences of oppressive regulation and poor decision making. In the days before Twitter, this was a fantastic opportunity for a backbench MP to bring local issues of national consequence to wide attention. Combined with meticulous research from Dr Richard North, we made an effective triangle and won some important victories. One such success was the story of renowned balloonist Per Lindstrand, whose Oswestry firm was the leading manufacturer of “aerostats” – tethered helium balloons that carry 30 passengers up to 500ft. Lindstrand Balloons faced disaster in 2003 when the regulation of air safety was taken away from EU Member States and given to the European Aviation Safety Agency. A bureaucratic nonsense over the certification of the tethering winch meant that Lindstrand was suddenly forbidden to sell products in the EU.

Christopher highlighted this absurd saga on a number of occasions in his column. I tabled 33 parliamentary questions on Lindstrand’s treatment, but endless obstacles were put in his way. When I finally secured a meeting with EASA in Cologne, the first thing they said was that they would resolve the issue, provided we guaranteed there were no more critical comments about EASA in the British press. Such was the influence of the Booker Column in the Sunday Telegraph!

On international subjects, too, Christopher’s column was a rich mine of painstakingly researched and comprehensively thought-through arguments undaunted by political orthodoxy or lazy consensus. By the time I was an Opposition Spokesman on fisheries in 2005, Christopher had long been exposing in detail the biological, environmental, economic and social disaster of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy. It is an appalling policy doomed to failure by its ludicrous attempt to manage a complex marine environment with arbitrary bureaucratic policies as inflexible as they are remote.

Christopher was, therefore, enormously helpful when I visited North Atlantic fisheries in Norway, the Faeroes, Iceland, Canada, the USA and the Falklands seeing thriving coastal communities and flourishing marine environments. This led on to the Conservative Green Paper advocating leaving the CFP in the 2005 election. He always understood that the essence of a successful policy would be national and local control over centralisation. With his fine grasp of the detail, he was able to publicise these exciting new systems and technologies to a wide audience with clarity and rigour.

Christopher remained incredibly supportive when I went into Government. He had a deep knowledge of the countryside, so I was particularly glad of his support as Secretary of State at DEFRA. Always a champion of the skilled, experienced countryman with knowledge accumulated down the generations over the interfering, ignorant bureaucrat, he was instrumental in putting me in touch with the right people on the ground when the Somerset Levels flooded in 2014 thanks to the idiotic policy of banning dredging of an artificial landscape which had been drained since the Middle Ages. Thanks to the plan that was subsequently put together, the Levels have been clear of excessive flooding since.

Christopher was always a fount of knowledge on a vast range of subjects. I fondly remember many three-hour conversations with him as I drove between Shropshire and London, ranging over politics, history, art, music, travel, literature and everything in between.

Christopher and I had slightly lost touch in recent years, but as soon as I learnt of his illness I drove to see him. We spent several hours chatting and laughing as if we had spoken only the night before. Our conversation, as usual, ranged over a huge number of ideas; Christopher’s mind was as sharp and incisive as ever. It is particularly poignant for me that I had been planning to visit him again tomorrow.

He was always prepared to hold independent, brave opinions based on thorough research.  He was a man of integrity, prepared to campaign persistently for what he believed to be right, ignoring personal abuse. Above all, he was always, always able to see the joke. His books and writings will ensure that he is long remembered as a tremendously significant figure. I count it a great honour that he was my friend.

2. There's only one way for fashion to be sustainable, and that's for us all to stop buying new clothes: Julie Burchill: Daily Telegraph

‘It’s not easy being green,” Kermit the frog was wont to sing – but many a chancing merchant seeking to flog cheap clothes to sensitive-skinned snowflakes would disagree. For years commerce has appealed to peoples’ desire to feel “special”, without having to go to the bother of actually achieving anything (which might take a bit of time and effort), by kidding them that the money being prised from their hot little hand isn’t just a basic transaction but rather a celebration of the buyer’s singularity (the trend for personalisation of products, whereby you can stare at your own face on a mug in the morning and fall asleep on a pillow printed with it at night has long amused me).

But now you can go further than mere specialness when out on a tragic bit of retail therapy (rather than do something which might really boost your self-esteem.) With the advent of climate-panic and the understandable desire not to be strung up by Greta Thunberg and her barmy army, every last bargain basement has refurbished itself in shades of green; now you can buy righteousness and kid yourself that, as you shell out for yet one more pointless thing to plug the void, you’re actually saving the planet.

The impact on the environment of the fashion industry – which depends on and defines itself by the buying of new garments with each new season – is calamitous; knowing this, and not wanting to lose Generation Woke, it has attempted to cover its back with a lot of flim-flam about “sustainability”.

The model Amber Valletta was recently feted for attending the Copenhagen Fashion Summit (an annual event on sustainability in fashion) and is a mentor to the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s “sustainable fashion initiative” while the designer Paper “supports the fight against ocean plastic pollution with sustainable swimwear”. Recently even Boohoo, the online store where you can buy a dress for £4, tried to boast its environmental credentials with a range of clothes made from recycled material, following similar initiatives from Zara, H&M and Asos. Sadly the company was accused of “greenwash” even though it had announced that its For The Future range was made using recycled polyester which had been “directed away from landfill”; apparently, though the clothing may be made from 95 per cent recycled material, the remaining 5 per cent of elastin means that the items themselves cannot in turn be recycled.

Just as no one wants penguins to mistake six-pack rings for attractive neckwear, no one wants toddlers in the developing world to fritter their youth away in sweatshops. Being sceptical about matters green doesn’t make one evil. But I’m not convinced by the “buy less, buy better” creed; a few years back the Clean Clothes Campaign report fingered Prada and Dolce & Gabbana, among others, for using cheap labour in Eastern Europe, often paying one-third of the minimum living wage. The companies in question said wages were negotiated by suppliers, but it’s a little off when a Moldovan worker is being paid the same to sew for Primark or Prada.

Surprised? I’m not. Fashion, more than any other business, depends on built-in obsolescence and the casting off of perfectly wearable clothes at regular intervals – how can it ever be sustainable?

Fashion by its very nature is only true to itself when it works completely outside the moral framework of society. That’s why it’s weird to complain about models being young, thin or white – you want an even larger demographic of women to be objectified, do you? To expect fashion to be moral is as silly as expecting the stock market to be moral – it’s the nature of the beast.

I would say this as a charity-shop worker, but there is only one way not to add to the planet’s misery in this arena and that is – with the exception of shoes and underwear – just don’t buy new clothes. There’s a reason even online clothes-retailers are suffering, while one in eight shops now stands empty; people have seen that “retail therapy” solves nothing but creates more problems, from personal debt to ceaseless landfill fodder. All new clothes are the Emperor’s New Clothes now – and the only green that fashion will ever really care about is the colour of money.

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