Changing the narrative

An opportunity to change the narrative on Nuclear Weapons

Since the UN Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) came into force in 2021, it is a matter of fact that Nuclear Weapons are now prohibited and illegal under International Law. Liberal Democrats, as law-abiding internationalists must recognise that fact and behave and act accordingly. We have an opportunity to change the narrative on these weapons of mass-destruction.

Multilateralist, respecting international law and learning from history

International security has become a distinctly hot topic since Putin`s very aggressive “Special Military Operation” was launched against Ukraine just over a year ago. Clearly most people recognise it for what it was, an invasion of another sovereign country, by a despot of questionable sanity, with a very large army under his control.

Of specific relevance for this article, however, is the debate prompted (I was going to say `sparked` but decided that was, perhaps, an inappropriate verb!) by Putin having “moved the goalposts of the conditions under which Russia would launch a first nuclear strike.”(Chatham House)[i]

That Chatham House paper of September 2022, points out that Putin`s “deliberately ambiguous and dangerous” threats have significantly moved Russian nuclear doctrine from its oft-stated position that “Russia would only use nuclear weapons first should the existence of the state be threatened, rather than its ‘territorial integrity’.”  `Territorial integrity` now includes annexed Ukrainian land!

The problem with this, for people of a Liberal persuasion, is that there has been a sort of `equal and opposite knee-jerk reaction` to crank up the level of rhetoric and nuclear weapon state of readiness on all who oppose Putin`s brand of madness. This is, of course, perfectly understandable, but highly dangerous, in that it also cranks up the risks to the world and everyone in it.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist has reset the minute hand on the Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight, “largely but not exclusively due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine“.

The Nobel Peace-prize-winning organisation, ICAN (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons), have said, quite clearly, in an article published in January this year that “This year’s Clock announcement must not be followed by the usual hand wringing, resignation and excuses, but with urgent action to avoid nuclear war. ICAN has a roadmap for ridding the world of nuclear weapons in four steps: prohibition, stigmatisation, negotiation, elimination.” [ii]

And it is in this context that we have put forward an amendment to the Nuclear Weapons motion to be debated at the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference in York very shortly.

Dealing with Nuclear Anxiety

ICAN point out that, as the nuclear threat grows, it is very normal for people to experience nuclear war anxiety as a result. “The existence of nuclear weapons entails an existential threat to our world and everything we hold dear, which in many ways can be regarded as a greater threat than people’s possible individual fear of their own death.”

The KILL ZONE    I was fifteen in 1962, the year of the Cuban missile crisis. Both my home, my school and our family business were within 3.7 miles of Waddington RAF station which was the home of the Vulcan bombers which carried the British nuclear weapons of mass destruction.

The 100% kill zone of a `modest` 1 megaton bomb is said to be at least 6 kilometres – just over 3.7 miles. The KILL ZONE is shown relative to the Waddington RAF base in the attached Google Earth screen shot and, as is apparent, the family business, home and my school are clearly within the deadly target area!

So, it seems quite likely, then, that my views of nuclear weapons were somewhat influenced by this proximity with death. I recall noting that just after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote “Mankind is faced with a clear-cut alternative: either we shall all perish, or we shall have to acquire some slight degree of common sense”.

We have relied on luck for too long.

We may, in fact, need some UNCOMMON sense if we are to avoid an accident (perhaps “incident” would be a more appropriate word?) that obliterates humans and much other life from the Earth.

It is now well known that, in the midst of the Cuban Crisis, Vasily Arkhipov, Chief of Staff of a Soviet Flotilla of four diesel submarines, who was one of three keyholders for the nuclear weapons on the submarine B59, saved the world from Armageddon. The submarines were out of touch with Moscow. The sub`s captain and the other keyholder were going to activate their missiles. Arkhipov refused to use his key and, thereby, prevented the apocalypse.

Twenty-one years later, in September 1983, the Soviet Union shot down Korean Air Lines flight 007, which had strayed into their air space. Three weeks after that the Soviet early warning system raised the alarm that five missiles from the US were headed their way. Duty Officer Lt Col Stanislav Petrov disobeyed orders and chose to ignore what proved to be a false alarm – and Petrov also, saved the world from Armageddon. But we have relied on luck too often for comfort now.

Addressing the morality of Nuclear Weapons

His Excellency Josiah Bainimarama, the Prime Minister of Fiji, speaking in 2022[iii], pointed out that on a planet with a Global Food Crisis; and a runaway Climate Crisis; and still suffering from a rampant zoonotic pandemic, nuclear weapons “…do not feed us, do not clothe us, nor do they keep out the rising seas!”

As a Liberal, I believe weapons of mass destruction are wrong and immoral and have always said so. Indeed, much of the position of our Lib Dem policy is predicated on this moral argument, but caution and a degree of political pragmatism have kept the Party from following this philosophy to its conclusion and has tended to follow the maxim of deterrence. However, we need to ask `what is actually being deterred by such a policy?`

As we all discovered in February last year, nuclear weapons cannot prevent conflict among states, but they do heighten the risk of miscalculation that could end life on earth. Already Vladimir Putin has miscalculated Ukraine`s resolve and the West`s determination to support an heroic Ukrainian President determined to stand firm in the face of aggression.

Part of that miscalculation was based upon the fact that western powers did not step up to the plate after Russia had invaded and annexed the Crimea. And, clearly, Putin believed a quick win was possible with a speedy push along the main roads and the quick capitulation of Kyiv. But that was not to be.

The Nuclear Weapons motion – `Establishment View`

It is to be expected that we Liberal Democrats should respond to this security threat within Europe, being the good, international, Party we are. However, I fear that the motion drawn up by the parliamentary defence team errs too much on the side of an ultra-cautious approach to defence policy, probably not wishing to rock the middle-of-the-road approach thought to be necessary in order not to frighten off the soft conservative vote.

There is too much reliance on the status quo and too much acceptance of the notion of `deterrence` referred to above. As the ICAN team suggests, `deterrence` is built on fear and though it may have worked in a way when there was an equilibrium between `blocs` in what was known as the `Cold War` it has clearly not deterred Putin from International aggression.

And Putin`s threats to use nuclear weapons are being delivered in order to stop Western non-nuclear support for Ukraine, in fear of what could happen if they overstep a line in the sand. The trouble, as always, is that the `line in the sand` is deliberately vague and ambiguous.

We, Liberal Democrats, need to be able and willing to be part of the solution – but blandly supporting the status quo is not going to move the needle at all. It is not going to shift the Doomsday Clock by one second, never mind one minute! The evidence over my lifetime – 75plus years spent entirely in the Nuclear Age – is that downward shifts in numbers of nuclear weapons have only come about during negotiations; and those negotiations have often been spurred on by a response to a crisis of the scale of the Cuban missile crisis sixty years ago!

We need a change of direction…perhaps this Crisis will become the opportunity for movement.

The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

You may well hear from those opposing our amendment that the UN Treaty is “Unilateralist”, but as the research briefing in the House of Commons Library tells us, the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons[iv], in fact, “is the first multilateral, legally binding, instrument for nuclear disarmament to have been negotiated in 20 years.”

As we identify in the amendment, the treaty tells us this in its own words. So, the paragraph we have quoted, which is to be inserted in the “Conference notes” section of the motion, includes the following sentence…

Signatories should immediately remove them from operational status, and destroy them as soon as possible, but not later than a deadline to be determined by the first meeting of States Parties

“Not later than a deadline to be determined by the first meeting of State Parties” – in other words the final stage will be multilateral. And my contention is that the seriousness of such negotiations will be highlighted by the fact that at least one Nuclear Power has decided to sign the Treaty.

Choosing a Direction of Travel

This is all about choosing a direction of travel.  Sadly, the Lib Dem motion on the Agenda for York is static in this regard and is what ICAN calls a “wringing of hands”. I believe we Liberals can and should do better. Through our well-established Liberal values, we need to say, loud and clear, that WE are ready to move the process of nuclear disarmament forward.

The amendment also specifies that signing the Treaty should happen in the lifetime of the next Parliament after the forthcoming General Election. It is pretty clear that the current Tory Government would not be open to such a move and any possible iteration of a future Tory government is also highly unlikely to think this is a good idea.

However, I think we can be reasonably confident that the General Election is going to have a significant effect upon the political makeup of Parliament. I do not think that is in doubt.

I want us to be in the vanguard of change – Liberals always have been, because we do not have the baggage of vested interests to weigh us down. And we have a set of values which we need to proclaim rather than hiding them from view in order to not rock the boat!

Let`s move together with the United Nations

UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres said recently that…

 “As a global family, we can no longer allow the cloud of nuclear conflict to shadow our work to spur development, achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and end the COVID-19 pandemic. Now is the time to lift this cloud for good.”

Achieving global nuclear disarmament is one of the oldest goals of the UN and was the General Assembly`s first resolution of 1946. The UN Treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons has been signed by 86 countries and 66 countries have already ratified it. This change, if we make it at the Conference in York, will be the fulfilment of truly Liberal Values consistent with those stated in the preamble to the constitution, namely…

The universal liberal values of internationalism, human rights, the pursuit of peace, and the rule of law, as well as our commitment to each generation having the responsibility to protect the planet, its ecosystem and all its peoples.

So, I hope that those of you reading this who want to move more swiftly to getting rid of Nuclear Weapons will register for the Conference, even if you can only get to the online version – and cast your votes in favour of the amendment to support the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons!

Keith Melton

Directly elected member of the Federal Policy Committee and Chair of the Green Liberal Democrats

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[i] “Ambiguous nuclear threats heighten catastrophic risks”, Article, www.chathamhouse.org September 2022

[ii] “Dealing with Nuclear War Anxiety”, Article, ICAN website, https://www.icanw.org, January 2023

[iii] High level address to the First meeting of the UNTPNW States Parties, June 2022, https://media.un.org/en/asset/k1s/k1sbslstum accessed March 2023

[iv] “Treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons”, Research Briefing, HoC Library, https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/ 13^th June 2022

Renewable energy, energy storage and my back yard

I am standing as the Liberal Democrat candidate in the Local Elections in my home ward (Trent Ward) of Newark and Sherwood District Council. There is a major issue that has understandably energised neighbours and friends in my village of Staythorpe and nearby villages of Averham and Kelham. I feel it is important, therefore, for everyone who knows me locally to be very clear how I feel about these issues.

There will undoubtedly be votes cast, in relation to this single issue, at a highly emotive level, as well as all the other political and non-political concerns people have across the board, of course. One of the key problems about this is that the issue raises ethical questions and moral questions as well as key practical questions, so responses need to be balanced and well thought through.

And if one`s responses are not articulated clearly, those voting decisions may be made as a result of misunderstandings, or misdirection, rather than on the basis of the facts. Hence the need for this article.

The background and the issues

For clarity, you need to know a few background details before we consider the specifics of this issue.

First of all, as any local reader of this article will know, I actually live in Staythorpe (the first of three proposed sites in the area for a lithium-ion Battery Energy Storage System [BESS]) There is therefore an immediate tension between my own knee-jerk NIMBY reaction, not to have such an intrusive, noisy, visually inappropriate, potentially dangerous, and flood-risk-prone, industrial site anywhere near where I live – and my long-held, save-the-planet, renewable energy & energy storage persona.

Secondly, I am Chair of the Green Liberal Democrats (the Party`s “Environmental Conscience”) and, with a more-than-50-years` experience of both professional and political environmental activism, I am committed to the need to address the Global Emergency of human-induced Climate Change as a matter of real urgency.

Thirdly, I am standing as the Liberal Democrat candidate in the 2023 local elections for my home patch of Trent Ward, which contains a total of three proposed BESS projects, one of which also proposes a large array of photovoltaic panels. This year Trent Ward is a distinctly winnable seat for the Liberal Democrats, so it is certainly a possibility that I may yet be held accountable as a Councillor for voting on whether one, or all, or none, of the projects is permitted or not. As such I need, therefore, to retain an open mind to hear and weigh “all the evidence” before making a decision – or, more likely, several decisions.

Finally, it should be recognised that Councillors, in the same way as MPs, are elected to represent all of the people of their area, and not as delegates of a single group. So, on any single issue, they will receive information and briefings which are generally more detailed than are available to individual voters. This means, as I read recently, “you cannot be absolutely FOR or AGAINST anything without first of all hearing all the evidence”.

WhatsApp Groups

WhatsApp Groups are very valuable for a whole variety of reasons, sharing communication quickly, especially about meetings and campaigns and petitions – but they are not appropriate for detailed and thoughtful debates where balanced views may be required, which is why I wanted to use a longer form of communication to address this set of issues.

The UK energy market

As we all know, following Putin`s aggressive invasion of Ukraine, the world energy market has been under great stress with highly volatile prices. The impact of fossil fuels on Climate Change has also been a major factor in the need to reconsider how we create and use the energy which powers all the various aspects of our lives.

In the 1970’s the UK was a net importer of energy. Following development of oil and gas production in the North Sea, the UK became a net exporter of energy in 1981. North Sea production peaked in 1999, and the UK returned to being an energy importer in 2004. The global energy shock following the Ukraine invasion is now driving a move towards greater UK energy independence.

Electricity represents just under a quarter of the energy needs of the UK and just over a third of that is for domestic use.

The role of renewable sources of electrical energy such as bioenergy, solar and wind power has become much more significant in recent years and, if you include nuclear power, the share of low-carbon sources of production has more or less doubled from 9.4% in 2000 to 19.4% in 2021. Of these, bioenergy is the only source that is `time-responsive` in the sense that it can be easily switched on when needed and switched off when not needed.

In practical terms nuclear power needs to be ON all the time to be most cost effective; and both solar power and wind power are (obviously!) only produced when the sun is shining, or the wind is blowing. Indeed, one of the great frustrations for renewable energy supporters is that wind turbines sometimes have to be `feathered` (effectively turned off) when electricity demand is low and nuclear power plants need to be kept running.

Energy storage

One solution to this problem is to find a way to store the energy and then release it later when needed. If you have hills and hydro power energy storage is relatively easy – you pump the water uphill to a lake or reservoir and when electricity is needed you let it come down via gravity and push the turbines round again.

Other forms of gravity storage are currently being researched and promoted and claims of very high efficiency (80% – 90%) of retained energy and long life are being examined but are, as yet, relatively low scale. They are thought to be capable of being very quickly turned on and off and can reach peak energy delivery in seconds, even at high output. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKGtvhVrY_4)

Molten salt batteries have been around for over 40 years but have never taken off in the market place. Keeping the salt (or every other potential material) in its melted state is very energy intensive, so can lead to very low levels of system efficiency. Hydrogen production may find some specific uses as energy storage, but there is a high energy cost to separate out the hydrogen and therefore low efficiency in practical terms, especially if used to create electricity again.

Electrical batteries have been around for over 200 years and have become common in many forms of small-scale domestic use in my lifetime, from toys to kitchen scales to mobile phones. It is only relatively recently however that rechargeable lithium-ion batteries have become important in large-scale energy storage, capable of helping to smooth peaks of production and demand. This is, not least, due to their rapidly decreasing costs of production.

The problems

Large-scale Battery Energy Storage Systems present a number of problems to consider when considering where to place them. Logically, if the BESS is intended to balance supply and demand – referred to as `peak-shaving` – the BESS needs to be close to a Grid network point, which is why we have several proposals in our area – close to the Staythorpe National Grid sub-station.

For local residents (of which I am one, with a house in Staythorpe itself) the problems range from …

• danger – thermal runaway, fires, explosions, flood risks, additional traffic hazards
• through nuisance – building works, additional traffic, traffic noise, noise pollution
• and threats to wildlife – fences,  disturbance of badger sets, habitat loss
• to aesthetics – light pollution, background noise, visual pollution, industrial scale

Unfortunately, the planning committee of Newark and Sherwood District Council has failed, despite the very large scale of each of the proposals for such a relatively new technology, to require any of the companies involved to have to undertake an Environmental Impact Assessment. Now that there are two projects which have progressed as far as the submission of planning applications being lodged with the Council and a third on known to exist, the minimum requirement should be for an Environmental Impact Assessment on the basis of Cumulation.

The National Policy Statement for National Networks (“NN NPS”) states that the effects of existing sources of pollution in and around a project should not be such that … “the cumulative effects of pollution when the proposed development is added would make that development unacceptable, particularly in relation to statutory environmental quality limits” and applies as much to Air Quality , Ecology and Nature, Road Drainage & the Water Environment as to Noise and Vibration.

The proposals – and my opinion

Within the area of the Trent Ward there appear to be three potential projects involving Battery Energy Storage Systems, only two of which have yet reached the planning application stage. A third project is apparently likely which will also have solar photovoltaic (pv) energy production as well as storage involved.

The first thing to say is that there should be, in my view, an Environmental Impact Assessment carried out on the basis of prospective `Cumulation` since, if all three were to be approved, there would be a fundamental change to the area from being a primarily rural group of small villages. The whole area would take on a completely industrial aspect. In such a case the overall level of risks of all kinds would be unacceptable in a residential area.

As far as the individual projects are concerned it is clearly not possible to offer a sound opinion on the project yet to be brought to the stage of an existing planning application. For the two projects already seeking planning approval, however, I am of the view at this point in time that, due to the large scale indicated in these proposals, neither of them is acceptable in its current form.

Having said that, the urgency of the impact of Climate Change is such that electricity storage is required both now in the near future, so a scaled-down set of proposals may become more acceptable to local residents with confirmation that technological solutions to various potential dangers has moved forward at a rapid pace.

“My back yard” – being brave and honest

I was prompted to start writing this piece following a brief WhatsApp discussion locally where one group member was apparently seeking a categorical statement from me that I should be committed to block all existing and potential applications for energy storage; and all potential renewable energy applications locally, too.  In other words, I was apparently being asked to say Not In My Back Yard, because it is, of course, their back yard too (NIMBY)

`Populist` politicians seem to be perfectly happy defending their `back yard` against any proposal which may seem to be unpopular. However, for me, a key responsibility of politicians is to make decisions that are right for all the right reasons and, at worst, to ensure that the benefits overall outweigh any possible harms. And, if harms are specific, then compensation should follow.

The intention of this article is to present a reasonable balanced view of a complex set of decisions which need to be taken in the relatively near future. It reflects my views at this moment in time, but also my desire to offer a values-based approach to the decision-making processes necessary for complex questions of policy.

Another comment in the WhatsApp group suggested local political candidates should be “prepared to be brave, straight and honest on where they stand…” – but I think this was said with a view to candidates being absolutely FOR or absolutely AGAINST.

My view, however, is that it is braver, straighter and more honest to make it clear that, in view of the very real threat that Climate Change presents us with, we may need to face a compromise situation with a scaled down version of storage capacity. It may, therefore be necessary for us to have to have some form of electricity storage for the future, in our locality, but it must be safe, appropriate and not have a detrimental effect on the area.

Other issues to be considered

There are several other issues to be considered before final decisions can be taken with certainty, perhaps the most significant of which for local residents is the potential for sharing in the enterprise benefits of possible projects.

Shared Enterprise

So far, such potential benefits have only been `hinted at` and have therefore been treated as possible `bribes` to sow division amongst the receiving community(ies). It should be possible, however, to approach a truly community-driven set of benefits, which may be seen to compensate for possible disbenefits, or costs, of what would otherwise be seen as an industrial scale project in a primarily rural area.

National Grid – fitness for purpose

We also need to consider the constraints of a National Grid which is not currently fit for purpose. This is because the development of future provision for Grid expansion was linked back in the 1980s to account only for known forward projects. Restrictions were placed on Grid expansion which might otherwise have allowed for rapid changes in demand and provision of energy across geographical areas.

Long-term versus short-term storage of electricity

Lithium-ion batteries represent a valuable short-term solution for energy storage, but such batteries need to be charged and discharged frequently to be maintained in good order. They are not suitable therefore for longer-term energy storage which is needed most in relation to managing intermittent renewable energy sources.

Gravity-based storage systems appear to be much more suited to storing energy over longer time spans. Therefore, it is important to assess the relative benefits and dispositions of different types of storage. There is therefore merit in differentiating storage sites according to closeness or otherwise to residential areas.

Disarming the world

I hadn`t quite realised how long it has been since I posted a Blog here! I have been concentrating my writing through my role as Chair of the Green Liberal Democrats, so I have been writing articles for the GLD website. Thought it was about time to write something here as well. And, as we are coming up to the annual Autumn Conference of the Liberal Democrats in Brighton, this will be, anyway, a political post too.

When I rejoined the Liberal Democrats just before my 70th birthday I had a plan – and that was to do everything I could to re-radicalise the party, as I felt it had lost its LIBERAL focus. I gave myself a five year target and if the plan was not successful I would go back to planting trees to satisfy my environmental ambitions (it so happens I have been planting trees as well, but that`s another story for another day).

As some of you have perhaps seen elsewhere, I recently celebrated my three quarters of a century, so my five year timeline is really up, but I am pleased to say I have been making progress on issues on the environmental front. However, there was one issue that was eluding me… the Liberal Party which I joined back in the mid-1960s was anti-nuclear weapons, but at some point after the merger with the SDP in 1988, party policy changed to become in favour of the so-called nuclear deterrent. I have been trying to help nudge the party to change its mind since being back, but the Federal Conference Committee kept rejecting the issue for debate.

A motion on the `nuclear deterrent` was chosen for debate in Brighton this autumn, but it would make our policy even more pro-nuclear, so we decided it should be amended and I have had a large hand in drafting the amendment. What follows is an article which I wrote for the magazine of Liberal International “InterLib” – and I thought I would post it here, too…

Nuclear Weapons – a Liberal Democrat rethink.

(“The prospect for the human race is sombre beyond all precedent. Mankind is faced with a clear-cut alternative: either we shall all perish, or we shall have to acquire some slight degree of common sense.” Bertrand Russell, August 1945, written just after Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been bombed)

The war of aggression Putin has been waging for the last six months or more (arguably a full eight years, in fact!) has thrown into stark relief that Liberal Democrat `20<sup>th</sup> Century policies` on nuclear weapons are no longer fit for purpose and, indeed, our approach to defence policy, as a whole, needs to be looked at in depth, in the face of a much-changed geopolitical environment.

The political and economic response to Russian aggression in Ukraine, has been remarkable in its unity of purpose and speed of decision-making. The fact that the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky – the leader of a sister Party in the European Liberal Democrat family – has been heroic and steadfast in standing up to the Russian Bear in defence of Liberal Democracy, has helped to affirm, perhaps reaffirm, cultural Western views and values of Liberal Democracy per se.

There may be, indeed there will be, those who argue that it is the deterrent threat of the West`s nuclear weapons that has kept Putin from even greater expansionist ambitions, but, in truth, it has been the determination and solidity of the Liberal Democratic Alliance of the West and its preparedness to supply conventional weapons and intelligence to our heroic proxy in Ukraine. Beyond that, there has been an equally remarkable unity of economic sanctions that have been applied remarkably quickly against Russia and Russian Oligarchs, that may have helped keep the Bear`s claws trimmed.

Let us, for the moment, allow the argument that the MAD certainty of Mutually Assured Destruction has been the thing that has stopped Putin from using his nuclear weaponry, we still have to ask the question of what comes next. Whilst nuclear weapons exist and the countries that own them insist that they may use them “if necessary”, there will always be a risk that a perfect storm of human and/or machine error could trigger Armageddon.

Close Calls

with apologies to the website` Future of Life`…

I am the same age as the United Nations, and I can recall as a teenager what seemed to be the very real possibility of having to cover classroom windows with brown paper against the depredations of nuclear weapons during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Professor Anthony Aguirre, a board member of the Future of Life Institute suggests that the “… constellation of incidents around (and including) the Cuban missile crisis…” were, for him, the scariest of close calls.

Aguirre concluded that “(a) when tensions escalate, it becomes dramatically more probable that unfortunate coincidences etc. will conspire to create big problems and (b) we were very lucky to get through the Cuban Missile crisis, and we have no good reason to be confident that we would make it through any similar flare-up in tensions.”

One of the biggest dangers comes from the fact that the accepted protocol for western nuclear weapons is that they are `always on`. The military call this protocol “Prompt Launch” – the idea being that if (apparently) being attacked, nuclear weapons can be launched to ensure they are not obliterated by incoming missiles. The Union of Concerned Scientists call this the “Hair Trigger Alert” and believe it should be scrapped for the safety of humanity. So far, we have been lucky that the protocol has not yet been applied – though it has been a close-run thing on many occasions.

There is no question that the Russian war against Ukraine with its fake news and disinformation provides a clear opportunity for `tensions to escalate`. And it is in this situation we must be clear about where we should be headed after this conflict is resolved – even if resolution still seems a (far?) distant hope.

Position of UK Liberal Democrats

So, it is in this tense context that our debate in Brighton is set. Unfortunately, the position presented by the motion, chosen (by a relatively small margin of the twenty or so voting members) within the Federal Conference Committee, provides something an `establishment-knee-jerk` response to the clear and present danger represented by Putin`s Russia. It portrays a viewpoint as if Liberal Democrats were part of the current Government and therefore should be presumed to support the status quo. Indeed, it goes further and suggests we would, if in power now, spend a huge sum on building a fourth submarine to ensure “continuous at-sea deterrence”. (Nuclear proliferation is, however, against current Lib Dem policy!)

The financial consequences of that would be twofold:

We would be hard-pressed to provide the continuing advanced conventional weaponry needed by Ukraine (and materiel replacements) if funds were taken up with building a new sub.

We would not be able to retain (nor yet increase) the size of our current standing-total of armed forces which are severely threatened with reductions already.

It is our view, as the movers of the proposed amendment to the motion, that the debate should concentrate on consideration of the position we should take as a Party after the next General Election.

Global Geopolitics

As far as Putin`s war on Ukraine is concerned, there are two aspects of Global Geopolitics that have been relevant. One has been the economic and political positioning of Ukraine as an aspiring member of the European Union and the economic consequences that entails. The second is the strength of NATO and its increasing `heft` given the proposed accession of Finland and Sweden earlier this year.

Having ruled ourselves out as member of the EU by our Brexit vote, we really are not in a position to offer any advice or comment on the EU aspirations of Ukraine and other countries, formerly in the orbit of the USSR or imperialist Russia.

However, we feel that the Motion F10 has seriously underplayed the role, and potential role, of NATO and the new commitments the UK has recently made to defending its Eastern borders, which will require conventional weaponry and, potentially, boots on the ground and will NOT require mass-destruction weapons of a supposedly-independent UK nuclear force.

Disempowerment by Deterrence in Reverse?

One of the more concerning aspects of the Ukraine situation is that Russia’s nuclear weapons are under the control of an unpredictable rogue tyrant in Putin. We did nothing when he took Crimea, effectively disempowered by deterrence in reverse – so Putin took that as a signal he could get away with anything. China is also now watching to see what they can get away with in Taiwan and we are walking on eggshells, hoping our `luck` will hold. As former Tory PM, John Major, said recently, “…not every nation is led by men or women of good intent. Democracy has fallen back…”

This also raises the issue of the morality (actually, immorality!) of weapons of mass-destruction and whether any person who believes in liberal values and democracy can ever sanction the potential use of such weapons. Personally, I cannot. In the early 1980s Paddy Ashdown was also “… wholly opposed to nuclear weapons … I agree with the Liberal Party, which is the only British political party that has always opposed a British nuclear deterrent.” (Ashdown, writing in CND magazine, Sanity, in 1985.)

Significance

It is estimated that over 90% of the world`s nuclear arsenal belongs to either Russia or the USA and that the UK`s nuclear weapons represent less than 2%. And, as far as Trident is concerned, when the maintenance, design, and testing of UK submarines depend on Washington, and when the nuclear missiles aboard them are on lease from Uncle Sam, very little of that 2% is actually “independent”.

Let me take you back to the assumption we made in the fourth paragraph of this article, that if Putin is holding back from use of nuclear weapons, on the basis of Mutually Assured Destruction, it has patently nothing to do with Trident and the UK`s so-called independent nuclear deterrent.

Therefore, we believe that Liberal Democrats have a significant opportunity to use our ownership of nuclear weapons to create an opening into the area of “common sense” that Bertrand Russell wrote about so eloquently in 1945 – as per the quotation under the title of this piece. That opportunity arises as a result of a multilateral treaty established by the United Nations referred to as the “UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons”, launched in July 2017 and which has already been signed by 86 countries and ratified by 66 countries.

Relevant text from this treaty says, of nuclear weapons, that signatories “…should immediately remove them from operational status, and destroy them as soon as possible but not later than a deadline to be determined by the first meeting of States Parties…”

Multilateral action

In order to make this Treaty about truly multilateral disarmament, therefore, it needs to be signed by more than one state which actually has nuclear weapons in the first place. This will always be the most difficult step to achieve and will undoubtedly require a strong dose of uncommon sense to prevail. Nevertheless, in circumstances where multiple potential combatants are standing in a circle with loaded weapons in their hands ready to fire on a hair trigger, perhaps the bravest act will come from the warrior prepared to be the first to put down his weapon.

This is at the root of the amendment`s stipulation that Liberal Democrats would undertake “… to sign this UN Treaty within the life of the Parliament following the next UK General Election…” We need time to be able to apply some leverage on other nuclear powers to act with us – but act we must. We cannot continue to rely on luck to save humanity from close calls that might just as easily go the wrong way as the right way.

Clearly, `realpolitik` will determine whether this is possible, perhaps depending upon our status with the next Government, whether Liberal Democrats are part of a coalition or supporting a `confidence and supply` arrangement. It is, however, a statement of intent, which we anticipate should provide the catalyst for the development of that `uncommon sense` required for change.

Summary and Conclusion

I have tried to cover, here, some of the main arguments we might use to amend what started as a rather waffly motion on nuclear strategy. In brief, we are saying:-

• Nuclear weapons are immoral and illiberal.
• Nuclear weapons cannot prevent armed conflict among states and in all likelihood heighten the risk of miscalculation that could end life on Earth.
• There is an excellent UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons we should support and sign during the next Parliament after a GE, already signed by 86 nations and ratified by 66.
• We should remove Trident from operational status and use the leverage of diplomacy to bring more nuclear powers into the UN Treaty.
• With the additional defence budget released, we should boost person-power and materiel in our armed forces to support the additional NATO commitments consequent upon Putin`s aggression.

To echo what President John F Kennedy said about his plans to go to the moon in the 1960s – “We choose to do these things NOT because they are easy, but BECAUSE they are hard”.

Let us sign the UN Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, not because it is the easy option – but because it is the brave option, the morally right option. Let us take this small step and help to create a huge step for mankind.

And Mikhail Gorbachev, who died very recently, said, “As long as weapons of mass destruction exist, primarily nuclear weapons, the danger is colossal. All nations should declare — all nations — that nuclear weapons must be destroyed. This is to save ourselves and our planet.”

If you are a member of the Lib Dems and you would like to see the amendment in detail, please email me directly at keith.melton10@gmail.com and I will send you the details. And please let me know if you would like to sign up to the conference, either live in Brighton or virtually at home, so you can vote for the amendment.

Cumbrian Mine – a mistaken decision

Cumbrian mine – an ecological response

The arguments for the opening of a new mine in Cumbria revolve around the quality of the coal that is to be mined and many other benefits are proposed.

The stated assumptions are that it will produce high-quality coking coal vital for steel making, not to be confused with fossil fuel to be used for heating and general energy production. Therefore the “reduce fossil-fuel” argument for NOT mining in Cumbria is not scientifically sound according to the pro-mine faction. However, this argument falls at a number of hurdles.

Also, the claim is that mining coking coal in the UK will save the environmental costs associated with transporting such material from other geographical sources. There are additional socio-economic reasons for establishing such a mine in the UK, especially in a high-unemployment area of the NW.

Arguments used by the `Environmental Lobby` against the opening of the mine are primarily based on the fact that fossil fuels should be left in the ground because we are facing a global over-heating threat which is already causing a major climate crisis and has the potential to become an existential threat if greenhouse gas (GHG) production takes the average global temperature beyond 1.5^o above pre-industrial global temperatures.

The problem with the UK`s potential opening of the Cumbrian mine is that the two sides of the argument seem to be missing each other’s main points – the arguments may be at cross-purposes. There are clearly several interdependent factors that need to be unravelled if a scientifically acceptable decision can be justified to both sides of the argument.

Steel Production

Steel Production has been increasing worldwide from 1,670 million metric tons (Mt) in 2014 to 1,870 Mt in 2019. In the same time period, however, UK steel production has gone down from 12.1 Mt to 7.2Mt a decrease of 40%. The UK also imports (net) around 3.1Mt of steel. More recent production or demand figures are not available, but the likelihood is that the economic lock-down has reduced the overall figures dramatically, so what will happen from now on?

It is important to realise that the iron and steel industry, worldwide, accounts for about 5% of global CO² emissions, so we need to do everything we can to reduce emissions, particularly for this sector. The pro-mine argument rests heavily on the fact that the coal is strategically important for the UK.

Steel demand

As economies develop, the use of steel generally diminishes, so predicting future steel demand (and, therefore, the carbon footprint of steel usage and production) depends on a number of factors and may be disrupted in different ways.

There are three likely areas of disruption:-

1. Reduction in demand for a sector’s product
2. Increase in useful life of the steel
3. Change in steel intensity in a sector

And six key sectors:

1. Automotive
2. Capital Equipment and Machinery
3. Residential Construction
4. Commercial Construction
5. Consumer & Durable Goods
6. Infrastructure

Global overheating imperative

If we are to truly tackle Global overheating, all of these sectors are going to require reduction of steel use. Just to take one example, it would be possible to reduce steel use significantly in Residential Construction by moving to engineered wood, which is currently possible in a number of ways. It is no part of this article, however, to force the market choices by which this could happen, simply to point out that political pressure to solve the Climate Crisis makes such disruption more likely to be needed rather than less likely.

The OECD uses the Automotive industry as its example of how demand may be reduced

Factor Industry-specific disruptors

Baseline use

Sharing, transportation-as-service and consumer preference will decrease per capita passenger vehicle intensity (fewer vehicles per capita)

Increase in useful life

Longer-lasting/reusable vehicle structural and exterior components as a result of better design and materials will reduce annual demand for new vehicles

Change in steel intensity

Continued vehicle light weighting for both steel (same surface area – less mass) and impact of substitutes

So, the Global overheating imperative is likely to reduce steel demand and use worldwide over time. Essentially the point is, it is going to have to change otherwise we are screwed anyway.

The implication, therefore, for demand of steel in the UK, is that it is more likely to go down rather than go up. And this does not take into account any economic factors associated either with economic change as a result of the coronavirus, or economic changes resulting from Brexit down-turns, both of which are likely to add downward pressure rather than upward pressure in the UK.

OECD guidelines for reduction of steel`s carbon footprint

“Innovation for Climate Change Mitigation in the Steel Sector

The world steel industry is an important CO² emitter and is therefore being called on to play a major role in mitigating climate change, not only by reducing the CO² emissions of its production processes, but also by contributing to the infrastructure of a low-carbon economy. In the long run, significantly reducing the industry’s emissions will require a shift away from current production methods towards new methods of production. The industrial application of already existing technologies could contribute significantly to mitigating climate change. As an example, wider diffusion of the use of more energy-efficient production practices could significantly reduce CO² emissions. In the longer-term breakthrough technologies will be required to reduce the impacts still further. In particular, the adoption of Carbon Capture and Storage technologies would reduce CO² emissions from the sector drastically. Public policy has an important role to play in encouraging such developments (OECD, 2011, 2012). A better understanding of how to incentivise and induce both incremental and radical innovations in steel that can help mitigate climate change is needed.”

The overall conclusion here is that we are likely to see a reduction in the UK (and worldwide) market for steel rather than an increase. This calls into question the primary argument for a UK mine.

The market for Cumbrian coal

The company claims its intention is to “…become a leading European producer of strategic, high-quality metallurgical coal (also known as Coking Coal) for steel making. The Project will deliver a significant financial boost at local, regional and national levels.” In other words, it is not simply claiming to replace the importation of coking coal to the UK, it is intent on exporting the product, primarily into the European market. This claim is notwithstanding the fact that we are now outside the EU`s single market, so there is no guarantee there will not be punitive tariffs or regulations facing those exports. Given the EU priority for reduction of CO² emissions regulation may be a significant market depressant.

The company Project update from November 2019 clearly indicates that “WCM intends to export most of the coal produced to Europe whilst also selling into the UK steel industry.” The quantities projected indicate 3.1 Mt per year for a 40 year life of the mine. (around 124 Mt in total)

The company also makes a big play for the environmental benefits of its coal output “…WCM believe that renewable energy sources are the way forward to protect the environment. All of these forms of green energy production require steel, with coal being an essential element in the steel making process.”

Need for coal

The argument here is twofold. One is that steel is needed and the other is that coal is needed to make the steel. The company states that “…our modern way of life and economic growth would not be possible as it is the most important engineering and construction material in the world“. This at a time when very large question marks hover over the notion of `economic growth` as currently measured. It is also at a time when our current `way of life` is being seriously challenged as unsustainable and unjust in terms of both intragenerational and intergenerational terms across the world, global north versus global south, and across the age versus youth divide.

As well as this general concern, we have already examined the potential downward pressures on the need for steel generally. But let us look at the need for coal, whatever the future demand for steel.

Coal – Essential element?

We therefore need to examine the argument that coal is actually an “essential element” in steel production, as the company suggests. Their pamphlet indicates that “Around 74% of total global steel production relies directly on inputs of coking coal”. So, by its own definition around a quarter of the world`s steel does NOT use coking coal as such an `Essential element`.

So, what is coal used for and are there realistic alternatives. “Front Line Action on Coal” has examined this issue… https://leard.frontlineaction.org/coking-coal-steel-production-alternatives/

“Coal is needed as a reducing agent. “Reduction” is a chemical reaction that turns iron ore (Fe2O3) into pig iron (Fe). Carbon monoxide (CO) is the crucial ingredient (Fe2O3 + 3CO → 2Fe + 3CO2) and is produced in blast furnaces by burning coal. This also produces carbon dioxide as a waste product.”

Alternatives to `coking coal`

An alternative reducing agent is hydrogen, whose `waste product` is water rather than CO². The `pro-mining` lobby argues that the production of hydrogen creates CO² emissions – but that is only the case if the energy used to separate the hydrogen from its source is created from fossil fuels. Recent technological advances mean that it is now very likely that clean production of hydrogen can be successfully scaled up to the point where it is effective in steel manufacture, using renewable energy sources rather than fossil fuels. The newer methane pyrolysis process of hydrogen production means that no GHG carbon dioxide is produced.

(By the way, using hydrogen would also cut emissions of air-polluting particulates, an additional benefit outside the Climate Crisis argument being primarily addressed here.)

There has been a significant increase in research over recent years into alternate reducing agents for the Steel industry. The use of recycled rubber tyres and plastics is now becoming mainstream in Electric Arc furnaces. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/srin.201100047

Brand new research, to be presented in February 2021, suggests a combination of recycled tyres and coffee grounds may be the `thing`, so here again the demand for coking coal is likely to be dramatically downwards if this technology is proven. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coffee-may-be-the-secret-to-making-eco-friendly-steel-3lq7r3hlc

Biochar and other forms of vegetal carbon may also be used as a reducing agent, either as a complete replacement (as in Brazil ,where relatively small scale steel production using eucalyptus and pinewood account for upwards of one quarter of local steel production) or in combination with other materials, reducing the use of coking coal. It should be noted this may not be environmentally sustainable at scale… https://www.researchgate.net/publication/288237577_Biomass_use_in_the_steel_industry_Back_to_the_future

Recycling, rather than making new steel

Currently just less than one third of steel (<30%) is manufactured from recycled steel in electric arc furnaces which typically use around 16kg of coal per ton of steel produced. This is a clear reduction relative to blast furnaces, for making new steel, which uses 800kg of coal for each ton of steel made.

Clearly, the limitation here is in availability of steel to be recycled. Using the reference to the automotive industry above, however, it may well be the case that as alternate transportation systems are adopted (or, better still, transport needs generally are reduced by more home-working) the tonnages of steel to be recycled from scrapped cars will increase, thus reducing the need to manufacture new steel for the auto industry. Again, this would represent a downward pressure on coal use.

Over-all assessment

A considerable proportion of the argument pushed by the pro-mine lobby is that Cumbrian coal acts as a strategic replacement of imports for the UK, but the company involved sees most of its sales as coming from exports. When you combine this information with the additional information about reducing demand for UK steel, the justification for UK mined coal is seriously weakened. In any case there is an overwhelming requirement, relating to the Climate Crisis, that the world as a whole MUST reduce its emissions of CO², substantially. And the steel sector is therefore a strong target for disruption.

Furthermore, as the country which started the industrial revolution which has led to the massive growth of GHG emissions over the last three hundred years, we cannot now claim any special entitlement to being an exception to the requirement to reduce emissions here in the UK, whatever may be the supposedly sound socio-economic reasons for mining coal in Cumbria.

Thus, as a society, we in the UK must accelerate all of our emissions reduction capability, much more rapidly than less-developed countries which have righteous claims to `catch-up` in terms of quality-of-life measurements of a thriving economy. (See Kate Raworth`s doughnut economy paradigm for further just transition arguments to thriving economies. https://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/ )

Decision to allow mine to go ahead challenged

Many people, including Lord Deben, chair of the Climate Change Committee, have challenged the Government`s decision NOT to `call in` the decision to go ahead with the mine. It should be a UK government decision to find ways to reduce CO² emissions to almost zero before 2050 and yet the relevant minister, Robert Jenryck (MP for Newark), chose not to consider the decision.

The Government`s Chief Planning Officer defended that decision “The Secretary of State has to make a judgement based on whether the impacts of the scheme are more than local. “And in this case, the decision was that this was a decision for local determination, and the application was approved by the local authority… a decision for local democracy.”

However, the worldwide implications of increased emissions from the coal that is to be mined over the next 40 years at least, represent a disaster for future generations. Hardly something a Government Minister should refuse to look at!

It has been claimed that all the arguments FOR a new mine in Cumbria are environmentally and economically sound. Sadly, in the planetary context, this is simply NOT true, and wider existential threats of global overheating and the Climate Crisis argue very strongly against the Cumbrian Coal mine, despite strong local support in terms of potential increases in employment opportunities.

This is a difficult case for those of a Liberal persuasion who believe in the strength of local democracy. However, Liberal values also recognise that the freedom for individuals and communities to make such local decisions have to be constrained when it can be shown that such freedom is plainly harmful to others. In this case the harm to the planet outweighs the freedom for local decision making, however strongly held and supported.

For an additional Local view see >>> https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/of-course-cumbrias-proposed-coal-mine-is-popular-locally-the-government-offers-no-green-alternative/?link_id=4&can_id=c9550acebe03eac25172cb874f4ee8f7&source=email-news-from-nef-template-6&email_referrer=email_1090060&email_subject=news-from-nef-driven-into-poverty-uber-victory-coal-controversy

A Brazilian Funeral…

ZeZé `s funeral

Funerals – and especially funerals in Brazil have had a passing mention before in my blog, but we have had a funeral closer to home this last week. Fatima`s mum, who was 84, died early on Thursday morning. She had been a bed-ridden invalid for quite some time now, suffering the great indignities associated with that state, so, in truth, her passing released her from a life with little quality to it on a day to day basis.

Her name was José-Maria and, whether it is a female José or a male José, the commonly accepted appellation was always ZeZé (pronounced zare-zare as in bare-bare).

So, ZeZé had had a stroke about four years ago and because she had been in the house alone at the time, she had suffered a lot of damage before being discovered, collapsed on the floor. She had lost her ability to speak, most of which unfortunately stayed lost, despite speech therapy, and she had lost most of her right-side mobility too, which had improved slightly with physiotherapy.

Then two years ago she had had a slight fall and, though she appeared to land lightly, she nevertheless broke her femur. At first, the health system in Brazil more or less wrote her off and it was only after some fairly robust complaining by Fatima that they managed to find her a hospital that would mend her broken leg, having to boost her anaemic state first. Since then she has needed a wheelchair to be moved around.

I may have mentioned this before, but the health service rules as they apply here in Brazil, mean that if you are over 65 and in hospital you have to have a relative (or it can be a friend) stay with you ALL THE TIME. This, of course, saves the health service a huge cost of what I think we would call auxiliary services because the feeding and other hygiene requirements are catered for by the family member(s). At the time Fatima was still working, so this added to the stresses of family life here.

When she could come out of hospital, we found a place in an old folks` home for ZeZé. Then, when Fatima was going to be in the UK for a longer period last year, one of her cousins agreed to take on the burden of looking after ZeZé for a modest consideration. And, finally when Fatima came back to Brazil before Christmas, we took back the task of looking after her – but ZeZé`s health had been gradually declining over this long period, with senility setting in as well. And, for the last few weeks, it had become a challenge as she was now hardly eating or drinking. Clearly “not drinking” in the heat of Brazil`s summer is not conducive to good health and so we had had to take her to hospital a few times where they boosted her up with glucose drips and the like.

What they did not pick up, just over a week ago on the last hospital visit (and they should have done, but the final outcome may only have been delayed a very short while even if they had!) was the fact that she had, by this time, started to suffer with pneumonia. So, on Wednesday evening, after a relatively quiet day for her, we took her into the local small hospital again in the early evening.

Sadly, despite everyone else there being as sweet as you like, the doctor who dealt with us looked at ZeZé, then at Fatima and said, “Hm. You again! Nothing much I can do here, she should be in an old folk`s home, where they can deal with her properly”. Fatima was, as you may expect, rather disturbed by this response and answered rather sharply – “You think if we could afford that on a full-time basis we would be here!?” “Well the hospital at Bacaxá is full,” he said, “so we`ll see what we can do”.

“If that`s the case,” said Fatima, “you had better give me a note to that effect and I will go and report it to the Minister of Health!” At which point Fatima came out to let me know that they were going to give her some glucose, as before, and I might as well go home for an hour and come back to pick them up when they had finished and she phoned me. So, that`s what I did, calling to fill the car`s tank up on the way home.

No sooner had I got home, three-minute`s-drive away, than Fatima phoned to say that as soon as she returned into the hospital it became clear that they had decided to transfer her to the larger hospital in Bacaxá, about an hour away, after all! The power of forthright speech and an underlying threat! The trip was interrupted about halfway with an unscheduled stop at the equally small hospital in Saquerama, apparently due to the fact that Zezé’s heart had stopped. She was resuscitated, intubated and supplied with oxygen and then the ambulance continued onwards to Bacaxá.

We then stayed there, while she was in intensive care, hoping for improvement, but not truly expecting such. And around 2a.m., as we were making the decision to come back home again and return to the hospital early on Thursday morning, the Bacaxá Doc came out with the news that she had died moments before. This Doc, by contrast, was a lovely man, with an excellent bedside manner, too, and very helpful with the necessary paper-work process. This took little more than half an hour – after which we did come home to prepare for the next stage. The funeral itself.

That part of the episode, by the way, reminded me of Spike Milligan, notably a hypochondriac, who apparently had these words inscribed on his headstone – “I told you I wasn`t well!” – a story I was able to relate to Fatima, for one of those sad, smiling, moments associated with death.

The Funeral

As you may know, in common with many other countries which are hot, the law here is that the funeral must take place within 24 hours of death. As pointed out by my cousin Pat, who has spent a lot of time in Paraguay, this is something of a double-edged sword, providing a sense of rapid ‘closure’, but also piling on the pressure of making the arrangements at extremely short notice.

Fatima has a ‘family plot’ at a delightful, well-run cemetery in São Gonçalo, and they have a multitude of “chapels” available to cater for multiple funerals if necessary. The health insurance covered all the associated costs and organisation details so very few phone calls were required to set the process in motion. And because everyone is aware of the legal requirements for speed, I guess most families have pretty efficient “telephone trees” to spread the news.

So, before 8a.m. on Thursday, we already knew the funeral would take place at 4p.m. at the Parque de Paz and, by the time we arrived there around 1p.m., ZeZé was already in the allotted chapel, in her coffin with the lid leant up against the wall. A major contrast to UK culture is that the deceased is presented to mourners to give their last respects, surrounded by flowers in the coffin, under a lacy cover. Of course, in UK, it is possible to visit a funeral home to see the deceased, but I think relatively few people choose to go for a “viewing” these days.

The phone tree worked well enough that a couple of carloads of ZeZé`s nephews, nieces and great-nephews and nieces had time to come from at least four hours` drive away from Fatima`s home-town of Macuco. And considerable family numbers were made up from more local relations and friends.

Dress code

The `dress code` for funerals is pretty informal here – it can be summed up by `smart-casual` I think. Jeans and a neat summer shirt seemed to be the majority expression for both male and female and muted colours were preponderant, plus some muted skirts and tops, or dresses for the ladies. For our particular funeral I don`t think there was one black tie present and I only saw two ties all afternoon in the whole area.

The chapels are in two rows of five and on Thursday there were four of our row of five in use, with funerals timed at quarter of an hour intervals. Each chapel is about 8 metres square, glass-fronted with partially frosted glass, and air conditioned. Outside the row of five, there is a three-metre-wide covered area with granite-covered seating all along the length of the row. So, as people are gathering, there is quite an assemblage building up. We were in Chapel B at 4 o`clock and Chapel A was due for 3.45 – so by 2.30 the overall noise level was building by several decibels per minute as relatives and friends greeted each other outside Chapels A & B – and to a lesser extent, Chapels C & D.

As you might anticipate there were tears and hugs as well as gossip and (mostly-controlled) laughter. I recall that many, many years ago my father made the comment that if you wanted a lot of people at your funeral it was “…best to die young.” On this basis, it seemed that the occupant of Chapel A was a much younger person than ZeZé, as there were perhaps nearly twice as many mourners there, of which the average age was considerably younger than for our Chapel B.

The strangest outlier from the dress-code was also associated with the Chapel A gathering and was represented by a young man with a dark grey, `Trump-style`, peaked cap, displaying the message “WHO THE F**K THIS?” Apart from the poor grammatical structure of the question, I must say it seemed somewhat out of place at a funeral, not least because, in the actual embroidered inscription, there were no asterisks.

Otherwise, ZeZé`s funeral was conducted with dignity. The coffin was then placed on the funeral version of an electric milk delivery float, or golf cart, and trundled around to the actual grave at walking pace. A light rain was falling so there were a few umbrellas keeping at least some of the mourners dry, and, of course, not everyone took part in the procession to the graveside. As the actual interment was taking place a group of four very noisy Brazilian lapwings were having a disagreement across the hillside of the Parque de Paz, untroubled by the human intrusion in their space.

Then we all made our way back home. Altogether, it was a pretty exhausting 48 hours, but we were left with the sensation that at least ZeZé was now at peace, her long, slow suffering curtailed.

RIP ZeZé.

Once upon a time in a land as dark as night…

Once upon a time in a land as dark as night…

Maybe you have heard of Marielle Franco, assassinated in March of 2018 in Rio de Janeiro?

Marielle Francisco da Silva, was born in July 1979, the same year I joined the Liberal Ecology Group and the same year Mrs Thatcher was elected Prime Minister. Marielle was a feminist Brazilian politician and human rights activist, elected to the Municipal chamber of Rio de Janeiro as a councillor for the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL)

She had been an outspoken critic of police brutality and extrajudicial killings. She was also highly critical of the federal intervention by Brazilian president, Michel Temer, in the state of Rio de Janeiro which resulted in the deployment of the army in police operations. After a long period when it seemed likely that her killers would “never be found” and were somehow being protected by the system, two former police officers were arrested, charged and convicted of her murder.

Brazil has an unenviable record for killings by its police force. Human Rights Watch, reporting in 2019 put the figure for 2017 (their latest data) at over 5000 – averaging 14 per day. If these numbers are anywhere near correct, that is around five times as many as are killed by police action in the USA. Worse, the Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro, not only sanctions brutal police action but made his way into power with a slogan “30 bullets for each bandit” and looks fondly back to his days as a military Captain during the Dictatorship years in Brazil.

That any beauty can come out of such brutality, shows a fascinating “other side” to the human spirit – but this poem came into my purview recently and I pass it on to you with no further comment. It is spoken alongside a video of some delightful sculpturing skill which you can see here… well worth your time to see and listen. Enjoy and then read the poem again for yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VUl9DCh8AI

 

Once upon a time in a land as dark as night

Where nothing would grow

In despite of every woe

There was an unusually happy girl

And, since she loved life and, since she loved beauty

She decided that it was her duty

To plant sunflowers on dry hard sand

And perhaps her heads would help to mend

Through the soil and turmoil of that land

The people there, seeing her endeavour,

Smiled again and thought they would forever,

As they noticed flowers strong and bright

And thought they were tired of the night

The evil forces however frowned

And opening a hole up in the ground…

… [sound of shot fired]…

Watched her being swallowed deep

Until she could no longer speak

Or see, or dream, or sigh, or resist

But what they could not predict was this

Her love was such that it spread across the mud,

And thousands of flowers grew nourished by her blood

And now every time a flower`s pluck`d

Many more will grow at present speed

And the girl will always, for her deed,

Be remembered by the name – of “Seed”

 

Poem by Renato Campello

 

Green Resolutions for the New Year and New Decade

Green Resolution

As an antidote to my, perhaps rather downbeat, posting yesterday, I thought I would write a more optimistic upbeat post today. It is about setting “Green” resolutions for the New Year (New Decade, even!) – so you can add one or more of these resolutions to your own list of how you will seek to be better in 2020 and going forward.

2020 – even the number of the year invites clarity and visual resolutions!

Resolution #1 Seeking Clarity on the status of our websites

This was prompted by a thread on FaceBook earlier on the new Environmental Smart web group – https://www.environmental-smart.co.uk/  – which was talking about the massive use of fossil fuels to run the internet and the fact that we can choose to ensure we are using internet hosts which are consciously as green as possible. The article pointed out that the Internet as a whole was one of the largest emitters of carbon dioxide – and if it were a “country” it would not be far behind China and India as a greenhouse gas emitter.

If you want to check on a website YOU have an interest in, you can go to the https://www.thegreenwebfoundation.org/green-web-check/ , put the URL of your chosen site in the check box and find out. So I did exactly that for my blog post host WordPress and, sadly it turns out that it is a “Grey” site.

Equally sadly, the hosts for the Green Liberal Democrats site, in which I have an interest of course, as well as the Liberal Democrat main site and the company that manages these sites, Prater Raines all turn out to be “Grey” sites.

So, it looks as though we have some work to do on the GLD Exec committee next time we meet! GLD`s Green New Decade Resolution is sorted!

I am, however, pleased to report that the site hosting Environmental Smart, gets a clean bill of health

If you want to pursue this action further, the Green Web Foundation provides a list of 25 hosting organisations in the UK who can prove they are reliant on renewable energy for their site support. Here`s the list….

Green Hosting (Partner)

Wholegrain Digital (Certified Gold Partner);  34SP.com;  Athaneum;  Core IX;  Dsgnone

Easynet;  erjjio studios;  Fasthosts;  GreenNet;  GreneIT

GURU Cloud Hosting;  HostPapa UK;  Krystal Hosting;  Kualo;  Lightbeing Creations

Memset Hosting;  Netcetera;  NetWeaver;  Nimbus Hosting Ltd.;  Rackspace UK

Solar Web Host;  The Positive Internet Company Ltd.;  Uni Link Solution;  VI

Resolution #2 – Plant more trees

This was a major feature in the manifestoes of the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and the Labour Party – but the Tory target was much lower, so I think we need to add our own efforts into the mix as a Green New Decade resolution.

The Woodland Trust – https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/ – during 2019 had a major campaign aimed at schools and communities in November 2019 with a view to planting around 700,000 trees. Mostly they were “whips” – i.e. a short stick with a root on! – so if you are patient, these are the easiest to deal with, but it is likely that a fair proportion of these will not survive unless they are watered during their first year in the ground, especially if there is an extended dry period in the weather. Certainly, their chances of survival are probably higher where there is a good community motivation to look after them well.

If you have a garden of your own, even if it is only a modest size you can order and “Bee-friendly pack” of four small trees from the Woodland Trust for just £12.95. Alternatively, if you have a bit more room and can envisage a small copse in your garden or community area you can get a selection of 30 trees for just under £50.

I consider myself to have been fortunate enough to be able to buy a couple of fields around 12 years ago, which were sheep pasture at the time, but which are beginning to look like woodland these days. The very first silver birch trees we planted are now towering above me at 25-30 feet when I wander around my haven. Even the slower growing oak trees which had been lovingly cared for in plantpots for a few years, before acquiring the fields, are now resplendent at fifteen to twenty feet.

And, this last couple of years in particular the huge ash trees along the field edges, which must be over 100 years old, are now finding spaces to spread their genes. I have not been able to count the number of ash seedlings that are coming into their own, but I have been moving quite a few of them to “better” positions for my own aesthetic preference! Fortunately, our ash trees seem to have so far avoided the ash “die-back” problems around the country.

My Green Resolution for 2020 certainly includes another large batch of new trees for my woodland area. And please get in touch with me if you don`t have room for your own trees – I would love to plant some on your behalf.

Resolution #3 – Change your electricity supplier to a Renewable Energy Company

I changed my supplier only fairly recently, from SSE – which promised a proportion of renewable energy in its mix, but which was also responsible (and still is) for paying me the Feed-in Tariff for my rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) renewable energy.

I changed to https://bulb.co.uk/ and have, so far at least, been very happy with their management of my account and the costs associated therewith, representing a considerable saving on my previous costs. If you would like to change and quote this link, www.bulb.me/keithm4966   we`ll both benefit by £50.

There are, of course, a number of other companies out there that sell “only” renewable energy, although the last couple of years have been somewhat unkind to a number of smaller companies which have collapsed. Apparently, something like 28 companies have disappeared from the market since January 2018. Ofgem does provide protection for consumers unlucky enough to have chosen a supplier that goes under – see here – https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/

Resolution #4 – Continue to reduce meat eating

I am by no means a vegan, nor, indeed, a vegetarian, but I have cut back considerably over the last few years on the total amount of meat consumed and propose to continue to try and do so to a greater extent. There is a distinct tension between the greenhouse gas contribution of animal husbandry and the need to maintain soil quality (and quantity) over the long term. Equally there is a tension between agricultural and other possible land-use and land-management scenarios, not least with regard to hilly areas and the potential food-production capacity of different quality of land.

Climate Change pressures certainly require lower quantities of meat-eating, but this is a difficult area for small-l “liberals” who prefer individuals to have the greatest latitude to make up their own minds about as much of their lives as possible. There now seems to be strong pressure for the need to legislate some form of “encouragement” to behave in a more responsible way as far as food is concerned. If this does not happen in a reasoned and politically acceptable way in the short term it seems almost inevitable that there will be strong pressures for a much more centrally controlled set of changes in the medium or longer term as the climate change pressures grow.

The recent political experiences in the UK, as well as in the USA and Brazil and, indeed, some other European countries towards a more “conservative” set of cultural norms does not augur particularly well for the success of voluntary change going in the right direction.

“Militant” vegans will tell you that the only answer is to go vegan, but, as well as requiring dietary supplements to avoid long-term health problems of purely vegan diets, there are often hidden environmental downsides to replacement products. So, milk-production using dairy cows certainly has climate change consequences, but soya milk sourced from soya grown on farms created by clearing Amazon rainforest, or almond milk, which requires large inputs of sometimes scarce water supplies also creates environmental problems.

Clearly it is one of the areas where the idea of a New Year resolution has an impacts shown by the graph shown in a BBC article earlier this year. The figures were sourced from Google Trends. All we can do is to try and minimise our Climate Change footprint in ways we know we can sustain in behavioural terms as individuals.

Good luck with setting your Green New Decade Resolutions and let me wish you all my personal greeting for a greener 2020.  Happy New Year

View from my hammock…

You may guess from the title that I am in Brazil again at the moment!? And you would be correct!

As I may have said already in a recent blog post, we had booked to come for a seasonal visit to Fatima`s homeland before the General Election date was decided, so we actually missed the election itself. Probably something of a relief, given the nature of the result – however we were not able to gather with friends to commiserate.

Anyway, facebook chats fairly quickly subsided after the election so it seems as though everyone has, to some extent at least, put the election behind them and hidden away with family and friends concentrating on Christmas.

So, to the thoughts in that hammock…

Darwin`s View

Our “summer” place in Brazil is in the small seaside town of Jacone, near Saquarema in the Lake District of Rio State. And the hammock is between two wooden pillars on our terrace, overlooking the Lagoa de Saquarema. This lake features in Darwin`s record of his journey to the Galapagos islands (I have certainly mentioned this story before but I hope it is worth retelling now, for readers new to my blogging.)

On his travels to the Galapagos Islands back in the early 1830s, The Beagle stopped off in Rio de Janeiro for a little R&R and re-stocking and the young Darwin, just turned 23, had organised a horseback excursion from Rio which brought him along the coast to the region lagoa. He is very critical of the general level of hospitality they met with on this and other journeys through the Brazilian hinterland but on the 9^th April 1832, the day ended better than it had started and they happened to stay in a better quality Vanda – or Inn – if it may be described thus. Let me quote his own words as he describes the visit:-

April 9th, 1832.-We left our miserable sleeping-place before sunrise. The road passed through a narrow sandy plain, lying between the sea and the interior salt lagoons. The number of beautiful fishing birds, such as egrets and cranes, and the succulent plants assuming most fantastical forms, gave to the scene an interest which it would not otherwise have possessed. The few stunted trees were loaded with parasitical plants, among which the beauty and delicious fragrance of some of the orchid were most to be admired. As the sun rose, the day became extremely hot, and the reflection of the light and heat from the white sand was very distressing.

We dined at Mandetiba; the thermometer in the shade being 84°. The beautiful view of the distant wooded hills, reflected in the perfectly calm water of an extensive lagoon, quite refreshed us. … the vanda here was a very good one and I have the pleasant, but rare remembrance, of an excellent dinner …  

No longer called Mandetiba, it turns out that the delightful inn and the refreshing view were literally just around the corner from our Jacone house and my view over the lake was Darwin`s view nearly 200 years ago. It is no further away from our house than one hedge of my English fields is from the opposite hedge!

Saquarema Lake

So, there I was in my hammock on the terrace – sipping on a glass of cold beer – the temperature almost exactly the same as it was for Charles Darwin all those years ago. There were, and still are, a few clouds about, so the lake is reflecting a cloudy sky and is ruffled by a modest breeze, so I am not getting the reflection of the “distant wooded hills”, but at least the beer was “refreshing”.

Reflections on Politics.

No wooded hills, but my mind was reflecting on recent politics. And very disappointing reflections they are. Regular readers and long-time friends will already know that it was the dire result of the referendum that brought me back into politics in 2017, after `retiring` from Party politics back in 1998.

These same readers and friends will also know that my retirement then was partly triggered by a frustration that environmental issues – although reasonably well represented in Lib Dem policy papers was never presented “front and centre” during elections. Also my long-term Liberal view that nuclear weapons were immoral, dangerous and wasteful, had been superseded by the Lib Dem acceptance that they were somehow justified as a deterrence.

Frankly what they are now deterring for us – as a small gaggle of islands off the north-west coast of Europe – is rather moot!

The optimist`s view

As a glass-half-full person (and, no, I am no longer talking about the beer – that glass is now well and truly empty!) I was anticipating a thumpingly good general election for us this year. The party had won a huge number of local council seats in the May elections and then 16 MEPs in the Euro elections that followed.

We were (apparently!?) on the right side of history, being so clearly a Remain party, after a couple of hugely attended marches through London. And, for me, the party manifesto featured very clearly a critically good response to the Climate catastrophe, which should have captured the hearts and minds of the young generation of eXtinction Rebellion protesters. I had even had a hand in helping to write the policy paper that was central to the Climate change section of the manifesto.

We had a whole slew of environmental activists in winnable seats who would have been capable of changing the nature of the debate in Parliament about the climate catastrophe and many other environmental issues. And, along with a few colleagues in the Green Liberal Democrats, I spent many an hour writing up profiles of these “Green Heroes” to help them along in their elections. Many of those hours were spent in our first week here in Brazil too – my politics did not just stop after the journey from London.

“Bollocks to Politics?”

So, What`s next? A very tempting scenario from the lofty view of my hammock, glass of beer in one hand, was the “bollocks to politics” option. I first got involved in politics during a mock election at school in 1964 when the Liberal Party had just six MPs. During much of my adult lifetime I have had to try and keep explaining why Liberalism should bother to continue – and here again, there have been journalists and others wondering out loud why we bother. We struggled and fought to achieve a position, where, despite the huge bias of the FPTP electoral system there were over 60 MPs gracing the Liberal Democrat seats in the Commons.

Then Clegg`s “bromance” with Cameron with a neo-liberal and libertarian approach to economics made the party toxic among many left-leaning voters. The Environmental inheritance showed through in our Green Investment Bank and the huge increase in renewable energy, but the Tories sold the bank off and claimed the renewable energy growth as theirs when they had the place to themselves. And we were relegated to a very minor party status with just eight MPs in 2015 – back to the Party in a taxi jokes!

I am now comfortably in my eighth decade on this planet and there are people in my life who now and again ask – “Why do you bother?” It was a question I was asking myself in the hammock earlier – and I was not getting any very positive answers springing to mind.

The answer is a Question!

It turns out that the answer to my question “Why should I bother?”  turns out to be another question. That question is this – “Can I actually influence the nature of the Party, as it struggles with its own sense of purpose with just 11 MPs and a huge uphill task of justifying its existence?”

Well, as I said above, I am an optimist, so despite many years experience of feeling that my influence has often been overlooked, there are instances where one feels perhaps that it is not all doom and gloom. The sentence that best sums this up is that sentence, to which I have referred before, which I managed to write and get inserted into the Liberal Democrat Preamble to the Constitution in 1988 – “We believe that each generation is responsible for the fate of our planet and, by safeguarding the balance of nature and the environment, for the long term continuity of life in all its forms.”

So, I shall keep trying (at least for the moment!!) Perhaps we shall get a radical realignment of the left leaning, Green focussing, Climate change conscious environmentalists. Perhaps we will get a Party Leader who does not say “Yes” enthusiastically when asked a question about pressing the Nuclear weapon button as Prime Minister. Perhaps we will even get to change the name of our Party to what is currently the name of a significant and growing pressure group – perhaps the “Green Liberal Democrats” can change the political narrative for us all.

If not, then perhaps I shall get to write that autobiographical memoire I have tentatively entitled “Failing with Gusto!” during my less optimistic moments!

Let`s not RUSH the Leadership Election!

Ed Davey – Interim leader for how long?

My view on this is that we should not rush into an early leadership election for the Liberal Democrats for a number of good reasons…

A Bruising Election

First, we have been through a very bruising general election and despite adding more than 55% of our last vote share two years ago, the failed electoral system has rewarded us with one fewer MP than then and ten fewer MPs than we notionally had just before the election. Of the new team, four are first timers who will require some time to establish themselves in their roles. Two more are relative newbies, leaving five experienced parliamentarians, one of whom has already been leader and resigned.

Second, Johnson has a significant majority in parliament so there will be no general election for at least three years, more likely four (unless there is a complete crash – though I suppose that cannot be entirely ruled out!) Therefore we have time to take a very considered view of how we go about this.

Safe Pair of Hands

Third, if we elect a new leader too soon s/he will have to hit the ground running in the midst of Brexit chaos, since, despite Johnson`s simplistic “Get Brexit Done” mantra, we all know that ain`t gonna happen! Ed Davey, we KNOW will provide us with a safe pair of hands during the next few months at least. This is, for me a very powerful point for not going too soon.

Fourth, whether Ed decides to stand for leader or not, there will inevitably be much hand-wringing about the recent general election strategy. Some, at least, of the overall responsibility for what went wrong will inevitably be laid at Ed`s door, whether deserved or not. Frankly all those discussions about what went wrong (as well as what went right, of course) need to take place BEFORE the leadership election and not during the leadership election. That will inevitably take a few months and take us past the spring conference at least.

As part of that discussion there will have to be equally long discussions about the nature of strategic decision making within the party. There seems to be a strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction about that, including general party governance issues which need to be signed off before a new leader takes over. Vince Cable was effectively an interim leader for about a year at least whilst such discussions took place, some of which may  well need to be revisited.

What about our competitors?

Fifth, we also need time to see what happens regarding other parties after the failure of the remain alliance to pay any real dividends. This includes a view of how the Labour party works its own pain out. I have already written about the potential for there to be a radical realignment of the environmental left of centre political activists (NOT including socialists by the way! See my previous blog post.). I have made the point that the probable lack of action by the Conservative government relating to reducing carbon emissions will mean that the next government will have to react VERY quickly to make up for lost time.

Frankly, we may already be too late to stop some of the environmental tipping points scientists have been concerned about for a while. Five more years of relative inaction could be five years too much!  (Especially in the light of the recent failure of the COP 25 event in Madrid to reach any satisfactory conclusions.) Therefore, realignment needs to happen quickly if it is going to mean anything – a safe pair of hands with ENVIRONMENTAL credentials will be important. Ed Davey has these, despite the Labour trolls giving him grief about his record as a Cabinet Minister.

Sixth, it is apparent that Ed is going to have to consider very carefully whether it is right that he stands for the leadership. Both Jo and Ed were targeted by journalists about their responsibility, in coalition, for all the austerity decisions so derided by those Labour trolls. Both apologised for mistakes, explained that Labour were proposing to be just as austere if not more so, but that argument was damaging to the Lib Dem narrative. Various FaceBook threads have already given vent to these issues and at least one commentator made the point that the Liberal Party suffered 35 years of battering for supporting the Conservatives pre-WWll before coming out of that trough of “hatred” by Labour.

Only Ed knows whether he has the internal strength to withstand several more years of nasty Labour trolling but there is little doubt that much will be made of that in a subsequent leadership battle, even from colleagues within the Lib Dems.

Strategy debate and (more?) changes to Lib Dem Constitution?

Seventh, for at least some of the reasons above, I would not be surprised if we did not end up having a re-run of the debate about whether there should be a change in the constitution to allow a leader from outside the Parliamentary coterie of MPs. Strictly speaking the rules should not allow that debate to take place again so soon after the constitutional decision was made last year – but these are unusual circumstances. However, it will be Spring Conference before that discussion gets to the conference floor and if there is overwhelming feeling for change, such a decision can only be made by Autumn conference (or, possibly, a special conference) In either case that discussion must be finalised before the new leadership election is held, otherwise the party will be accused rightly of navel gazing for too long.

Of course, if there IS a radical realignment, there will probably be new contenders for leadership, not currently in the party (I have already seen suggestions that Caroline Lucas would be favoured by some as a new Leader – and THAT is before any realignment has taken place!) and some may argue for such an eventuality to be welcomed, but that will inevitably slow the process down.

Finally, for the moment, I take the view that Ed`s experience of being a Cabinet Minister will give him far greater leverage in the first months of the new parliament than any new leader could muster, however good s/he may be. Whether or not Ed decides to stand again and whether or not he wins, these first few months of the Johnson Government will be vital in setting the tone for the future.

Jeremy Corbyn is a busted flush (and frankly has been for a long time, but that`s a discussion for another day) so a strong performance by the Lib Dem party leader will be a very visible challenge to the new government. Ed has the forensic skills AND the ministerial experience allowing for a strong challenge in the House of Commons. This should not be disregarded – we need every advantage we can muster in current circumstances.

Also, Corbyn has indicated he is not resigning straight away so it is likely to be late Spring before the Labour leadership debate is started. One of last year`s disappointments was that our leadership debate was crowded out of the media by the Tory version. And, frankly we need all the publicity we can get.

Conclusion

So, my conclusion is that we should extend Ed Davey the courtesy of some months at least as interim leader. We should not be shrill in calling for an urgent leadership contest because there are sound reasons for allowing the 2019 electoral dust to settle. I want to see some real progress towards a “radical realignment of the environmental left” – let us give it time to happen whilst we have a safe pair of hands at the tiller.

Also, we should be spending a lot of time this year working  on how we target COP 26 at the year end. There is no Planet `B` if we get this wrong.

 

 

Reviewing the Election

So, I am back in Brazil for Fatima`s family Xmas (we had our trip booked before they announced the General election date) That meant I was hearing the election results from several thousand miles away – and that does give some perspective. It doesn`t make the results any less unpleasant – but there is a certain detachment possible – and, at least the sun is shining.

What is the correct word? Disappointing? Devastating? Disaster?

Well, I think I have seen all three used on FaceBook threads. Certainly, there has been an outpouring of grief from some FB contacts and no wonder, really. Life is going to get a lot worse before it gets better and, indeed, there is little reason to believe it will get better any time soon.

The only consolation I can offer from my lifetime involvement in the political sphere is that it WILL pass. The “Winter of discontent” passed; Thatcherism passed; even the Iraq war passed. The problem is that some people will not live through it, either because they die of old age or disease or accident before said period passes. Or, worse, they die BECAUSE of whatever difficulties we are facing. And THAT is the most troubling aspect of this current situation – the government`s own figures show there will be a lower economic performance in ANY form of Brexit – and that means some people will suffer setbacks at least, maybe worse, as a consequence.

I am not about to rerun the election campaign, however. You may rest assured of that and carry on reading. My thought processes are more concerned with the question “What do we do next?”

No more petitions

One of the first things that struck me this morning was someone on FaceBook suggesting a petition about something – honestly, I forget quite what, but it was something I would normally relate with and, probably, sign.

NOPE! No more bloody petitions – we had several really big ones relating to Europe/Brexit – didn`t do a scrap of good! No more marches – went on several, wearying, marches with lots and lots of nice people, cost a lot of money for train fares – didn`t do a scrap of good!

I have to say that I have never been a great believer in “demonstrations”, “manifestations” or even “civil disobedience”. There is possibly some evidence that the suffragette movement changed hearts and minds. But what is the point of universal suffrage if the voting system is corrupt and not fit for purpose; or if the media ownership is monopolised by the ultra-rich; or if ordinary people don`t bother to vote…

Canvasser…knocks on door. “I am here to ask which way you might vote on Thursday…”

Resident… answers door. “No, you`re alright thanks!” Closes door – what does that even mean!?

…or Resident, sees you are there at the door… doesn`t answer, carries on watching TV.

Let`s stop being “Tribal”

There was an attempt to build a form of remain alliance, which meant moving away from tribalism a bit and a small core of seats had one or more parties stepping down to give the others a better chance of winning against the Tories. At the time of writing I have not yet seen an analysis of how that panned out (but clearly not well enough to alter the result!) But that failed overall because the Labour Party chose not to opt in – arrogance or ignorance, I am not yet sure. But then Momentum trolls, having accused many, (most? All?) Lib Dems of being “Yellow Tories”, wanted these same Lib Dems to stand aside for their tribal representatives. Without any quid pro quo either.

Aside from the inherent nastiness in this scenario, it reflects a wrong analysis of current politics. Economic changes, technical changes, industrial changes and, of course, political changes mean that the overtly class-based labouring class versus capitalist-class model is now much more complex. Sure, it still has relevance, but the concentration of economic power into the hands of the tax avoiding, tax-evading mega-rich at the expense of virtually everyone else has changed the narrative.

It has allowed the story to thrive that xenophobic British (perhaps just English?) less-well-off voters need to “take back control” from grubby forriners who come over here, take jobs from us all and clog up the NHS and social services at our expense. The fact that it is not actually true has become immaterial. The populist story-tellers have simply made it believable by large swathes of naïve ill-informed voters. They are ill-informed, of course, because the media barons have deliberately mis-informed so many people with myths, pedalled not least by the opportunist liar now inhabiting Downing Street.

So, the attempt by Corbynist, socialist strategists, to appeal to their former tribal base has been thwarted by the populism and proto-fascism of the Johnson government. Fed-up with the never-ending soap-saga of Brexit a large, previously Labour-leaning cohort of northern voters fell under the spell of the simple (and simply untrue) message “Get Brexit done”.

So, being tribal is now a hindrance, not a vote-winning strategy.

The Climate election

There was some hope at the beginning of the election campaign that a major feature of the election might well be a realistic reaction to the very obvious rapidity with which the Climate Catastrophe is bearing down on us. Not least, the fact that even the Tory Party notionally set a date for achieving zero carbon emissions as 2050, suggested that the issue may be seriously debated. No such luck!

Neither the Tory leader, nor the Brexit Party leader turned up for the Channel 4 “Leaders` Debate” and they were both empty-chaired and represented by melting blocks of ice. Perhaps it was inevitable that they ducked out, given that the Tories at least scored only a paltry 5.5 for their environmental manifesto against 30, 31 and 33 for the Lib Dems, the Green Party and the Labour Party, respectively. (We`ll set aside the probably under-marking of the Lib Dem manifesto by Friends of the Earth relative to this essay – perhaps taking that up another time!)

Realignment

So, now I have got to the heart of my reason for writing this blog today. The large degree of overlap in potential solutions to the Climate Crisis between the Lib Dems, the Green Party and the Labour party (at least as far as the manifestoes are concerned) was something we need to build upon. Some of you, at least, will know that I have long argued for a closer working relationship with the Green Party. It is now also apparent that there is a seriously green strand within the Labour Party too – although that did not appear to include any Members of Parliament, since none of their front people were at all convincing talking about it.

It was clear from the Channel 4 debate that Jeremy Corbyn had been well-schooled by somebody since he did speak the correct words in most cases, according to the questions asked, but, for me, he did not show a real belief in many of the things he was saying. But, yes, well schooled.

What REALLY disappointed me was the very lacklustre performance of our Liberal Democrat leader, Jo Swinson, who showed the same sort of schooled `functionality` as Jeremy Corbyn, but it really did NOT come from the heart. There were several questions where Jo Swinson`s responses could and should have shown real leadership by the party, since our policy was well thought out and should have emphasised the urgent nature of starting the decarbonisation process NOW. Sadly, that did not come across at all. And she was put on the back foot immediately by the unambitious 2045 end-date for zero-carbon neutrality.

The Channel 4 debate was, as far as I was concerned the start of the unravelling of the Liberal Democrat position. I will say no more just now about that, since Jo Swinson has paid a heavy price for not getting things right. But before I leave the topic of our leader I do have to say, that after one of the other leaders`  debates I put her in clear third place to Nicola Sturgeon and Caroline Lucas, where one of the questions was about whether each of them would “press the nuclear button” if they were prime minister.

Jo Swinson`s pathetically easy “Yes”, with a side-swipe at Corbyn, was sad to hear. If we are being truly environmentally responsible with our planet, saving it from the Climate Catastrophe, how on earth can you also say you would press a button that would kill millions, potentially billions and may make the planet uninhabitable for aeons. Coming from the lips of a young woman aspiring to lead the mother of democracies and hoping to enthuse new generations of young political activists, that “Yes” was anathema to me and, no doubt, to many others.

What next?

As I said earlier my thought processes with this article are more concerned with the question “What do we do next?”

My answer is that we should seek a real realignment of the radical left of centre, joining with the Green Party and green (primarily non-socialist) environmentalists from the Labour Party. We must lose the `us & them` attitudes associated with former party tribalism, in order to force through Proportional Representation, without which this country, and maybe the planet we live on, are screwed.

There is no Planet B – and if we want real change, let me pinch the Green Party election slogan and say, “If not now, When?”