For a village of around 2,500 we’ve got a lot of places to drink. There are two pubs and two members clubs all within a few minutes staggering distance of each other on the high street.
It could be that we’ve got some serious issues of alcohol abuse to address, but I like to think it’s a sign of a vibrant community.
While the fate of rural post offices has been widely debated, the future of rural pubs has not received as much attention. The Pub is the Hub initiative is an excellent exception.
Peter Wilby wrote well on the future of rural pubs recently and I was recently sent a copy of a report from the Social Issues Research Centre called The Enduring Appeal Of The Local.
You can read the rest of my latest post on the Total Politics local government site here - and/or you can read the new Alex Salmond interview which is causing a stink in Scotland.
There's another, slightly older, interview on the site which caused me more of a fit. Claire Fox from the Institute of Ideas.
She seems very pleased with herself and I still can't understand how she is gainfully employed with her vacuous and self-aggrandising 'Institute'. If proves if you're willing to make yourself available and say something contrary (but not too contrary, this is the sanitised awkward squad) then the media will give you a berth.
Fox says:
I joined the RCP (Revolutionary Communist Party) in the early 80s. I’d be in it still but it was wound up at the end of the nineties.
Or put it another way: her magazine Living Marxism thought it could get away with smearing journalists exposing ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia and was bankcrupted out of existence.
Fox says her political hero is Trotsky:
because he had the courage to write The Revolution Betrayed, admitting that everything he had fought for had been compromised and explaining how and why
good answer.
She also says the smoking ban:
drives me mad with its petty, draconian assault on liberty
You know who the smoking ban helps? People who work in pubs and clubs. They had no choice but to breath in carciogenic fumes. (Lots of info here) Staff in restaurants and casinos and bookies and bingo halls all faced having their health affected through the actions of others. You wouldn't expect a builder to handle asbestos without the proper safety equipment so why expect a barman to swallow your smoke?
And the majority of people working in pubs and restaurants and casinos and bingo halls are working class - not much point in the RCP leading the the proletariat to victory if half of them are struggling with emphysema. Trotsky would not have deployed such woolly arguments.
And as for her political hate figure
Al Gore or any one of today’s self-styled eco-warriors who preach apocalypse and restraint. Gore embodies a particular brand of ‘greener than thou-ism’ that I despise, as he finger-wags at those of us who dare argue people are more important than the planet and development is more crucial than carbon-counting
Well Gore'sa bit of a pain sometimes, true, and his wife was responsible for the parental advisory labels on albums which did sooo much to stop people swearing on rap records.
But for cockeyed statements this is great. So is climate change happening or not? Fox seems to suggest it is but it's more important (as per an earlier answer she gives) that we enjoy our cheap Ryanair Flights.
Quick digression: Fox actually says
thank you Ryanair
That's Ryanair, one of the most vicious companies around in how it treats its staff (this release is a little old but will suffice for evidence). Fox, is your head seriously that far up your own whatsit?
Sorry, back to the main programme. Where were we. Oh yes, finger-wagging greens. Um, if the planet is becoming a less pleasant place doesn't that kind of affect people? And which people do you think get affected most? Is it, um, those less able to buy themselves a ticket somewhere safer? Or is climate change not happening and therefore you are at odds with the majority of scientific opinion? (And what's your evidence).
Come on Fox, make it difficult for us - let's try and put together a semi-coherent argument that doesn't scream: "I have no scruples and will do anything for wonga".
Fox is asked about her most memorable time in politics:
The miners’ strike. The striking miners on picket lines in the Midlands read the FT, grilled me about international politics, the economy, culture etc and taught me never to underestimate or patronise working class people.
Good answer. Bugger, it's much easier to hate.
I got a military escort in Bosnia a couple of years ago when I was on an assignment. I jumped into this Landrover and there was a copy of Wilde's Salome on the dashboard. So I turned to the well-spoken captain accompanying me and asked what he thought of it and the driver, a private, quiet bloke, said that actually it was his. If it makes you cringe, how do you think I feel.
Fox is right: never underestimate and never patronise - but I would add, any class.
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