Norfolk’s coastal path has to be one of the great triumphs of nature in the UK. We walked along with the sea churning for six glorious miles today.

What is astonishing is that these wondrous beaches are more or less deserted. Miles of glorious sand – and litter-free- and rolling waves. Why don’t holidaymakers follow the advice of the eighteenth-century Doge of Venice, who once wrote, “Why should I travel when I have already arrived!”

We pass the submerged Eccles village. We were told that passersby occasionally hear the church bell of the old St Mary’s tolling dolefully. Once, after a storm that raged across the churchyard, a horrified passerby saw skeletons standing erect with polished skulls staring out at the sea. I hope that’s true!

We saw a small seal cub inching his (or her, how can you tell?) way to the sea.

Sweeties for Everyone

A few days ago, we were with a delightful lady who kept calling me “sweetie”!  You read it right, not sweaty! Which would have been accurate. I was quietly pleased, for such endearments don’t come my way too often these days.  Then I heard her calling her dog sweetie as well, so my old heart simply drooped. I recall the great Richard Attenborough was said to call everyone “darling”;   he did this, we are told, on good authority, because he could’ve remembered anyone’s name, and so it saved time.

Front Page Folly

I recall reading some years ago in the Times Letter’s columns:

“There isn’t a picture of Princess Diana on your front page today. Is she ill?” The same thing is happening to Princess Kate, and there she is today, all over the front page with a bruised finger!

I sometimes want a break.

End Game

Prime Minister Balfour once said, “Nothing matters very much, and most things don’t matter at all.” ZANE supporters know my commentaries concentrate on politics, money, sex, religion and death. In my view, everything else is small talk.

And, so to death… None of us is going to get out of this life alive, and at this late stage it’s time to get serious! If not now, when?

I spend a good deal of time – as doubtless, dear reader, do you – at funerals and the memorial services of my friends and relatives. It’s so easy to get hardened to the miseries of life. I recall the late actor David Niven saying, “Life is such a sod, you have to laugh or you will be crushed”.

 What else can we do but try to get on with our own little lives as best we can?

But however often we attend the services of those close to us, however stiff we pretend our lips may be and whether we have a faith to sustain us or not, death remains a profound shock. The late Queen Elizabeth said, “Grief is the price we pay for love.” When the scenery on the little stages on which we jig and prattle away suddenly vanishes, just how are we meant to react? Please don’t say, “You will of course, get over it”, for grief’s not a common cold.

How long does it take to get used to the gaps in our new stage set? How do we dredge up the courage to continue the dance? Now the light of our life has been extinguished, who’s going to bother to talk to us with any real interest? Who’s going to care when we face extreme old age? Who do we shop or dress for now? And although we may be able to find someone else to do something with, will we ever be able to find someone to just do nothing with? Can we ever rekindle the fires of love and mutual interest that have been extinguished, so only grey ash remains? Does it matter if we live or die?

Deathmin

The shock of death is partly the speed with which the rest of the world spins by without missing a roll. How do we face the gloomy clutter of dying without complaint? (Incidentally, I have a file marked “Deathmin”, and respectfully suggest you might do the same). Then comes the reading of the will for, of course, where there’s a will, there’s always a relative.

Gloomy old man that I am, I raised the issue of planning for death the other day with four close friends who all happen to be vicars. We discussed the details of the end game. We all know that death makes money with many firms competing for the business.

“Tell me,” I started. “As professionals, do you really care whether you are buried or cremated, and why do you care? Would you prefer to be shunted down the aisle by half a dozen bored, retired policemen wanting a smoke, or do you plan that family members will do the lifting?

“And do you need a fancy coffin with mock brass handles, or will a cheap pine job – or cardboard – do?

“Do you need a hearse with someone wearing a frilled top hat prancing around – and the next day waiving a hefty invoice – or would you prefer a simple service and then to be buried at sea? Or how about a quiet service in a country church and to be laid to rest among the grey, slanted graves?

“Have you written your funeral wishes (please don’t include Sinatra’s “My Way”) or, as you will be pushing clouds, will you leave that for others to deal with? Will a family member read the eulogy or will that be the vicar’s job?

“Do you mind being forgotten?”

One said that crematoria were dumbed down to such a degree – probably so as not to offend people of any faith, or of none – that they reminded him of a dentist’s waiting room. Another said the fire part made him think of the Nazi gas chambers and he hated the idea of being ground to ashes. Nor did it help that it’s usually raining at crematorium services. And he didn’t much like the strict time rules, either – 30 minutes then, “Next!”

When Time is Over

The anguish of death is summed up by American poet Emily Dickinson in her poem “XXXIX”:

“I shall know why, when time is over,
And I have ceased to wonder why;
Christ will explain each separate anguish
In the fair schoolroom of the sky.
He will tell me what Peter promised,
And I, for wonder at his woe,
I shall forget the drop of anguish
That scalds me now, that scalds me now.” 

Waddle We Do about it?

There they were, as we were striding along the Norfolk Coast Path, two obese parents waddling along with two small children equally plump.

What a tragedy! Tony Blair’s present views on our obesity problems are spot on. Over the last decade of our walks, Jane and I have watched with growing incredulity that people are growing fatter and fatter. The problem is that now obesity is the new normal; as everyone appears to have grown larger, few seem to be noticing what‘s happening around them. I suppose teachers and doctors feel constrained to comment for fear of causing offence. The healthcare bills for heart conditions, worn-out joints and diabetes are overwhelming.

A new tax on fatty foods has to be the answer, however unpopular this may prove to be.

Woke World

Noel Coward once said to Ivor Novello, “Ivor, Darling, if you ever hear that I’ve made rude comments behind your back, rest assured, the rumour is entirely true – I have!”

ZANE often observes the activities of large charities with interest to see is there’s anything a small charity like ours can learn. It’s been an interesting study. Many charities have created “Human Resources” departments, with staff who presumably spend donor money on woke issues such as “gender recognition” and “progressive ideologies”. They give much space in their reports to “environmental and social” issues, or to another preoccupation, “biodiversity” – whatever that may be. Others proclaim to be at the cutting edge of “inclusion, diversity and purpose”, while one claims a social duty not to spend all its donor money on humanitarian relief – which is what it was set up to do – but a significant proportion on combatting climate change.

And what can ZANE learn from one of the best-known charities, which has decreed that instead of writing “woman”, we should instead write “people who menstruate”? Apparently, it may be better to write “Womxn” (as a mark of “solidarity and inclusion”) and we should avoid using the acronym “BAME” (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) and instead use “BIPOC” (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour). It seems that both these former terms are outdated.

Granny Again…

Granny told me that unless you can say nice things, you should say nothing at all. Well, although I won’t do everything Granny said, I will at least try to be brief.

Will ZANE change its conservative ways? The answer is, of course, an emphatic “no”! We have always relied simply on common sense in the way we operate. We believe in “Do as you would be done by”. Showing integrity in all our dealings and doing what’s written on our tin – which is to spend donated money wisely and on the issues that our supporters want their money spent on – are the things that matter to ZANE. Over the years, we have been privileged enough to develop a solid relationship with our supporters – one that is built on trust – and ZANE does not propose to play fast and loose with that trust by wasting money on fashionable nonsense.

We are told that all institutions turn “left” in time unless there are people around who stop the drift. ZANE forges its path looking neither left nor right, but straight ahead. 

Firing Squad

DEFRA authorised a report into to why black, Asian, and other minority groups see the countryside as a “white environment”. Now I hear there is to be a study on racism in the countryside. It is bound to be damning, encouraging victimhood on the part of ethnic minorities and making it a win-win for them. But if the report concludes that the countryside is not “racist”, then the work will be condemned as a “whitewash”. So being human and wanting to be paid, the report’s members will form the usual firing squad and find racism in hedgerows and up trees.

I understand the Leverhulme Trust is funding some of these reports. Leverhulme was a hard-bitten businessman who made his money out of Sunlight Soap. He must be spinning in his grave.    

Allow me to be helpful… If I and my family emigrated to India, we might discover that most people living there aren’t white. I suppose, I could wander around loudly condemning the population and shouting “hate crime” – if I could find anyone who would quietly listen to me (doubtful). But I think I’d probably see that I was being unrealistic and plain rude. I could well be stoned – or banged up by unfriendly police who might reasonably conclude I was deranged.

Being a friendly and decent society brings problems. Everyone comes to the UK because of our virtues, and then a vociferous minority abuses these virtues. Then another group of fanatics abuses us further because our society doesn’t resemble the country they left.   

What a nonsense it all is.

Antiques Road Show

I saw a Desperate Dan look alike with a shiny bald head on the weight machines at my gym. I decided to try the equipment out and made a new friend.

Henry is a delightful Pole working at BMW – it’s daft to judge by appearances – and he told me about himself.

The next time I was exercising, I saw that Henry and a friend were both staring intently at me while muttering. Later, I asked him who his friend was?

“I had to persuade him to come to a gym,” he told me. “He’s 55 and thought he was too old to exercise and would surely die. I told him that I have a friend who is ancient… and I persuaded him to come and look at you!”

The gym has a nubile recruit. Perhaps they should put me on commission?

“A robin redbreast in a cage puts all of Heaven in a rage,” wrote William Blake in 1803 in his famous “Auguries of innocence”. No one can know what he might have written in disgust at seeing dogs being walked on empty beaches or fields on leads!

Of course, dogs should be restrained near a town or a group of people, but keeping overweight dogs waddling along and restricted on leads on a permanent basis is no less than cruelty. The people who own dogs should learn how to get them to return as soon as commanded, but, for heaven’s sake, set them free to leap and dance freely for the joy of being alive.

Oh yes…On the walk, we saw a number of people walking with dogs peering out of prams! Well, I suppose it takes takes all sorts.

Rage, Rage…

Dylan Thomas was right. We should not “go gentle into that good night”.

Some care homes are excellent, and others are not. I visited Helen in hers recently. She’s a beautiful woman of great character who, with her doctor husband, carved out a magnificent life as a nurse and missionary in the Australian outback. Now widowed and in her early nineties, her energy levels may have been sapped by time, but her mind is sharp and clear.

Battery Hen

Helen told me quietly that since Henry died her will to live is faltering. “I hoped death would come easy,” she confided, “but it hasn’t!”  

There’s no real conversation in the home to stimulate her apart from workaday chit chat with Romanian carers. Someone told her “mobile phones don’t work in your room” and she accepted that as fact. Mine worked perfectly.

Because she’s a member of the church reticent, she never complains. Grey gloom hovers like a shroud.  

Government legislation allowed homes to gold-plate lockdown rules and in so doing they made darn sure that even the great escapist Houdini would be stymied. Walking up and down stairs is risky – as is doing most things – so why allow risk? Homes operate in our litigious society, and they are afraid of being sued by vengeful and greedy relatives. It’s in their interest to say as to a dog, “Sit!” – and Helen does just that.  

Helen hasn’t been on an outing for over a year. In the distant past, she used to climb in the Welsh mountains. Today her legs have atrophied and she can only just stagger to the loo. I guess the home is doing the best it can by keeping her like a battery hen on £5,000 per month until her savings are finally pecked dry. But what then? Best not to ask.

Helen might just as well be in any nick’s hospital wing and chained to a bed. Same ghastly result but at least the nick’s free. Now here’s a thought for the future… announce you are an arsonist and boom! Broadmoor hospital wing, here we come!

“Old age should burn and rage at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Best Before

I knew Clement Freud – Clay to his friends – when we were in parliament together. Did I like him? Well like is the wrong word for he was possibly an abuser, and I could see that he had something of the night about him. His humour was original, lethal, quite cruel – and relentless. When Scots-born Teddy Taylor with a broad accent was bussed in for election in Southend, Freud arranged for him to be followed by an interpreter.

Clay’s constituency included “Bury St Edmunds”. He couldn’t resist a campaign with the slogan, “Dig up St Edmunds”. When someone once suggested, “Let’s run upstairs and make love,” his repost was, “Only one of those suggestions is possible at the same time.”

His advice to the elderly who were worried about their mental health was this: “If you go into the kitchen and you can’t remember what for, don’t worry for we all do that. But if you go into the kitchen and you can’t remember what the kitchen is for, then you have a problem.” And his helpful advice to new authors? “Any fool can write a book, but it takes a genius to sell one!”

When I last lunched with him in his Marylebone flat, Clay showed me his great uncle’s election poster in a US senatorial campaign. “Bring back slavery!” it read – I think it was from 1863, in Alabama. “And he nearly won!” chortled Clay.

A while back I visited Burford Priory where Clay is buried. The gravestone reads, “Sir Clement Freud, 15 April 2009, and underneath: “Best before”.

After so many years, Jane and I are experts in our style of walking. We know all there is to know, and I say this without conceit. After nigh on 3000 miles, we just know, and if we didn’t by this time, we would be really very stupid! First, we know the limits of how far we can safely travel in a day’s walk. It may sound obvious, but it really isn’t: we know how far to walk in an hour and when to stop and drink (often!). How to handle traffic (with great care), what sort of pubs to avoid, which to patronise, how to use our excellent “LEKI” sticks. What socks to wear, the best boots and so on.

It all comes naturally now. But everything has a season, and we are well aware that, in the end, everything – the good and not-so-good, as well as the ghastly – passes. We are aware that at our respective ages, we are outliers and supremely fortunate we remain fit enough to be able to walk such distances as we do, day after day
or at all. It would be really very foolish to take all this for granted. None of us, not even our wonderful ZANE supporters – will get out of this life alive!

Praise the Lord! Praise His Holy name.

Keep Buggering On

On 30 April 2020, Sir Keir Starmer was secretly filmed by a student. He was in Durham Miners’ Hall with May Foy MP and Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, eating takeaway curry and drinking beer.

In a BBC interview with Sophie Raworth, Starmer was repeatedly asked about “Beergate”. In a rictus of anxiety, he denied there could be any comparison whatsoever between this incident and Boris’ “Partygate”. 

For the record, I’m sure Starmer was telling the truth. But that’s not the point.

On My Mother’s Life!

Soon, other people starting sharing evidence of Downing Street booze-ups and helped to bring down a prime minister. Smart phones have changed the world and that’s the thing.  

Fifty years ago, even 20, voters would never have known about Starmer’s curry and beer, nor would they have known for sure about Partygate. Vague rumours may have circulated, but in those innocent, smartphone-free days, they were often limited to games of “He said, she said” with the truth a case of, “Who do you believe?” Secrets were usually exploited by breaches of faith, and they went like this:

“I’m going to tell you a hugely important secret… but, please, please, promise you’ll never tell a soul!”

“Oooh, of course… tell me. I’ll not tell anyone. I promise on my mother’s life!”

Of course, by the end of a week most people would have forgotten any mention of their mother and exactly how very secret the secret was. By the end of two weeks, they’d have forgotten the secret was a secret; and by week three, they wouldn’t even be able to recall who spilled the secret in the first place!

But that was then and this is now, for the world’s a changed place. Today cameras and social media rule, and nothing in public life remains behind closed doors for long. Politicians realise that everything they do and everything they say – all their mistakes, outbursts of anger, follies, boozing, betrayals, hands on the knee and other infidelities – may be recorded on camera, or by other means, and paraded to a world that’s gagging for scandal.

Now, most people (except ZANE supporters, of course) have probably done something at some time or other which brings a degree of shame. Just imagine if your worst disgrace had been recorded and was about to be broadcast on social media in the most hostile way imaginable?   

Sozzled Saviour

Peer back in time to 1943 when Churchill was our wartime prime minister. He ended up as a saviour. But would he have survived if the loans from chums, his incontinent casino gambling, his egregious tax-avoidance, his drinking and his serious ill temper towards staff had been recorded on camera and paraded on social media? Would he have survived when, for example, everyone was on strict rations and pictures of him, a bit sozzled and singing music hall ditties while scoffing smoked salmon, grouse and rich puddings – all washed down with vast quantities of champagne and claret – had been shared with the nation?

Of, course, in those dark days there were no smartphones to cause mayhem and it was, thankfully, a different world. So, today – thanks to Churchill – we can speak in English, not German, and we can KBO (“keep buggering on”, which was a favourite sign-off of his) in freedom. 

The late Julian Critchley, former MP for Aldershot, was right when he said that the only thing people in public life can safely do is to suck boiled sweets.

And not even that’s safe nowadays.    

Tennessee Williams coined the phrase “The kindness of strangers,” and never was it more appropriate than in our Norfolk walk. We never use the names of those who offer us hospitality, for few want that sort of publicity and anyway, by the time we have stated that X and Y are wonderful, what on earth do we say about A and B.

Norfolk is fortunate not to be able to boast of a motorway so that it retains its independence and charm. We were even spared the wind that is said to roar over straight from the Urals: “The Beast from the East”.

Kangaroo Court

What is “Confirmation Bias” (CB) and why does it matter? It’s the tendency to process new information as confirmation of our existing beliefs. And it’s often the result of our desire to establish we are right.

Perhaps you think you have an open mind and are willing to change long-held views if you receive new information? Are you sure about that?

Trial By Mob

Allow me to give you an example of extreme CB. Long before Rev Nigel Biggar, Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology, wrote his excellent book Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, he announced he was setting up a group at Christ Church Oxford to research the pluses and minuses of colonialism and empire. To his astonishment, he attracted abuse on an industrial scale from Professor Priyamvada Gopal at the University of Cambridge: “We must stop this shit!” Then followed a condemnatory letter from 59 Oxford academics, backed up by another 200 from around the world, which was publicly circulated. It came from intelligent people who decided to put the boot in on a project well before any of them could possibly have known what it entailed.

How did this come about? Easy! One person decided on the cancellation initiative. A letter was written, and colleagues persuaded to sign it on the proposition that Biggar was a misguided simpleton and that anything from his pen had to be condemned.

So, one by one, these people put the boot in – just as in Alice in Wonderland:

“Let the jury consider their verdict,” the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

“No, no!”, said the Queen. “Sentence first, verdict afterwards.”  

Then publisher Bloomsbury – who had commissioned Biggar – got cold feet and decided that they couldn’t go ahead with the book after all. Rumour had it that young employees decided they were far too delicate to have anything to do with the “colonialism” in the book’s title, and so that was that.

Fortunately, William Collins was brave enough to publish, and the book has been a great success.

What Nigel Bigger suffered is an extreme example of confirmation bias, all from professors and publishers with brains the size of Basingstoke. Being intelligent didn’t not stop them from acting like hens. They judged before they knew the facts – and none has apologised!

So, what hope have we got to avoid the CB trap?

This is how it works. Let’s assume you supported the Remain camp back in 2016, and you loathe Boris Johnson, whom you regard as largely responsible for Brexit. Each time you hear of one of his achievements – such as the vaccine rollout ahead of all other countries or support for Ukraine – you simply close your ears. Meanwhile, his many disasters are like catnip to you.

Just listen to people parading they are “left wing” – whatever “left wing” is meant to mean? They are virtue-signalling they are not “right wing”, like that ghastly Nigel Farage and Boris.

Some claim to be so delicate they cannot bring themselves to read the Daily Mail or even have it in their house, as if merely touching the paper would taint them with some exotic right-wing disease. When I point out that it’s the most popular newspaper in the UK with wonderful sports and women’s pages, an informative financial section, first-rate quizzes and simply stated opinions by top-class writers – so what on earth are they talking about – they grow mute. CB sufferers are never happy to be challenged.  

Trigger Warning

I submit we are all tainted by CB to some degree, welcoming views that support our prejudices whilst rejecting others that do not. Let’s run a simple test. To what extent do the names or words Jeremy Corbyn, Boris Johnson, Angela Raynor, Nicola Sturgeon, Nigel Farage, Meghan Markle, Brexit, Rupert Murdoch, Dominic Cummings, Dianne Abbott, Richard Dawkins, the Guardian, the Daily Mail, Israel and Palestine, and the words “colonial” and “empire” trigger an attack of “CB” in you?

Now we know the moral quality of figures from some leading universities and publishers, it makes it easier to understand the dynamics of Paris’s revolutionary mob, the Salem witch hunt and why in America’s deep south, individuals were so easily persuaded to lynch black people.

Roughly halfway house, and we’ve burned a few pounds from our easy living! The faint muscle stiffness has abated and we are swinging along with renewed confidence as each mile passes us by.

About a year ago, I had an operation on my left foot, and I worried whether the foot would survive the inevitable battering, for if the feet pack up, then it’s goodbye sweet Prince to the walks. For some weeks it was a bit stiff, so with some trepidation, I launched the foot on my second last walk. My old theory holds good: if you simply ignore pain, it often goes away. It did. Now it’s all fine.

Heaven on Earth

“If there is heaven on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here.”

So said the fourth Mughal emperor, Jahangir, while visiting Kashmir in the seventeenth century – and those words might aptly be applied to the UK today.

Anyone who discusses immigration runs the risk of being called “racist” and as there is no agreed definition of the word, it can be launched as a general insult to smear anyone you dislike. Nevertheless, ever since Tony Blair threw open Britain’s borders and rebuilt the economy around cheap migrant labour, immigration has remained a contentious issue.

Once the genie had flown from the bottle, that was it. Cameron proved this in 2010 when he promised voters to reduce net migration from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands – instead, he ended up presiding over the highest levels of immigration ever seen. His inability to honour that pledge reinforced the growing sense amongst voters that no one was in control. Of course, this was one of the factors behind Brexit and it will be an important determinant at the next election.    

Land of Milk and Honey

Voters aren’t stupid. According to YouGov, uncontrolled immigration – particularly illegal immigration – remains among the electorate’s top three concerns. Across the Third World, millions of people, mainly young and unemployed, are determined to make the UK their home. Many of them live in countries where life is often cruel and short, where corruption is endemic, where there is no chance to alter society for the better, and where thinkers and critics often rot in jail. Meanwhile, their mobile phone screens tell them that the UK is a land of milk and honey – a country that promises free healthcare, free education, generous social services, religious freedom, democracy, and the rule of law handed down from incorrupt courts. A land where – so the people smugglers tell them – lawyers will (for free!) do all they can to prevent new arrivals from being deported.

In short, the UK is to the Third World Emperor Jahangir’s “heaven”. Who can blame young hopefuls for their iron determination to reach our shores? And who can be surprised that there is a booming business to facilitate their passage, run by corrupt people smugglers?   

What can we do about this? First, truth must be separated from garbage. We are told that these non-European migrants are an economic benefit to the UK. If this is true, please will someone tell me why Belarus and Turkey use immigrants as weapons? Why isn’t France campaigning to get its valuable migrants back from Britain? Why aren’t countries everywhere competing eagerly for more incomers, perhaps incentivising them with bribes and goodie bags?

There is no such thing as a bargain! The reality is that migrants cost a great deal of money and the numbers are staggering. Net immigration – people allowed to come here – soared last year to about half a million. That represents the population of a city half the size of Newcastle each year and it costs north of £15bn.

So, although estimates differ wildly, illegal immigration is an economic drain – at least in the short term – which is why the countries the immigrants pass through play pass the parcel and hope they land up in the lap of the UK.

The 100,000 illegal migrants are, in the main, unskilled, poorly educated and heavily dependent on the public purse. Their accommodation in south-coast hotels costs UK taxpayers £5.6m per day – and this pays no heed to the numbers in the black economy, into which many foreigners disappear.  

Self-Interest

UK residents already face an acute housing crisis, schools are overcrowded, and the NHS has a waiting list of seven million patients. We have escalating welfare bills and there is a growing reluctance by the country’s increasingly elderly citizens to pay the necessary higher taxes to fund the welfare services they have grown to expect as their right. So, what is the government to do? Of course, no one wants immigrants attempting dangerous boat crossings to drown. But we must stop our laws from being flouted by people smugglers.

And why is HMG embarrassed by critics focusing on self-interest on behalf of UK voters? Dare we discuss the level of immigration that suits the UK, however contentious that calculation may prove to be? We must not heed the siren voices that tell us we must be “kind and nice” and try to improve the lives of immigrants everywhere, for this will lead to national bankruptcy. There are 89 million displaced people in the world, 27 million are refugees, 40 million live in modern slavery and up to 780 million can claim fear of persecution on grounds of race, nationality or religion. The solution cannot be to bring even a small minority to the UK. Similarly, the popular “safe and legal routes” cannot stop the crossings unless they apply to everybody prepared to travel here illegally.

Surely, we must concentrate on the interests of the people who already live in the UK? Our government should decide what number of immigrants best benefits our resident population and elevate the interests of voters who already live here above the interests of people who don’t. What’s wrong with that? After all, HMG owes its first allegiance not to suffering humanity, but to the UK taxpayers who live in the country it was elected to protect.

Voters are merciless! Unless our relatively liberal government does something about uncontrolled immigration, voters will shrug and back far-right leaders who will. That’s what’s happening In Sweden, Italy and Germany. Our present leaders should take note. 

Overarching mist the colour of a tramp’s vest. At my minute, I expected Magwitch to spring out at Pip from behind an ancient tombstone. Miles of glorious galloping beach and I thought of our horse Prince Panache, born in our old stables a generation ago. For ZANE donors interested in this sort of thing, prepare for a boast! Our horse, Prince Panache, sleek as a seal, 17 hands, and like riding a Maserati, won the world championship three-day eventing (show jumping, cross country and dressage) in Lexington, USA, in the nineties (rider Karen O Connor. Fantastic achievement. Big obituary in Horse and Hound.

On we plod…

The Empire Fights Back

The accusation by Meghan Markle that she and Harry were driven from the UK to the US – that haven of racial harmony – because of racism is a wicked nonsense. Why on earth did the media allow her and Harry Markle to get away with such a disgraceful slur?

Why do lefty media pundits accuse the UK of entrenched racism just because we once had an empire? Why was “Black Lives Matter” allowed to flourish in the UK, with leaders and sports people taking the knee?

A Matter of Pride

Pundits speak of our involvement in slavery as if the UK had invented it. But they must know the reality – slavery was endemic in all societies throughout history. And although, of course, we have our share of bigots, we should be proud of the fact we are a remarkably tolerant society.

Why aren’t children in schools and universities taught that the abolition of slavery in the late 1700s was brought about because of our Christian conviction in the basic equality of all human beings, regardless of race? And why aren’t they taught that Britain was the first state in the world to abolish slavery within its own territories in the early 1800s? 

Britain’s imperial power was devoted – at vast cost – to the global suppression of slavery for the next century and a half. The campaign attracted widespread support, with an estimated one third of the male population in the UK signing abolitionist petitions. What other country has such a record?

American historian John Stauffer has written: “Almost every United States black who travelled in the British Isles acknowledged the comparative dearth of racism there. Frederick Douglass [the famous black abolitionist] noted after arriving in England in 1845:

“I saw in every man a recognition of my manhood, and an absence, a perfect absence, of everything like that disgusting hate with which we are pursued in [the United States]”.

The fact that Rishi Sunak is now prime minister of the UK, and that the country has more ethnic minorities in the cabinet than all EU member countries combined, is the fulfilment of our liberal, imperial vision. It should be a matter of great pride and not shame.

All these things should be taught to our young.

What’s in a Name?

When I started ZANE, I held a meeting for veterans in Bulawayo. I said that because of their loyalty, ZANE would look after their needs.

One very old but sprightly man called from the front row, “Even me?” 

“Why not you?”

“My name is Hauptmann Smidt. I fought in Hitler’s army!”

The room froze. Then laughter. I muttered that grass grows on all battlefields, and why not?

And so we did!

Here we are two old gits, not two pounds of us hanging straight, minute figures wandering along the Norfolk coast under a vast pale blue canopy of sky. What a wonderful world and what a privilege to be alive at this hour.

God Save the King!

It’s inevitable in our free society that republicans are bound to make a fuss about the cost of monarchy, and some would even glue themselves to the roads to make nuisances of themselves. But what they’ll find is that it’s far easier to moan than establish a decent alternative.

Okay, republicans don’t like the class divisions that the monarchy is said to generate, and they disapprove of non-elected people exercising even modest influence in our democracy. Yet the vital quality of the monarchy and the stability it brings were tested when, between 2016 and 2022, the revolving doors of 10 Downing Street saw five prime ministers taking office across a period of just over six years. While our democracy bent (though failed to break), our magnificent queen ruled calm and serene above the fray bringing a non-political stability to our affairs.

We pray it will be the same under King Charles III.   

Rites and Rituals

The monarchy may look strange in our modern democracy – rather like the bumble bee, it shouldn’t fly but it does.

We will never know the value of ancient ceremony, ritual and traditions until they’ve been destroyed. Imagine, if you will, that the monarchy was swept aside, and we faced our first presidential campaign. The candidates would all proclaim to be “non-political”, but we all know that is simply impossible.

It’s a racing certainty the redoubtable Diane Abbott would appear as the first woman candidate of colour – any accusation that she’s far too stupid to be seriously considered would generate shrieks of “racism”. Her candidacy would be contested by Nigel Farage, furry collar, fag and pint at the ready. Then Peter Tatchell might be paraded by Stonewall as LGBAEM (Lesbian, Gay, Black, Asian, Ethnic Minority), as the first LGBTQ+ president, and Blair would face Corbyn.

You think I am wrong? Want to take a bet? But sanity will prevail, and I can’t see republicanism being introduced here. 

Britain’s Greatest Brand

Most people realise that the UK’s monarchy is one of the biggest brands in the world. It’s the thing we do best that no other country can match. The brand beats Facebook, Virgin, X (Twitter), Rolex, Trump, Amazon and Chanel into cocked hats. The cost is small, but the value in terms of soft power and influence is beyond price.

Twenty million people in the UK watched the coronation on television and many hundreds of millions more looked on from around the world. From Tasmania to Toronto, from St Petersburg to Nairn, and from Newfoundland to Perth, viewers watched in awe as the best of British pomp and pageantry went on display. I bet many of them would love to have taken part and wished their country had even a fraction of our style and chutzpah. 

What other world event could generate such favourable publicity? Not even the Olympics pulls that number of viewers. What monetary value can you attach to it? It’s priceless. What positive effect do these figures have on our tourist industry? How much benefit do these viewing figures bring to our worldwide businesses, the financial arena, and our goods and services?       

God Save King Charles III!

O, to be in England

Here’s a definition of what it is to be English – and one that will not find its way into newspapers:

“Basking in our garden over the weekend, celebrating our temperate climate, a passive spirit, cricket at Lords, tennis at Wimbledon, sports day and the egg and spoon race, the village fete, a car boot sale and real ale. These things are in the English DNA and are a way of life. Those who wish to destroy it cannot understand it, and yet it is the very essence of why they will fail.”

Walking on the beach at Hunstanton, we found ourselves compelled to look at naked UK swimmers. One tanned man in a thong – Jane, avert your eyes! – and, flexing his muscles, looked rather like a condom stuffed with conkers. Then I saw myself in a window, my hat askew, a blob of ice cream on my nose, flies undone, so who on earth am I to judge?

As so often on our walks, we are overwhelmed by the kindness of strangers, the generosity of supporters who take us in, usually sight unseen. One startled lady told me she was actually expecting someone else, “but perhaps you’ll do!” I think I passed muster!

Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing

You may have watched TV’s The Sixth Commandment recently? It detailed the ghastly experience of Peter Farquhar, who was sexually exploited and then murdered by the vicious Ben Field.

I knew Peter in the early 1990s when he was the Benyon daughters’ English teacher at Stowe School. Our relationship was more than casual – I tried to help him, wholly unsuccessfully, to get his books published. He was an excellent writer but publishing novels is a cruel game and he fell into the Clement Freud category: “Any fool can write a book, but it takes a genius to sell one!”   

Peter was a gentle and very shy man. He was gay but as a deeply committed Christian, he had remained celibate. His unhappiness and desperate loneliness were brilliantly drawn by actor Timothy Spall.

In Cold Blood

Years ago, US author Scott Peck wrote a couple of brilliant books. The Road Less Travelled won worldwide acclaim but the less well-known The People of the Lie was equally insightful. In brief, Peck claimed that real wickedness is not just straightforward violence and crookery, which is bad enough. Real evil has yet another dimension, where the cold-blooded perpetrator cloaks his or her wickedness behind a mask of false kindness and virtue. For example, I wasn’t surprised when a large army of priests were discovered hiding behind holy office whilst sexually abusing the children they had caught in their claws.     

Ben Field pretended to love poor Peter. He then “married” him and persuaded him to change his will. Then he drugged Peter to make him feel like he was going crazy before finally strangling him.

Believe this: I attended the funeral service for Peter where Field – who had, of course, callously murdered him – gave the oration in his memory.

Field was caught after trying the same routine on a retired headmistress who lived a few doors away from Peter’s old house in Maids Moreton, Buckingham. Luckily, when Field came to change her will, he tried to employ the services of the same solicitor he had used for Peter. The solicitor smelled a rat – and what a rat he turned out to be! Fortunately, Field was jailed for life and will serve at least 38 years. Good!   

Butter Wouldn’t Melt

Recently, another example of supreme evil dominated news headlines. Smiling, blue-eyed Lucy Letby, hiding behind the mask of the perceived virtue of her profession, murdered at least seven infants. No one could believe that such a gentle, innocent-looking woman, marinated in infant care, would stoop to such evil acts. Now we know.

There are, of course, cries in the Telegraph that we should debate the return of the death penalty. Probably, in the event of a referendum on the subject, its promoters would effortlessly win.

I remember 19 July 1979 well. Parliament debated whether capital punishment should, once again, be available as a penalty in the courts. I was the MP who succeeded Airey Neave (following his assassination by the IRA in the Commons car park). To the consternation of many constituents, I voted against the motion. First, there had been several well publicised miscarriages of justice. Second, experienced lawyers warned me that if a jury knew that a defendant found guilty faced possible execution, the law of unintended consequences could bite. The jury might be afraid to convict, and guilty people might escape justice.

Last, in a debate in 1974, Lord Hailsham told the House of Lords that the death penalty is “a horrible and degrading thing”. He was as right then as he is now.        

In last year’s commentary, I listed the five regrets of the dying. The one that generated the most reader comments was, “When you wake do you think it just another boring day or are you full of wonder that we are still alive in this wondrous world?” Here I am on a beautiful day, contemplating that a man needs three things to bless his life: a battle to fight, a maiden to woo and a cause bigger than himself to live for. I can by the grace of God tick all three boxes.

We read that Fayed is dead. Will anyone mourn him? he had much in common with Trump and Maxwell. All allegedly self-important bullies to whom truth and honesty are moving targets, all living out the insight of author Henry James: “Behind every great fortune is always a great crime.” They blighted everyone they met. The first two are facing their maker… I suspect and hope that sometime soon the Donald will reap his nemesis and spend richly deserved  time in an orange jump suit.

We are walking down Peddars  Way, a 2000 year old track whose surface is hatched into grooves  by bikes; the going  is hazardous in that it’s dead easy to twist your ankle.

Putin’s Divide

Of course, we all know that Putin is a dangerous and corrupt thug. However, he has a worrying point when it comes to his judgement of the west.  

In the New York Times, I read that the Russian president is selling his disastrous war to citizens by proclaiming a “High Noon” battle between a noble, family-orientated and disciplined Russia and the spiritually collapsed and morally dysfunctional west. 

He starts by drawing attention to the US – presently an easy target – where, in 2024, the astonished electorate must decide which geriatric candidate is the least disastrous choice to run the country.   

Putin then proclaims that the west has degenerated from being the home of ruthless capitalism to a “nest of sex changes, the rampages of drag queens, barbaric gender debates and an LGBTQ takeover.” He goes on to claim that today the west is “a hotbed of selfishness, permissiveness and immorality, and in denial of the ideals of patriotism”, and that it is “busy with the destruction of the traditional family through the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations”. 

Parade

To what degree are Putin’s claims true? We can surely agree that his vicious campaign against the gay community is monstrous and cruel. But what about his assertion that here in the UK, there used to be a divide between simply letting people get on with their sexual preferences (within the law) and promoting and celebrating LGBTQ+ issues in the way that happens now? Worried critics remain silent for fear of being labelled homophobic, a career-ending insult. The “Pride” campaign has expanded from one day a month to a whole month, and parades a rainbow of sexual preferences, however bizarre they may be – other, of course, than the one that reproduces our species. Sexual aberration appears to be the new normal. 

Why is it appropriate for “pride” to be involved with any sort of sexual activity? Why don’t we just get on with what we like doing in our own bedrooms, and shut up and try not to frighten the horses? And whilst I think about it, why are we passively conceding there is no such thing as “normal” sexual conduct, even the one that brought all of us into the world? Surely this is anti-family and manifestly not in the public interest.  

Why do we allow bias in the selection of CEOs, leading politicians, military leaders and law officers, instead of just choosing the best candidate – whether straight, gay, white, black, Latino or Asian? If you want proof this happens, just study the circumstances in which Kamala Harris was chosen as vice president of the US.  

And surely Putin is right about our lack of patriotism. Any teacher or professor who dares mention the “ideals of patriotism” to their charges, or who demonstrates affection for our homeland, is considered not just absurd but malign. Teachers at schools and universities persuade the young to be ashamed of our country while cleansing the curricula of our cultures’ classics. Yes, Putin has plenty of ammunition to feed his vicious campaign – all he need do is read our newspapers.   

On the Road

I bought a new car in May. To be accurate, it’s a very old car but new to us.

Anyway, I transferred my insurance cover, and to cut a tedious tale to its barest shreds, the insurance company managed to get a single letter wrong in the new registration. Did you know that the traffic police now have a gadget that automatically reads registration plates and highlights the uninsured? 

Well, they do! Within a week, I was stopped by a cop who politely told me I was uninsured. Of course, I had no paperwork with me, and he was adamant that I couldn’t drive another yard further without proof of cover. 

“Officer, I’m not so stupid as to drive a car whilst uninsured.” 

No joy! 

“Officer, please believe me, I used to be a politician”. 

He began to laugh. I could see it coming. 

“All the more reason not to believe you, Sir!”

He let me go in the end.