Jane and I are all set for our “circular” walk. It’s sad that driver Markus won’t be here –but since we’ll be sleeping in our own beds at home this year, we can’t justify his presence. He will be much missed.  

As ever, we are walking for Zimbabwe’s poor. This is the eleventh year I’ve said that the state of Zimbabwe couldn’t possibly get any worse – and lo and behold, once again it is! The future looks grim. Through government incompetence and gross corruption, Zimbabwe’s inflation is soaring above 600 per cent. It’s not as if we haven’t been here before. It’s often said that the first sign of madness is doing the same stupid thing time after time, hoping to get a different result. The Zimbabwe government is proving how true this bleak proposition is. 

A friend asked me a couple of dynamite questions. The first was this: why is it that Singapore, a country founded more or less at the same time as Zimbabwe, yet possessing none of its natural advantages – such as tourism or agricultural potential, or mineral riches – is today one the richest nations on Earth? It’s a country that can afford to provide superb facilities of health, education and social services to its people, yet Zimbabwe is a world-class economic ruin, the bulk of its people reduced to beggary.      

And the next question was this: why did no media outlet dare to comment when Zimbabwe turned into one of the most racist countries on Earth? From 1999, some 4,000 farmers were ripped from their farms wholly because of the colour of their skin. That was the finding some years ago of black judges in the South African court in Namibia – the findings in Mike Campbell’s case. This ruling has never been challenged. Why the media silence? 

Lockdown

Now to the present circumstances…

It’s been fine for Jane and me for we live in a nice house, we have a close family and we’ve been married forever. We are aware that all this is diamond-rare.

We are living in extraordinary times and the country is racking up vast bills. Do you recall the 2010 Conservative election slogan: “Dad’s nose. Mum’s eyes. Gordon Brown’s debt.”? Our grandchildren will have to pay our vast Covid debts. Will ZANE survive when, as we all know, “charity starts at home”?

Back to the walk: new Meindl boots, new sunglasses. We are as fit as can be, considering we should be exhibits in the Antiques Roadshow. But for many, ZANE is their only hope of survival. There’s no NHS or social services in Zimbabwe, and unemployment is 95 per cent. The majority of the most able of the young have long since left, leaving the less able and elderly behind.

So we walk: looking after the poor is what ZANE is all about.

Health Warning

Many of my blog items are penned late in the evening when I am tired and often out of sorts. I try and concentrate on the five subjects that are of most interest to me: sex, money, religion, politics and death. Occasionally, I stray off these topics. Of course, I can only guess as to the political complexion of ZANE supporters so I have to take some care. I spent most of my political life thinking I was centre left: today, perhaps the tide has shifted leaving me more or less beached on the centre right.

You may not agree with my views, and that’s fine, for the hallmark of a free country is the right to disagree and even to give offence. But please go on reading. I try not to “do” party politics but sometimes I can’t resist the odd snide comment. However, I’ve been as critical of the Conservatives in recent years as of any other party!

Please also appreciate that the views in this commentary are mine and mine alone. They don’t represent the views of anyone who works for ZANE or the body of the trustees.

Further, this commentary is not a self-important indulgence on my part but – to my surprise – generates far more revenue than the cost of printing and dispatch.

So, if you have already sponsored us, “thank you”. And if not, please do so!         

Home Stretch

The last 13 miles at some speed through the outskirts of Oxford via Wallingford.  Then to Christ Church via the Iffley Road to be met by a warm welcoming group. Dear Alannah was there to send us on our way from Canterbury at what seems to be a lifetime ago: there she is outside Christ Church to welcome us back with a spirited trumpet voluntary.

Have Faith

What I dislike are books on faith that imply that the author has it all worked out, and if the book is read then all doubts will flee (and if they don’t, well, there must be something wrong with the reader!) I also dislike the fact that too many vicars haven’t a clue and cannot preach for toffee, so people remain frustrated and unfed, their basic questions unanswered.

Let’s face it: in the twenty-first century, talk of the virgin birth, miracles and a dead man rising make for an improbable story. And dear old Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens haven’t helped matters.  

I am comforted that it was not the devout and morally successful who understood Jesus, and who were loved by him. It was the desperate and the defeated, those who felt they had let themselves down, and the profoundly disappointed. 

Grace

Paul Tillich, a German exile from NAZI Germany wrote this:

“Do we know what it means to be struck by grace? It does not mean we suddenly believe that God exists or that Jesus is the Saviour, or that the Bible contains the truth… Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual… it strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage.”

For me, this seems to capture the upside-down message of Jesus. So why do I believe?

Reasons to Believe

Year ago, I knew the great Chuck Colson of Nixon infamy and Watergate, and then jail and Prison Fellowship. He was a thug, no mistake – as was St Paul. And so was my friend Jonathan Aitken and so was I! But God uses us in our weakness.

In the book Born Again, Colson wrote that in the Watergate scandal in June 1972, seven men – the Watergate Seven – conspired to lie to the world that Nixon did not know about the break-in to the Democratic National Committee (Erlichman, Mitchell, Mardian, Colson, Haldeman, Parkinson and Strachan).

It took just one week for the conspiracy to fall apart; one by one, the seven could no longer bear the deception, and so they went to the special prosecutor to admit they had lied.

Colson concluded from his own experience that Jesus’s disciples simply couldn’t have conspired to lie to the Roman authorities about the resurrection, when the penalty for that lie was crucifixion. Why would they do such a thing? To die for a lie is completely contrary to human nature, so Colson concluded that the disciples had to be telling the truth. Jesus did rise from the dead: they saw him and they were prepared to die for that truth.

I have always thought that totally convincing and it’s the reason I began to believe in the miracle of the resurrection.

And then US bestselling author David Foster Wallace wrote this:

“Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for choosing some sort of god… to worship… is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things…  then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally bury you… Worship power, and you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever-more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, and you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.”

Last, Solzhenitsyn spent much of his time, after his incarceration in the Gulag, trying to understand how some 60 million Soviets had simply “vanished”. And this was in my lifetime too! Sixty million people, many just slaughtered, many starved to death – and all killed in truly ghastly circumstances.

In God’s name, why? Because, he concluded, people had tried to live without God.

So people should belt up with their worries/doubts/fears, and so on – stop moaning on about why does God allow suffering and all the rest of it. Because this is nothing new. It’s been talked about for thousands of years.

Just get on with believing – what alternative is there? – and save your witterings for the recording angel!

The POSH Test

I wonder just how “posh” ZANE supporters are? 

Just in case you didn’t know, the word “posh” comes from our Colonial past. It derives from whether liner passengers to India could afford “Port Out, Starboard Home” tickets (a posh ticket) – so they could buy shade from the sun. 

Now I have been told that posh people are defined by how they pronounce the word “shower.” If it rhymes with “flower” they are certainly not posh. If they pronounce it “shar” (to rhyme with “far”), they are totally and irredeemably posh.

Thanks

We have completed 162 miles, much through God’s own countryside, and returned safely. We were conscious that eighty years ago the sky was a battle ground: we were reminded of this by various Spitfires performing aerobatics by some enthusiasts. The weather was kind to us, perfect in fact.  We were welcomed by loyal ZANE supporters: people who comprise the backbone of the UK: kindly, hospitable and generous to a fault. We choose not to highlight their names, which might cause embarrassment, but they know who they are. Thank you each and every one of you. It’s a privilege to have you in our lives.

Markus, our driver and doughty assistant from Bulawayo is a great ZANE friend; a careful driver and a patient man, blessed by an overarching good nature. Markus never takes offence:  this last is a necessary quality when dealing with flawed individuals such as Jane and me, especially so when we are tired, thirsty, demanding and frequently fractious.

General Jane was, as ever, commanding and indomitable: an inspiration to all who know her. Her map-reading skills are astonishing, as are her leadership qualities.

The walk could not have proceeded without Sue Carter’s care and patience.

And last a thank you to you our generous supporters for your financial support and your many messages of encouragement. And thank you to the many who came to walk with us.

Tom Benyon

P.S daughter Clare tells me that her Italian friend, Luca, is most concerned about the Brexit and the wider political situation in the UK.

I ask you! When the Italians express worry about the political state we are in, we really are in a mess!

I clambered into a thicket in the deepest wood to, ahem, repair myself. When I emerged I discovered that Jane had gone, vanished, vamoosed into thin air. I shouted to no avail and then discovered that, as usual, I had no idea where I was. Not a clue. There were several tracks all pointing in different directions so what was I to do?

Those ZANE supporters who have missed earlier blogs do not know that my sense of direction is not my finest quality. I would make useless taxi driver or Field Master of a hunt!  Once, when wooing a girl, I drove from Penrith to London; twenty miles from London  I went round a roundabout and drove more or less  back to Penrith. The girl dumped me and who can blame her? And when I was in the army I was known as “Backbearing Benyon’.  My guardsmen followed me not because they thought I knew where I was going but out of curiosity to see where we would end up!

Anyway, I was lost and the thought crossed my mind, how would I survive? Are my Bear Grylls skills up to scratch? How long could I survive? I was all right for water but could I eat?  Were those mushrooms halfway up that tree edible? Were those lice under that log crammed full of vitamins?

I wandered about like King Lear in the mad scene until suddenly Moses appeared and darted off and there was Jane grinning like an owl. What a relief!

Here Blair Everywhere

I keep seeing Tony Blair leering on the telly and I have to admit I find him increasingly irritating. He is, in my view, to a marked degree responsible for the Brexit catastrophe.

When  Blair was in power his Minister of State in the home Office, Barbara Roche,  decided to leave the immigration door wide open: in six brief years she allowed into the UK nearly two million people. Such an experiment has never been implemented  before, anywhere. Roche introduced far too many people into the UK, far too fast. She did not ask anyone, she just did it. I think the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw, was preoccupied with the Iraq war at the time.  Anyway, Blair’s lack of grip on his Minister placed a great burden on house prices, on the health service, on schools. ,

And, to the anger of many communities, she changed their nature irreversibly;  she did so without asking anyone and,  if anyone complained, she labelled them “racist”.

This disaster was on Blair’s watch;  the resultant fear and anger about immigration numbers generated a great many Brexit votes.

And it was Blair who allowed the MPs’ expenses regime to flourish so that, when the row became public, the voters believed – with some justification – that there was one tax system for MPs and another  for their constituents. All on Blair’s watch.

So he  has quite a lot to answer for, doesn’t he?

Strange Death

Parents who happen to be my closest friends were visiting a Church of England school to assess whether or not it was suitable for their children.

The headmistress jabbered on about the school’s virtues: “Oh, so hard working, what wonderful exam results, if I do say so myself, very good discipline, da de da de dum…”

And then my friend asked, “What about religious education or chapel perhaps?”

“Oh no, you will be pleased to learn we are a strictly secular school.”

“Oh that’s a pity,” said my friend sweetly. “You see, I’m a vicar!”

The headmistress appeared to melt to glue. “Well, perhaps I misspoke,” she spluttered, and then laughed wildly. “Of course, we do have occasional prayers and talks…” She trailed off and there was an embarrassed silence.

It’s fascinating. Here is a CoE school and the head teacher thinks that boasting about how the school is wholly secular makes a strong selling point!

Losing Our Religion

There have been many wonderful things introduced these past hundred years, from the NHS to the Internet, but we have lost the plot when it comes to our religious culture. Muslims, in the main, haven’t forgotten their faith, but we are in the process of forgetting ours (and if you want to know the seriousness of what I mean, just read The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray.)

However faithless and unbelieving my classmates and I may have been at school – and sad to say, we were a godless lot – at least we were taught the basics about our Christian/Judeo inheritance. We roared the hymns so often, we knew them by heart, and of course we knew our way around Cranmer’s prayer book and the King James Bible.

But nowadays in school, Gospel teaching has about the same status as the tooth fairy. The reason is, of course, that many teachers are plumb ignorant.  

Doubtless, this idiot headmistress was all in favour of the “fruits of the spirit” – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control – but she wouldn’t have had a clue about where these virtues come from or who inspired them! People like her are living off the capital of the Christian faith. They want the king without the cross. God willing, our friends’ children will find another school with someone sensible in charge.             

Strip Thine Own Back!

One of my friends cannot stop banging on (no pun intended) about another married mate who has been caught out – by ill-advised messages on his mobile – having an affair. My view is that we should be very sorry for all involved and stop being so bloody censorious – and indeed, “There but by the grace of God go I.” Perhaps my censorious friend had a problem and was reflecting on it by his condemnation.

I have always been amused by a saying from American philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The more he talked of his honour, the faster we counted the spoons.” In other words, let’s examine the hidden agenda of those who condemn sexual activity so vociferously?  And many of my chums who rant on about sex, clearly have never read Shakepeare’s King Lear:

“Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand!
Thou hotly lust’st to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp’st her.”

Gonorrhea with the Wind

Years ago, I was chairman of a Midlands health authority board, appointed by the great Ken Clarke, who was the then Health Secretary. It was in the early 1990s, when the health service was told that the local authorities had to be run like businesses.

Anyway I did my best with the Byzantine finances but no one really knew who was in charge: the local board or the National Health Authority.

Towards the end of my term, a new building was planned. No one was quite sure what it would be used for but we were all told that it would be a great asset.

Then I was asked if I would be happy to have the building named after me? I was amazed because I didn’t like the woman who asked me – and I was pretty darn sure she didn’t like me either.

But what an honour! Coo! Shucks! Well, I never did! But then I remembered Round the Horne starring Kenneth Horne, who “prefers to remain anonymous”, and something about the woman’s sly, little smile made me hang back.

Just as well because I discovered it was to be VD clinic.       

Arrived knackered at the end of a long and fractious day at Mapledurham- a long way from Wokingham!

Much of the walk was on cambered roads through the edge of Reading. Anyone who walks seriously will attest how uncomfortable a material camber can be over even short distances. Vast roaring lorries and dozens of mean little whining cars all created a light smog; our feet kicked up the spoor from thousands of students from the local poly, cigarette packets, condoms, coke cans and literally a carpet of fast-food cardboard junk.

When I sought from a store a bottle of fresh pressed orange I was told they only had bottled “juice” , all highly coloured and smothered in sugar. Two vast and highly-tattooed ladies with mauve hair purchased a stack of crisps, snacks, chocolate biscuits and lottery tickets and staggered out of the shop, pecking at the snacks as they went.

Then we passed through the waste land into newly mown fields; if we had had the energy we would have done a jig for joy.

Being Nice

My great Aunt Daisy used to tell me, “When you can’t say anything nice about someone, Tom, best say nothing at all.”

How wise. But even the kind-hearted Daisy might have been moved to say something about the way our fellow countrymen and women look today.

We’re an irredeemably scruffy lot. It’s extraordinary why men think looking unshaven is sexy. The hunky, grizzled “look” may suit film stars but when you are over 50, and wedged into ill-fitting jeans with a jutting beer belly, a spotty face and a red nose, you don’t look like Brad Pitt, you look like a three-flush floater.

By far the most stressful sight I’ve seen was while strolling along a beach on the Isle of Wight a few years back. There stood a weightlifter, naked apart from a thong, and looking like a brown condom stuffed with conkers. 

The Price of Treachery

What a soft and foolish nation we have become. I wonder for our national sanity when I read comments by the likes of Douglas Murray (you must read his excellent The Strange Death of Europe) about Jihadi Jack and Shamima Begum of ISIS fame being allowed back into the UK after they fought on the side of those who killed and tortured many of our people.

We appear to be losing our wits! We don’t have to guess what would happen if Jihadi Jack (really Jack Letts from Oxford), and others returned to the UK to face trial…

Away Game

Just see what happened when Canadian Omah Khadr arrived back in Canada after he’d spent years fighting with ISIS and allegedly murdered a US sergeant. All the Khadr family are ISIS fighters: Omah’s dad was killed, and another son wounded.

Omah’s mother made her position clear: of course there was no family remorse or apologies: all she wanted was “our rights as Canadian citizens”.

The Khadr family prove that it doesn’t matter whether you fight for the “home” or “away” team in these twenty-first-century wars: if the away team fails, you get better treatment than if you had played for the home side. Rather better in fact.

Thanks to an army of pro bono lawyers, a couple of years ago Omah was awarded $10m damages for having been imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay – this despite the fact that he had fought against his own country. That’s far more cash than any American, Canadian or British widow could expect to receive for the loss of a husband.

Multi-millionaire Omah was interviewed on a Montreal TV show and greeted by a standing ovation. He was gently interviewed about his “journey”, telling viewers of how he had “suffered PTSD”. He claimed to have been in “an unfortunate place, in difficult circumstances”. A fellow guest said, “I’m filled with admiration for your fortitude” and Omah was asked, “How can you be so mentally strong?”

Now the issue of killers returning home is erupting in the UK. Thankfully passports are being refused to those who want to come back as if nothing untoward had happened. But of course, they all have a case, championed by lawyers and an army of supporters.

No one ever says “sorry”. Jihadi Jack’s ghastly father admits, “My armchair revolutionary ‘shite’ (his words, not mine) may have influenced my son”. His son is said to be a “victim”.

And during the Shamima Begum case, I remained unmoved by the arguments that somehow “we are all to blame” for her joining ISIS. This is our dilemma. We know roughly what to do when these people are in a foreign field; with luck, we can take them out with a drone. But we have no idea what to do if the Shamimas and Jacks return!

I can just imagine it. A softball interview on the Today programme would be followed by a TV special. Then after some sympathetic profile pieces, a legal case for mistreatment would be funded pro bono. Soon studio audiences would be applauding Shamima’s and Jack’s bravery. We just can’t help ourselves, can we? No matter that these traitors are undermining the integrity of our country and making a mockery of our defences, we just can’t help giving everyone – whatever atrocities they have committed, whatever side they have fought on, and no matter how many people they have killed – the benefit of every doubt. We seldom bother to learn the names of their victims, do we, or pause to wonder how the victims’ families are surviving amidst the wholesale destruction of their lives.

I say banish such traitors from the UK forever! They can float stateless across the world like the Flying Dutchman for all I care – for we will only embarrass ourselves if they are allowed to return here.

Mugabe

I was told it was bad manners to wish anyone dead, but perfectly acceptable to read obituary notices with pleasure. It is in this context I come to the news of Mugabe’s death.

He had a choice: either to rule like Nelson Mandela or turn into a tin-pot crook like so many of his colleagues. He chose the latter. When measured against Hitler and Stalin, he was a small, bad man, but bad enough to massacre 20,000 civilians and steal everything not actually nailed to the ground. A charismatic little sod who turned his beautiful country into a racist ruin and left nothing of material value in his passing.

The 1983 tragedy of the massacre of 20,000 people – said to be a material underestimate – around Bulawayo, by Mugabe’s hired thugs, was more or less hidden at the time. Apparently, the Thatcher Government was so relieved to be shot of Zimbabwe that they asked few questions and were fobbed off with non-answers. I am sure, however, that the fact that the massacre was conducted by black people killing black people was a factor. We just didn’t care enough. If, however, it has been black people killing white or, worse still, white people killing black, the world would have taken real notice, the perpetrators hunted down and tried at The Hague on grounds of crimes against humanity.

If there is any justice I presume Uncle Bob is having a difficult time with the Recording Angel.

Revisiting a Referendum

Those not totally numbed to distraction over Brexit might care to look at a 1975 YouTube Oxford University debate. The late Labour minister Peter Shore is speaking before the 1975 referendum and the points he makes brilliantly are as pertinent today as they were then. Ted Heath lolls looking bored in the audience. The great Barbara Castle and Jeremy Thorpe are also listening.

Meanwhile…

A lovely morning walking through Frimley and Sandhurst.

The Beautiful Game

The beautiful game is being ruined by hideous violence, cheating, corruption and racism.

Why not make the fans pay in hard cash for the ghastly conduct of a few? Why not make the clubs and players pay the full price of policing these matches? It’s not as it they are short of money. If the Serbian Under 21 fans behave as racist criminals, why not force such matches to be played behind closed doors without paying crowds? If banana skins and glass are hurled onto pitches, why not simply stop the game, find the perpetrators and hand them over to the police? If a match is disrupted, so what?

Make the Penalty Pay!

At the first sign of trouble, why not take the players off? Practise zero tolerance? Boom! Fans would soon learn to police their own events once they learnt that a few loonies were destroying the game and costing them a load of money. Why don’t the clubs buy their own monitors and start behaving like grown-ups? The police should treat obscene chants in the same way that such chants would be treated if heard on the streets, and prosecute the perpetrators. Tribalism trumps moral perspective and the idiotic claims that bad behaviour is always the other side’s fault are plain childish.

Segregation of crowds encourages abuse and riots. If fans were mixed as they are at rugby matches they might begin to appreciate good football being played by both sides. When did you last see a riot at a rugby match?

Why should taxpayers pay good money to clear up this mess? Of course, it’s all about money and you know what God thinks about money when you see the sort of people he gives it to. Once the players started to be paid obscene salaries, the vital link between them and ordinary supporters was sundered and any sense of duty and responsibility was broken. Players and managers are now planets apart and the honour of being a role model long since dissipated. Presently, professional footballers simply don’t have to think of anyone other than themselves and their weird tattoos and haircuts. So they don’t.

The beautiful game is now a raddled old bag: she needs a facelift.

The Dark Side

One of my chums, who knows about the darker side of life, told me a great truth. That it’s far more interesting to say scandalous things about people than nice.

If you wonder whether this is true or not, just consider this example. If I tell you I’ve just had a meeting with Jim Johnson, a dear friend who is kind, thoughtful, gentle, loved by all, and faithful to his wife his whole life long, just tell me you won’t yawn with boredom and find a quick opportunity to walk away. (I simply won’t believe you!)

On the other hand, if I tell you that I’ve just had a meeting with Jim, the one with the drunken past who is probably a crook and a legendary serial adulterer – and in great trouble – I bet you’ll curl your lip with pleasure and beg for more.

Go on – admit it!

April Fool

Years ago, I rang a friend and told him that his greatest pal had just been raided by the fraud squad.

“Great news,” he said, “That’ll teach the sanctimonious sod”!

I then pointed out that it was 1 April.

“Oh… please, please don’t tell him what I just said!”

Reader, what do you think I did?

Fast walking and great progress through unbeaten paths, smothered with nettles and brambles, a symbol of shame of the local authority. No other walkers. The afternoon’s walk was the length of the Wey river, peaceful and lovely with Moses swimming for sticks.

Then we skirted Aldershot and walked close to RMA Sandhurst where recently I attended an anniversary of my passing out parade; there were 200 wrinkled old men like me watching the Sovereign’s parade for around two hours, all hoping with some desperation that we would last out to the end without having a pee.

Heroes

Kate Hoey MP
A loyal ZANE supporter and Labour MP who has bravely voted in the national interest and nor just to please Momentum.
She has chaired ZANE meetings and is a tough, delightful lady. I wish there were more like her.

Tim Glass
Former CEO of the Ellerman Foundation. Tim gives ZANE first class advice just because he is an excellent friend of our charity.

Markus Isselbacher
He has driven Jane and me for four walks; he is an excellent driver and a very nice man.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind
Former Foreign Secretary who always does all he can to help ZANE.

Clendon Daukes
A good friend of ZANE who always tell me exactly what he thinks.

Jane Broadley
Wife of ZANE’s chairman. Hugely encouraging and always supportive.

Christopher Warren, Nigel Dransfied, Lance Gill Tim Burt and Marie Gordon Roe
– the RCEL team – for all their tireless work for ZANE.

Tom Benyon’s Men’s Group (they know who they are)
who keep me on the straight and narrow.

Kiss off!

I don’t like kissing virtual strangers. I know it’s the thing to do nowadays, but I have long since worked out the difference between fake intimacy and the real thing. Vicars, politicians and salesmen are adept at manufacturing the essential fake warmth and affection for people they have never really met properly as it’s a part of the business routine. I did it myself as a political hack and I wasn’t proud of my behaviour: in short, I have a distaste for professional affection.

I have to admit I quite liked Jean Claude Juncker kissing the air above Theresa May’s wrist, which I found strangely gallant. But I’m English, not continental, and I prefer a smile and a simple, “How nice to see/meet you.” The point is, if I am going to kiss people I don’t care about, what, in decency, am I to do to those I do care for? Grab, and then roundly fondle them?

Consider Yourself Kissed

So, I only kiss people who are intimates – family or close friends, not strangers. I envy the royals for the self-protection system they have long perfected. Princess Anne shoves out an imperious white-gloved hand; the queen is bowed or curtsied to, as are other members of the royal family. That’s it, unless you know them, in which case you can kiss, curtsey, bow, hug in that order – but that routine is reserved for pals only. If you aren’t a pal, try it on at your peril.

I understand all this faux social snogging started when Cilla Black began to kiss total strangers on the TV programme Blind Date; then it became mandatory for all hosts on all chat shows to kiss the entire contents of the studio sofa. After that, it ramped up even further when the Duke of Kent kissed the ladies’ Wimbledon tennis champion. The kissing game started to inflate from there and so here we are.

I’ve heard that now there is a posh new custom of saying to people, “CYK”: “Consider yourself kissed”. I rather like that. Friendly, without exposing yourself to flu germs.

Mwah Mwah anyone?

Rotten Referenda

Binary referendum results imposed on a parliamentary democracy have the same result as pouring diesel into a petrol engine: the system seizes solid. This is partly why Brexit has created such a fractious atmosphere and why referenda are a truly rotten idea. But this is where we are and it would seem that whatever happens next, the country will remain divided.

Parliament is deeply unrepresentative of the views of the people. The referendum result reflected 52 per cent Brexiteers and 48 per cent Remainers, yet our “first past the post” democracy has produced a mix of six Remainers to one Brexiteer in Parliament. Hence the log jam.

There’s a vast tranche of voters in the UK whose views remain unrepresented in Parliament and the media. The old soldiers, for example, whose views I summarised in my last blog, A Land Fit for Heroes, are often considered bigoted fascists. As are those who, even if they aren’t so old, want a nation state and to live in their own communities, and who believe we are still a Christian country. And there are voters who worry their faith is being eroded by secularism and are concerned about the illiberal aspects of Islam, and who complain that no one asked if they wanted to live in a multi-racial society. They are, of course, ignored and labelled racist.

But Parliament ignores these voters at its peril, for 70–80 per cent of voters are demanding that immigration be constrained, and a good 40 per cent want to see it stopped altogether. More than 50 per cent don’t think immigration has been beneficial to this country.

MPs ignore voters who doubt the wisdom of gay adoption (even if such voters are not in any way “homophobic”). They disregard voters who are shocked when their children are taught the normality of transgenderism at junior school, and voters who believe marriage is for the long term. They ignore voters who yearn to do the “right thing” and those who worry about the passing of free speech.

How do I know this? Social research surveys and opinion polls tell us so.

By last February (2019), of the nine parties that are represented in the House of Commons, eight signed up to the full “liberal” agenda (the exception being the 10 MPs of the DUP). So out of 10 parties in the Commons, nine are liberal, even if one of them is labelled “Conservative”. It’s the Conservatives who cannot be bothered to control immigration and it’s the Conservatives who insist that six-year-old school children are taught about same-sex relationships and transgenderism. And Conservative MPs, by a majority, are disdainful of the nation state and voted Remain. 

It seems, too, that the people in our universities, almost all government quangos, the arts quangos, the teaching profession and the media all have the same mindset. And, of course, that goes for Church of England bishops too.

And because these people all think the same way, they don’t think we suffer from political bias in the ruling elite: these views are deemed to be right!

The two main parties should have seen the warning signs. In the Euro elections, they only secured a quarter of the vote between them.

It won’t end happily.

Another vast switchback walk mainly over  styles through National Trust woodland,  skirting the railway line towards Gomshall; then through Sheer, passing numerous red stone “Pillboxes” from WW2, used apparently by the likes of Captain Mainwaring of Dad’s army, hastily designed in 1940 to frighten away the Germans when they invaded.  Magnificent views and easy going.

Then through the outskirts of Guildford from where we crawled ever upwards towards the magnificent Cathedral, nestling  so as to address God on an equal footing, with both hiding in the clouds.

The New Me

I can’t go on like this – I’ve pressed my personal reset button. For many years, I’ve been seriously disadvantaged by the fact that I’m essentially boring: a white, married, heterosexual male. I’m privately educated, a former Guards officer and a former Conservative MP. To make matters worse, I’ve been married to the same woman for half a century and I’m Father to four happily married children.

So far, no one in the family has been sentenced to jail and I’m known to be something of a Bible basher. So in terms of identity politics, I’m the invisible man on the train, a dinosaur, a man of no special interest to anyone: too old to work yet too young to die. My opinions will never be sought by the media, nor will I ever be targeted by political pollsters. If I was ever caught doing something illegal, I’d be unable to pull the race card. No political party will want to add me to their lists for virtue-signalling purposes and to prove how multi-racial and inclusive of minorities they are.

Minus 20

So now I’m embracing radical change. It’s been growing on me for years. To be honest, it’s been a vast struggle, for I’ve felt very young inside myself all of this time. And I feel far friskier than others in their mid-seventies too, so there!

Of course, I am not alone in coming out of my age closet. Dutchman Emile Ratelband, 69, claims to feel like a young god of 49. The doctors agree he has the constitution of a much younger guy, so Ratelband has been trawling through the Dutch courts to change his legal birthdate from 1949 to 1969.

Ratelband claims that a man who identifies as a woman can claim a new birth certificate stating he is now a she. So why on earth can’t he wipe 20 years off his life to enable him to get a better job and be able to chase women on Tinder – who regard all over-55s as more or less dead?

So, for me, it’s “farewell 1942”, hello “brave new 1962”. Whee, I feel better already. 

All or Nothing

But hang on. Now I’m thinking, why not go the whole hog? Today’s accepted consensus is that biological sex is not real but merely a social construct. This reasoning has swept through liberal US university campuses into the political mainstream and is now accepted wisdom in the UK too. Let me be clear: activists demand that anyone who says she is a woman is entitled to a document stating she was born biologically female even if everyone else knows she is a man and he (or she) has a willy (sorry about that).

Of course, I agree. So I’m now a woman and available to be chased by men on Tinder. And, if you can change your age and gender, why not your race? In the US, a white woman called Rachel Dolezal claims to be black and says she has suffered racial injustice. I can identify with this for I have felt black inside myself for years. Someone called Anthony Lennon – who was apparently mixed race – has popped a Nigerian middle name “Ekundayo” into his full name in order to convince people he is black. I propose to copy this excellent idea.

I’m now Karen “Gorgeous Nahindicere” Benyon, aged 55. Don’t dare mock! I’m a black female and I’m young. I love poetry, dancing, music and women’s clothes. I’m close to my emotions – I laugh a lot and I cry easily. And I am choosing to be bisexual, which is great news as it doubles my chances of a date on a Saturday night.

Oh, incidentally I am likely to be selected to run for the mayoralty of London by the Green party anytime soon. I’m told I will be a shoo-in.

I’ve yet to break this happy news to Jane and the family – never mind the dog, Moses. However, I’m sure the poor dears will be delighted to welcome their new Aunty Gorgeous into the family right away. What fun we’re going to have.  

We walked fast for seven miles through far from the madding crowd woodland, quiet and peaceful and to our surprise no small birds were singing.

Some of the woodland was awash with baby pheasants, to the torment of Moses, who very much wanted to kill them all!

We powered along, probably up to three miles an hour. The first two or three days of walking are always hard work as we sweat off months of lazy living and can literally can feel our old  muscles starting to harden. After three days we get into the easy swing of things and the rhythms start to make walking relatively easy.

No-one walked with us and it was a kind of pilgrimage.

Stuttering Halts

Some of my friends’ careers have come to a stuttering halt at Westminster. It’s bad enough for the great Ken Clarke who is, after all, 79, but this cruel termination of his career appears to be a shock to Rory Stewart. I am amazed he has been taken by surprise. How can this be?  

I don’t know Boris but no-one has ever  suggested that he is a particularly kind man.  Quite the reverse is more probable.  It is  surely obvious that he appears to be in a life or death struggle; rather like Holmes and Moriarty fighting  on the edge of the Reichenbach Falls and he would regard anyone not helping him as being  on in the side of Moriarty.

This is not a time for slapping each other in the back, ”Don’t worry, old chap!” at Whites or Boodles. What’s going on – Boris v Corbyn – is deadly serious.

Save the Last Dance for Me!

Life’s “firsts” are landmarks. Celebrated in TS Eliot’s poem “The Journey of the Magi”, the three kings attend the birth of Christ and realise that this shattering first changes everything.

Of course, our firsts are on a far smaller scale, but they punctuate our lives and it takes time to see them in focus. We remember what matters to us, so the firsts etched into our memories often represent life-changing events. The first time we meet someone we come to love; the day we are awarded a degree; the day we are commissioned as an officer, or get a real job; the day we marry, make love, hear fantastic music; or the day we get elected – or fail to get elected! Then there is the star-spangled day our first child is born and held joyfully in our arms; our children’s first words and tottering steps; and their first day at school.

All these moments are stored away in the file marked “life’s happy events”. The key is to bank plenty of happy “firsts”: that way, when the sweet bird of youth has finally stopped flapping, we will have enough good memories to sustain us as we totter through the foothills of senility towards the summit.

Final Fix

Do we even notice, much less remember, the “last” events? The problem, of course, is that we do not always know it’s a “last” at the time, and it all gets lost in the fog we call memory. And of course, there are no warning bells to ring out at these moments of great significance.

Some last events are obvious: the last time we leave a beloved house, or a last day at work. And I suppose alcoholics – and smokers –note with agonised concentration the date of a final fix.

But sometimes it takes decades to really appreciate that a last has occurred. Was I actually aware when I had changed a nappy for the last time, or read a final bedtime story to my children? Did I realise the last time I tucked them up in bed and said a brief prayer over their heads that another milestone had passed?

Then there comes the time when we realise the extraordinary fact that we now need our children’s time and love rather more than they need us, preoccupied as they become with their own families.

End Game

What about the death of relatives or friends? When I visited my terminally ill mother, we both knew this would almost certainly be the last time we saw each other. Yet neither of us – locked in polite English denial – acknowledged the fact.

And then there are the times when Jane and I have mercy-killed various horses and dogs. Readers of my blogs will know just how painful such events have been, each one a kind of murder.

With advancing age comes an acceptance of death by a thousand lasts, faint signs that morph into an immovable tattoo: the acceptance of mortality. Before the age of 40, we convince ourselves that death is for those poor sods that have somehow lost life’s game. Then after 40, its time to “grow up”, and by 70, we realise the days of wine and roses are over and it’s time to get serious as we face an unavoidable end game. We idly note the ages of those in obituary notices, and ponder coffins and graveyards at funerals.

We just can’t get away from these inexorable damn lasts. Jane and I hunted for over 30 years. We loved the sport. Recently I discovered my old hunting boots covered in dust in the corner of the attic. They remain beautiful, the inside leather worn down from the friction caused by a thousand hedges. They symbolise great fun, teamwork as well as hunting.

But after 30 years, my hunting gene seeped away. To some extent, this was caused by the death of my last golden hunter, Spinaker. But there was also the friend who crashed a fence and was driven headfirst into the ground like a dart. His horse fell on him and broke his neck at the very top, so all he could move was his chin and eyes. When we visited, he was drinking lunch through a straw – and I swear this is true – watching a euthanasia debate on the telly. A single tear ran slowly down his cheek.

They say the doctors take those who are crippled below the waist to see those who have lost mobility from the neck down, so they can see how relatively well off they are. It begs the question: to who do those with broken necks get taken to see?

I stopped hunting. But I can’t actually recall the last meet, or the last team chase. And child that I am, I can’t quite face up to the fact that a last has even occurred. The chance I will hunt again is more or less zero but it’s painful facing that reality.

Jane is far more ruthless than I am. When I hit the sod, my clothes will be at the charity shop before I am cold. Nevertheless, I can’t quite face flogging my beloved boots, hunting coats and all the rest so another bugger can have fun wearing them. Dog in the manger? Me? Never!

Last Orders

Then of course the sex thing tries to rear it head (if you’ll forgive the pun). I think of the time the great Denis Healy admitted to Edna, “The bird won’t fly from the nest!” The late Alan Clark (who had considerable form) wrote in his diary, “The first time you are impotent does not immediately follow the last time you have sexual intercourse…The last time you don’t know because there is always hope, until much later.”

A friend in his sixties – a cricketing fan – told me that he had “drawn stumps”, presumably for the last time. You know when friends have called it a day because they’re fat. The seventh commandment is now a joke: what’s the bloody point of being thin?

So a few nights ago, on one of my numerous loo visits, I caught sight of my pale, whiskery body in the mirror. Then I wondered at what point in the future I would need to face the fact that a last has occurred: that my dead parrot was only good for facilitating drainage?

I’m sure the reason these “lasts” carry such emotional weight is that they are inexorable steps towards the greatest last of all: the black door, closely guarded by a dismal sod dressed in black and swinging his scythe.

Of course, lovers of God hope that Corrie ten Boom was right when she wrote, “Death is the old family servant who opens the door into the father’s home.”

What fun life can be!

“Last” drink anyone?

A thankful day off from walking. It isn’t too hard, walking 12 miles in a day. The complication and frustrations arise from finding the way across blocked paths and tracks that haven’t been used for years; and then there are sudden and unmarked divisions in the paths with an occasional and often indistinct indication as to which one is right.

Some years ago an intrepid lady walked from Edinburgh to London as the crow flies. She charged across motorways, though factories and then she swam straight across rivers. She remained undeterred by private houses by slamming through French windows and out from kitchens while families were at lunch! Amazingly, she lived to tell her tale. I rather envy her but I reckon my English reserve would betray me when faced with having to carve straight through the law courts still in session.

Chartwell

We visit Chartwell, Churchill’s country house. I wonder what he would have made of Brexit.

What a mess! His grandson, Sir Nicholas Soames, thinks WSC would have been a remainer. I am not convinced. His love of the Commonwealth and the USA convince me that he would have thought such a union right for Germany and France and the rest of the EU members, but that he would have refused continued membership if it meant the UK found itself subordinate to a superstate run from Brussels..

The main difficulty is that parliament knows what it doesn’t want but cannot agree on what it does. We can’t stay and daren’t leave. Unless we do, we run the real risk of making international fools of ourselves on an even grander scale than we already have. But even WSC would have known what to do without a majority.

Nanny State

It’s sad that the introduction of a dizzying number of childish rules and regulations is now the only way in which anti-social behaviour can be reduced in the UK. If people were taught to behave with reasonable consideration for others, these rules would not need to clog up our lives. But our culture of self-control and restraint has been so comprehensively eroded by social change since 1945 that there’s little point in appealing to people’s better nature: it no longer exists.

Of course, I am generalising: there are many decent people around still, but you have to work a bit harder to find them than hitherto.  

Street Food

Where to begin? Let’s start with the small stuff. When I was a boy, I was taught it was simply unacceptable to eat in a public place. Today many people seem unable to move more than a few yards without eating something. If you examine street litter, you will find that the majority of it derives from people eating anytime and anywhere. As a consequence, our streets, lanes, fields and parks are filthy, probably the worst in Europe, simply because people choose to use them as a stable.

You may think this is a trivial observation, but it’s all about self-expression: there are no accepted rules or manners anymore to control society. It would seem that a vast number of young people have never eaten round a table regularly at home with other people, but choose instead to graze, eating when they feel like it and where they want to. In other words, they have never learned to curb their appetite for the sake of the convenience or the happiness of others. They would regard the idea of no eating on the street as an offence against human rights. If you are hungry, so their drivel goes, why not eat at once wherever you may be?

The Mood of the Moment

How has this come about? For starters, unbridled self-expression and the comprehensive destruction of the family. Today, many people hook up and then they stagger off sated, irrespective of the wellbeing of any children they may have sired or society as a whole. The mood of the moment is all that matters.

Self-expression is regarded as an intrinsic good in itself. And because the state has made it financially possible for people to behave selfishly, it appears no longer to remember the crucial importance of the family to the welfare of children.

And instead of preaching the Ten Commandments, “Love your neighbour as yourself” or self-control, some (of course, not all) church leaders content themselves by banging on about Brexit, food banks and why doesn’t the government pour even more money into social security? The result of this catastrophic moral neglect can be seen in the rivers of misery that ooze daily through our divorce courts.  

Anti-social behaviour is one of the fields in which Britain leads the world. Bad behaviour is today as much of a UK hallmark as fraud is in Nigeria. It’s no longer a tiny minority who offend by their violence, intimidation and degrading vulgarity, there is a substantial number – and this is a disgrace. Many of our younger fellow citizens do not “socialise” when they get together. They seem unable to enjoy themselves without getting screamingly drunk, vomiting in the street or creating an atmosphere of dark menace. Our holidaymakers compete in their vulgarity; our football crowds are a disgrace; and the centres of our cities at night resemble Gin Lane, glinting with knives and the dark glasses of drug dealers.

In the eighteenth century, philosopher Edmund Burke wrote, “Men (I am sure he would have included women as well, but PC wasn’t around then) are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites… Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free…” 

So now the state finds itself in the position of having to repress the very behaviour that has resulted from generations of woeful neglect. The fact we have lost control of ourselves is one of the reasons governments of all stripes feel obliged to pass vast numbers of nannyish rules designed to repress our grossness because we cannot be relied upon to control ourselves. Our loss of self-discipline has led directly to a need for state repression.

The question for our children is how can we return to self-regulation?

Some Light (Tax) Relief

The Inland Revenue recently returned a Norfolk-based man’s tax return to him after he apparently answered one of the questions incorrectly.

In response to the question, “Do you have anyone dependent on you?” he replied:

“2.1 million illegal immigrants, 1.1 million crackheads, 4.4 million unemployable scroungers, 700,000 criminals in 85 prisons, 650 idiots in Parliament, plus the bits of the European Commission we have been unable to leave behind.”

The Inland Revenue stated that his response was unacceptable.

“Who did I miss out!” the man responded.

We pass hundreds of villas, many sporting new cars worth around £60k each. It amazes me that people can be persuaded to spend that sort of money on a car that is destined to depreciate by thousands each year. It’s all about vanity, of course. An MP from long ago told me: ”The only sort of vehicle I approve of is a car crusher.” I agree!

The houses remind me of the great old Lord Rothschild, who once penned a book on gardens. To show how in touch he was with the aspirations of the ordinary citizen he recommended: “All Englishmen, no matter how mean their estate, should sport at least 2 acres of wild woodlands in their gardens.”

Today’s walk is a mix of scrubby fields leading towards a vast long-stay Gatwick car park. We are fighting to be heard above roaring from the M23, a ghastly train line and shrieking from plane engines as, every twenty seconds or so,  they roar past us to land. We walk across a bridge spanning the motorway and soon find ourselves like a couple of tiny ants dwarfed between the vast Southern and Northern terminals. Who could possibly  want to live here?

Is the Lady a Tramp?

They say the past is a foreign country and they do things differently there. Nowhere is this more true than in the matter of men’s manners towards women.

As a child, I was taught that if walking with a lady, I should always walk on the street side to protect her from the mud thrown by passing cars. We were obliged to open doors to allow a lady to pass first and to stand up when one entered a room. I was instructed to offer a hand when a lady was getting out of a car (but not kiss her if she was wearing a hat), and offer up my seat on public transport to any damsel in need. And I was taught never to utter obscenities or tell foul jokes in the presence of the fairer sex. 

But today, all the above is regarded as a ludicrous waste of time by the young. And perhaps they have a point? Why allow a lady to go through a door first when she may be after your job?   

The Zane Lady

In my last blog, I produced a checklist for men to reassure them that they are gentlemen. Now here are 20 rules to guide women in the complicated area of what makes a ZANE lady…

1: She doesn’t take offence easily.

2: She happily carries her own luggage but accepts a man’s offer to carry it gracefully.

3: She fends off unwanted passion with grace and ease.

4: She accepts compliments, even from a silly old fool.

5: She knows that a single, explosive swearword beats a torrent of obscenity.

6: She can change a tyre (but is very grateful when a man does it).

7: She accepts that not everyone wants a cat pawing at them.

8: She will drape an elegant shawl to cover herself while breastfeeding.

9: She wears clothes tight enough to show she is a woman but loose enough to show she is a lady.

10: She will dress unobtrusively at funerals.

11: She can hold a drink or two without falling over.

12: She never talks about house prices.

13: She never applies make-up on a crowded train.

14: She tells adult godchildren how well they are doing, even if their lives are a total train crash.

15: She will give a 100-watt smile to a nervous teenage boy to make his day.

16: She would never kiss and tell like the disgraceful Edwina Currie.

17: She always takes off her stiletto heels to spare the parquet floors of others.

18: She will pay a restaurant bill without making it obvious.

19: She knows when to stop talking and when she is about to leave a house, she will not change the subject.

20: She is kind to nervous men who read lists on how to be a gentleman.

Lefty = Lovely

Why is being “left-wing” supposed to indicate that one is a “good” person, and why is the label “right-wing” synonymous with “morally inferior”? It’s sheer nonsense. Where did this rubbish come from?

My children’s friends occasionally virtue-signal about the iniquities of “right-wing” Tories on the presumption that their listeners will shudder in preening horror. But then my fiercely supportive children respond that their father was once a Tory MP – and before blethering on wantonly about “extreme right-wing Tories”, perhaps they should say when they last started a food bank or a charity for the poor in Africa?   

But, of course, being left-wing has a positive gloss to it. We magic up in our mind’s eye kind folk who are principled, well-meaning champions of social justice – people who care about others.

As for being “right-wing”, that means you are a swivel-eyed supporter of cutting taxes to the bone for the idle rich; you are a supporter of cutting benefits to the needy; and of course, you would cook your granny for tea if there was something in her will for you. 

Of course, the description “extreme right wing” really means you are a supporter of Hitler. The proof of this is that Labour politicians wallow in the label “left-wing” as a badge of honour. I cannot recall a single politician proudly proclaiming on television that he or she was right-wing. Nigel Farage is labelled extreme-right-wing by his detractors as it’s a semi-polite way of calling him a look-alike Trump bigot and racist.

Of course Farage doesn’t call himself right-wing because he knows fine well it’s a pejorative term.

All those ERG (European research group) MPs are habitually called “extreme right-wing” because they actually think the result of the 2016 referendum should be honoured, that we must leave the EU. By lefty implication, roughly half the population is extreme-right-wing. In reality, I reckon that most extremists are on the left.

This whole business started because the left weaponised the conversation, and the media (BBC and Channel 4) have absorbed it too. They can assault their enemies with this nonsense from what they perceive to be the highest point of the moral high ground. As a result, at least half the population have no idea what to call themselves.

Name Calling

If you, dear ZANE donor, believe in an efficient state; one that is well-defended and with a well-balanced budget, one that has generous provision for the genuine poor, and one that has controlled immigration and well-defined law and order – then here’s betting you have no idea what on earth to call yourself. 

I am fed up with name-calling. The left is full of “proto fascists” and the “right” is a dungeon to which the left consign people they do not like – but it’s not a place where any of us want to be.

We need a new political language. What do ZANE supporters suggest? I am a socially liberal and economically inclined Conservative, so where do I sit on the spectrum? I have always thought I was a libertarian, in that I have always thought we should be allowed to do whatever we like as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone – so where does all this name-calling leave me?