An Obscenity
As you go west down Westbourne Park Road there comes a point, as you descend the slope towards Portobello Road, where you suddenly see Grenfell Tower looming up above the houses. I certainly wouldn't have known before the fire that you could see it from there, as one tower-block looks much like another (with the exception of Erno Goldfinger's Trellick Tower, which is very distinctive), but now there can be no mistake. That obscene, charred skeleton is instantly recognisable. I was struck by how utterly matt black it was; it had never occurred to me that soot is so totally matt. You can't help but look up at it, even though you feel guilty doing so, and you come away feeling slightly grubby for having done so, because you know, instinctively, that this thing is obscene.
I was dumbfounded, when I was down there, to find people taking selfies in front of the Tower. It was obvious to me that this was inappropriate behaviour, but I find it hard to articulate why exactly. I have a general prejudice against selfies, so I'm not a good witness, but what is it I'm accusing them of? Lack of respect? Yes, possibly, but why is it not possible to take a respectful selfie? I'm not sure, but I think it's that the picture is essentially of yourself, so you are putting yourself at the centre of the universe, in a way that leaves little room for the proper respect for the dead. This vast disaster becomes wallpaper behind your head in a selfie, and that seems a wrong sense of priorities. Also, it's just very poor taste. Scores of people died there; when I was there many of their remains must still have been in the Tower, so photographing it is just in bad taste.
It seems that the Hammersmith and City Line remains closed precisely because the best view of Grenfell Tower is to be had from the platform (eastbound, I think I was told). The line was reopened on (I think) the day after the fire, but the platform filled up with people gawping and taking photos, and TFL took the decision to close it. Inconveniently the line remains closed "until further notice", which doesn't sound hopeful. No doubt safety was one concern, since they get very jumpy about crowds on their platforms, but I suspect there was also a feeling that these sightseers were intruding on the community's grief, and that someone with a telephoto lens could have a horribly intimate view into some of the flats where the recovery operation was taking place.
Meanwhile on the Warwick
Local residents were summoned to a meeting with the Leader of Westminster City Council yesterday evening on the Warwick Estate, which was meant to be reassuring. I couldn't be there. Apparently it was hard for Cllr Nicky Aiken, the Leader, Cllr Rachel Robathan, the Cabinet Member for Housing, and Karen Buck MP to make themselves heard, and there was a lot of anxiety. They had the Fire Brigade commander who had been at Grenfell, and he was stressing differences. Our blocks do apparently have the necessary fire-stopping, made of appropriate materials, and the insulation material is inert rockwool. WCC do seem to want to be open about this, and they did use Wates, a reputable contractor, to do the work. Nevertheless, this afternoon, people were up a crane at the side of Wilmcote House, removing portions of cladding, presumably for testing, which is not a cheerful sight.
A Complaint
Reactions to this all do vary. On Sunday afternoon our tenant church (the Eternal Sacred Order of the Morning Star) had a barbecue after their service, as they do annually, and I got a complaint as a result. A tower-block resident was very agitated and demanded to know whether I had given permission for this to happen, as it was really insensitive, when people in the tower blocks were "terrified" of being evacuated. I did not respond that I would have thought there were several things more terrifying than the prospect of evacuation, but I did point out that I was the person being most inconvenienced and disturbed by this barbecue, and that in any case my permission was not required, because they were on the Green and the public highway. Disturbance and inconvenience didn't really seem to be the point; this was just "insensitive" I'm not quite sure whether it was having a barbecue in particular that was insensitive, or just lots of people obviously enjoying themselves, but I was completely taken aback. The complaint was heartfelt, but I couldn't work it out. My caller thought I should have had such consideration for the feelings of tower-block residents that I should have forbidden Morning Star (who mostly don't live locally) from having a barbecue. Perhaps I have not been listening enough to what Warwick residents are saying, but I don't think I could reasonably have guessed that a barbecue would have been thought insensitive. We are two miles from Grenfell, the barbecue was two hundred yards from the nearest tower-block, and this was eleven days after the fire. But it seems that some people have an instinct for public mourning, and that's rather interesting. I note that Portugal declared three days of national mourning after the terrible forest fire that killed 145 people last week; we don't seem to do that sort of thing. What does "national mourning " consist of? I have an idea that it might be something that lots of people locally might think was really appropriate.
Wednesday 28 June 2017
Friday 16 June 2017
HORROR IN NORTH KENSINGTON
Our Neighbours on Lancaster West
One of my churchwardens lives on the Lancaster West Estate, in the low-rise flats at the foot of Grenfell Tower. In the early hours of Wednesday morning she saw terrible things, and it was obvious from the start that the number of deaths was going to be horrifyingly large. It happened at 1am, when the building will have been full, and really very few people were being treated in hospital. It is inconceivable that a blaze on that scale could not have resulted in scores of casualties, so the small numbers being treated in hospital was always a bad sign. Anyone could see from the television pictures that this was a horrific disaster.
Someone was speaking to me yesterday as though it were my parish, and I realised why that was: the Vicar of St Clement's, Notting Dale, (which is the parish church) is Fr Alan Everett. As far as we know, we are not related. Obviously, he and his people are in my prayers. Curiously, though, there is usually a sort of rivalry between our two neighbourhoods, "Ladbroke Grove" and "Harrow Road", and most local incidents of knife or gun crime are bad boys from one neighbourhood attacking bad boys from the other. People sometimes say this thing is on postcodes, but it's not quite as simple as that, because W10, the Ladbroke Grove postcode, extends way over into Queen's Park, across the canal and the Harrow Road, and the boys from the Mozart Estate in Queen's Park are always fighting the Ladbroke Grove boys. This postcode thing also means that things happening in "our" bit of W10 get described on the BBC as happening in North Kensington or Ladbroke Grove, which is always irritating. No thoughts of rivalry now, though, because people are united in grief and horror. This is a very transient neighbourhood, but nevertheless most people will know someone affected in some way, and the extraordinary and inspiring thing has been how vast and immediate the local response has been. People here really do care about what is happening to their neighbours, and you could see on Wednesday that this was making a real impression on the journalists covering the disaster. I was at a governors' meeting on Wednesday evening, and school parents had already begun bringing stuff to school, but then one of my fellow governors who works closely with one of the evangelical churches in Latimer Road reported that they were already snowed under with donations of stuff, which was remarkable to hear. The response from ordinary people has been magnificent.
K & C, and the TMO
The response from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has not been so magnificent, though. My churchwarden phoned the TMO as the fire was happening to get them to open up the estate's community hall, but after stalling, they said they couldn't locate anyone with the key. Not good. Cllr Nick Paget-Brown, the leader of K & C Council appeared on the "Today" programme at breakfast time on Wednesday and gave a deeply unimpressive performance, not even knowing how many flats were in the block, and seeming disengaged from the whole event. By yesterday K & C had put reception centres in place, but what was totally missing was any sense of co-ordination or leadership.
Cllr Paget-Brown has every reason to be worried, though, and I can understand it if his lawyers have told him to be very careful what he says, because this has happened on his watch, and he and Cllr Rock Feilding-Mellen, who is in charge of regeneration and housing and who (presumably) signed off personally on the plans for the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower, and its satisfactory completion, are potentially in a very sticky situation. K & C continue to say that it would be premature to talk about the cladding, but anyone with eyes to see could interpret those television pictures. It is clear that the exterior cladding burnt. It seems very likely that the cladding was responsible for the horrifying speed of the progress of the fire, and the observable "torch" effect. They decided to put the cladding onto the building (yes, in pursuit of energy efficiency, which was a government policy, and to make flats warmer, which is a good thing) and they, crucially, chose which cladding to use and how to do it.
K & C will probably try to deflect attention on to the TMO, since that is the whole purpose of the TMO (and its sister organisations here in Westminster and in other boroughs), to insulate the Council from responsibility and unpopularity. I think they will find that it doesn't work, though, because residents certainly hate the TMO (and CityWest Homes here) but they hate the Council as well. These arm's-length organisations are a product of the (Conservative) ideological hatred of local government,and the belief that local authorities are automatically bad at running things, and a desire to take housing out of the reach of direct local democracy. For the resident, the TMO is just another layer of bureaucracy, and a device for evading responsibility. K & C will undoubtedly say that it was the TMO that made all the decisions, but the TMO is a wholly-owned subsidiary of K & C, which operates under K & C's policy guidelines, so that really won't wash. It is perhaps worth pointing out that building control and inspection is carried out by the local authority, so a K & C official will have certified the safety of this K & C building work; it would not be surprising if K & C tried to push responsibility down to this official, along with the contractor and the suppliers, but that really won't do. It is the contempt in which local people feel that they are held by K & C which leads them to conclude that responsibility rests high up in the chain of command. Local residents have got used to being neglected, and being regarded as troublemakers if they complain or question, and they feel that they are simply not valued because they are poor. People feel neglected and ignored, and they believe the reason is simply because they are not wealthy. If this is a crime, it has got K & C's fingerprints all over it. Now, perhaps, it becomes clear why Kensington elected a Labour MP last week.
Back Home
Meanwhile, on the Warwick Estate, we look up at our tower blocks, which were refurbished (by Wates) a few years ago and wonder. Flats got new balconies and kitchens, and there was cladding. Each block has just one staircase. My brother (who is a surveyor) tells me that the question to ask is whether there are fire stops through the cladding at each compartment separation, and what that fire stopping consists of. I expect that we shall be asking exactly that, loudly and often.
One of my churchwardens lives on the Lancaster West Estate, in the low-rise flats at the foot of Grenfell Tower. In the early hours of Wednesday morning she saw terrible things, and it was obvious from the start that the number of deaths was going to be horrifyingly large. It happened at 1am, when the building will have been full, and really very few people were being treated in hospital. It is inconceivable that a blaze on that scale could not have resulted in scores of casualties, so the small numbers being treated in hospital was always a bad sign. Anyone could see from the television pictures that this was a horrific disaster.
Someone was speaking to me yesterday as though it were my parish, and I realised why that was: the Vicar of St Clement's, Notting Dale, (which is the parish church) is Fr Alan Everett. As far as we know, we are not related. Obviously, he and his people are in my prayers. Curiously, though, there is usually a sort of rivalry between our two neighbourhoods, "Ladbroke Grove" and "Harrow Road", and most local incidents of knife or gun crime are bad boys from one neighbourhood attacking bad boys from the other. People sometimes say this thing is on postcodes, but it's not quite as simple as that, because W10, the Ladbroke Grove postcode, extends way over into Queen's Park, across the canal and the Harrow Road, and the boys from the Mozart Estate in Queen's Park are always fighting the Ladbroke Grove boys. This postcode thing also means that things happening in "our" bit of W10 get described on the BBC as happening in North Kensington or Ladbroke Grove, which is always irritating. No thoughts of rivalry now, though, because people are united in grief and horror. This is a very transient neighbourhood, but nevertheless most people will know someone affected in some way, and the extraordinary and inspiring thing has been how vast and immediate the local response has been. People here really do care about what is happening to their neighbours, and you could see on Wednesday that this was making a real impression on the journalists covering the disaster. I was at a governors' meeting on Wednesday evening, and school parents had already begun bringing stuff to school, but then one of my fellow governors who works closely with one of the evangelical churches in Latimer Road reported that they were already snowed under with donations of stuff, which was remarkable to hear. The response from ordinary people has been magnificent.
K & C, and the TMO
The response from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has not been so magnificent, though. My churchwarden phoned the TMO as the fire was happening to get them to open up the estate's community hall, but after stalling, they said they couldn't locate anyone with the key. Not good. Cllr Nick Paget-Brown, the leader of K & C Council appeared on the "Today" programme at breakfast time on Wednesday and gave a deeply unimpressive performance, not even knowing how many flats were in the block, and seeming disengaged from the whole event. By yesterday K & C had put reception centres in place, but what was totally missing was any sense of co-ordination or leadership.
Cllr Paget-Brown has every reason to be worried, though, and I can understand it if his lawyers have told him to be very careful what he says, because this has happened on his watch, and he and Cllr Rock Feilding-Mellen, who is in charge of regeneration and housing and who (presumably) signed off personally on the plans for the refurbishment of Grenfell Tower, and its satisfactory completion, are potentially in a very sticky situation. K & C continue to say that it would be premature to talk about the cladding, but anyone with eyes to see could interpret those television pictures. It is clear that the exterior cladding burnt. It seems very likely that the cladding was responsible for the horrifying speed of the progress of the fire, and the observable "torch" effect. They decided to put the cladding onto the building (yes, in pursuit of energy efficiency, which was a government policy, and to make flats warmer, which is a good thing) and they, crucially, chose which cladding to use and how to do it.
K & C will probably try to deflect attention on to the TMO, since that is the whole purpose of the TMO (and its sister organisations here in Westminster and in other boroughs), to insulate the Council from responsibility and unpopularity. I think they will find that it doesn't work, though, because residents certainly hate the TMO (and CityWest Homes here) but they hate the Council as well. These arm's-length organisations are a product of the (Conservative) ideological hatred of local government,and the belief that local authorities are automatically bad at running things, and a desire to take housing out of the reach of direct local democracy. For the resident, the TMO is just another layer of bureaucracy, and a device for evading responsibility. K & C will undoubtedly say that it was the TMO that made all the decisions, but the TMO is a wholly-owned subsidiary of K & C, which operates under K & C's policy guidelines, so that really won't wash. It is perhaps worth pointing out that building control and inspection is carried out by the local authority, so a K & C official will have certified the safety of this K & C building work; it would not be surprising if K & C tried to push responsibility down to this official, along with the contractor and the suppliers, but that really won't do. It is the contempt in which local people feel that they are held by K & C which leads them to conclude that responsibility rests high up in the chain of command. Local residents have got used to being neglected, and being regarded as troublemakers if they complain or question, and they feel that they are simply not valued because they are poor. People feel neglected and ignored, and they believe the reason is simply because they are not wealthy. If this is a crime, it has got K & C's fingerprints all over it. Now, perhaps, it becomes clear why Kensington elected a Labour MP last week.
Back Home
Meanwhile, on the Warwick Estate, we look up at our tower blocks, which were refurbished (by Wates) a few years ago and wonder. Flats got new balconies and kitchens, and there was cladding. Each block has just one staircase. My brother (who is a surveyor) tells me that the question to ask is whether there are fire stops through the cladding at each compartment separation, and what that fire stopping consists of. I expect that we shall be asking exactly that, loudly and often.
Tuesday 13 June 2017
RAMADAN IN NORTH KENSINGTON
Breaking the Fast
Last night I was at Al-Manaar, the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre, in North Kensington, sharing their iftar meal. I'd been invited, along with Toby, my PDT colleague in the Project, by the Chief Executive of Al-Manaar, to whom we've been talking about possible future collaboration. Toby couldn't come, but I flew the flag. I checked with BBC Weather, which said sunset in Maida Hill was 9.18pm, so I didn't need to turn up too early, but was still there before 9pm. It turned out that 9.21pm was going to be the moment when the call to prayer was recited and the fast could be broken, which was an intriguing difference. Whose sunset? Or sunset where exactly? While we awaited the crucial moment two men were press-ganged into telling us what Ramadan meant to them, which was not as helpful as it might have been, but very well-intentioned.Tables were set with bottles of water and plates of dates, which is the traditional first thing you take, and then there was a lavish buffet waiting at the end of the room. The mosque chairman insisted that you didn't need to be invited, and the iftar meal is there to be shared by anyone who turns up, any night during Ramadan, but that's one of those invitations you can issue without fear, knowing that the reticent English will never take you up on it. One mosque member did tell me, though, that he made a point of bringing people in, including a couple of homeless people, which is great. So the call to prayer came, and we ate our dates and drank our water. I was frankly astonished at the restraint of my Muslim neighbour, who only had two dates and a few sips of water; I could have stuffed myself with those dates, and my last meal hadn't been at 4am.
Among the Faithful
I was not surprised to see the Mayor of Kensington and Chelsea there, rather more surprised to see the Deputy Mayor as well (who turns out to be a churchwarden from Notting Hill), but I found myself sitting with a bunch of other guests who had all been invited by a member of the mosque who is also a councillor. They had been invited because of their activity in the Labour cause last week, which made me a bit self-conscious to be sitting with them, but then amusingly another guest asked me whether they were all members of my church! They reacted with great delight when Emma Dent Coad, the newly-elected MP, (who is also councillor for Golborne ward, in which the mosque is situated) walked in, and then got embarrassed in case they'd behaved inappropriately by cheering and clapping. I don't think anyone was offended, as we weren't doing anything particularly pious at that point, but it was a moment when cultural incomprehension was palpable. The really interesting thing for me was to meet some of Jeremy's Army, because as well as the recognisable Labour Party stalwarts there were the fabled young people, in this case smart, posh, well-educated women in their twenties, for whom the manifesto had really made sense, and who had been prepared to go and stand outside polling stations or run around knocking up last Thursday. This is genuinely a new phenomenon, and a refreshing change from the prevailing cynicism which has characterised political debate for ages. And that's why Kensington has the unthinkable, a Labour MP. There are still people going around with silly grins all the time, because they never believed it would happen.
Posh Enough For Poussin
We all duly queued up for the very generous buffet, and of course had to guess what everything was. There were two adjoining trays full of chicken, but quite different; one looked much more insipid than the other. So, my smart young neighbour and I both went for the more colourful dish. I extracted some chicken and exclaimed, "Goodness, it's a whole little bird!" to which my neighbour responded, "Oh my God, it's poussin!"
That's what they were like!
Last night I was at Al-Manaar, the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre, in North Kensington, sharing their iftar meal. I'd been invited, along with Toby, my PDT colleague in the Project, by the Chief Executive of Al-Manaar, to whom we've been talking about possible future collaboration. Toby couldn't come, but I flew the flag. I checked with BBC Weather, which said sunset in Maida Hill was 9.18pm, so I didn't need to turn up too early, but was still there before 9pm. It turned out that 9.21pm was going to be the moment when the call to prayer was recited and the fast could be broken, which was an intriguing difference. Whose sunset? Or sunset where exactly? While we awaited the crucial moment two men were press-ganged into telling us what Ramadan meant to them, which was not as helpful as it might have been, but very well-intentioned.Tables were set with bottles of water and plates of dates, which is the traditional first thing you take, and then there was a lavish buffet waiting at the end of the room. The mosque chairman insisted that you didn't need to be invited, and the iftar meal is there to be shared by anyone who turns up, any night during Ramadan, but that's one of those invitations you can issue without fear, knowing that the reticent English will never take you up on it. One mosque member did tell me, though, that he made a point of bringing people in, including a couple of homeless people, which is great. So the call to prayer came, and we ate our dates and drank our water. I was frankly astonished at the restraint of my Muslim neighbour, who only had two dates and a few sips of water; I could have stuffed myself with those dates, and my last meal hadn't been at 4am.
Among the Faithful
I was not surprised to see the Mayor of Kensington and Chelsea there, rather more surprised to see the Deputy Mayor as well (who turns out to be a churchwarden from Notting Hill), but I found myself sitting with a bunch of other guests who had all been invited by a member of the mosque who is also a councillor. They had been invited because of their activity in the Labour cause last week, which made me a bit self-conscious to be sitting with them, but then amusingly another guest asked me whether they were all members of my church! They reacted with great delight when Emma Dent Coad, the newly-elected MP, (who is also councillor for Golborne ward, in which the mosque is situated) walked in, and then got embarrassed in case they'd behaved inappropriately by cheering and clapping. I don't think anyone was offended, as we weren't doing anything particularly pious at that point, but it was a moment when cultural incomprehension was palpable. The really interesting thing for me was to meet some of Jeremy's Army, because as well as the recognisable Labour Party stalwarts there were the fabled young people, in this case smart, posh, well-educated women in their twenties, for whom the manifesto had really made sense, and who had been prepared to go and stand outside polling stations or run around knocking up last Thursday. This is genuinely a new phenomenon, and a refreshing change from the prevailing cynicism which has characterised political debate for ages. And that's why Kensington has the unthinkable, a Labour MP. There are still people going around with silly grins all the time, because they never believed it would happen.
Posh Enough For Poussin
We all duly queued up for the very generous buffet, and of course had to guess what everything was. There were two adjoining trays full of chicken, but quite different; one looked much more insipid than the other. So, my smart young neighbour and I both went for the more colourful dish. I extracted some chicken and exclaimed, "Goodness, it's a whole little bird!" to which my neighbour responded, "Oh my God, it's poussin!"
That's what they were like!
Thursday 8 June 2017
ON ELECTION DAY
Bright and Early
Actually, not bright, but overcast. When I came out of church from saying Morning Prayer I found the Labour parliamentary candidate, Karen Buck, standing there accosting parents bringing their children to school. She told me that she'd already spoken to three people who had needed reminding that the General Election was today! The exercise was precisely to remind people to vote; here on the Warwick Estate it is presumed that no persuasion will be necessary to get them to vote Labour. Karen and I agreed that it had felt a very strange sort of campaign, the strangest either of us could remember. I was pleased to see her there, though I'm not sure that it was the best choice from her point of view, as we're only a small school. People generally say, though, that what candidates do on polling day is basically just displacement activity. There is a real point for all parties in getting the vote out in areas like this, because those who feel themselves marginalised are less likely to vote, as they will already feel despair at their lack of influence over anything in their lives. The frustrating thing, of course, is that they are the people for whom political change is most likely to make a difference. If you are comfortable and successful, most things the politicians might do will only be a minor annoyance but if you're struggling to make ends meet then small changes, one way or another, make a huge impact.
Vote Early, Vote Often
That's what we used to say in the political association of which I was secretary at University; it's an old joke from Ulster politics, where "personation" was rife. Personation is the offence of pretending to be someone else in order to use their vote, which remains difficult to police. In most countries you have to present your identity card in order to vote, but, since we don't have them here, there is no accepted method of checking who someone is. I know we have this collective folk memory of Nazis demanding "papers" from innocent civilians, and rejoice that we are not like that, but isn't there actually quite a good argument for the usefulness of identity cards? The civil liberties argument that it enables the government to store information about you doesn't impress me, I'm afraid, because they can do all that already, and basically I'm inclined to trust the state not to misuse such information (I'm much more concerned about my bank, frankly). It remains not difficult for personation to take place, though the system is not as leaky as it used to be. If you knew someone's number on the electoral register and went to the polling station early you would be undetectable (unless you were silly enough to turn up at the same polling station multiple times). There were Ulster constituencies where the dead were particularly keen voters (and I don't know whether that has been remedied, though it could have been). Now the big loophole is postal votes, with people turning up to vote in person and finding that they've already voted by post because the safeguards for the issue of postal votes have not been tremendously demanding, and have been carelessly applied by some local authorities.
Not An Election At All
The Church of England is the only section of the worldwide Anglican Church where bishops are not elected in one way or another, which is an ironic hangover from the medieval contests between popes and monarchs. Nowadays it is all much less secretive than it used to be, and a virtue is made of consultation with the diocese, and so it was that I found myself at Church House on Monday, being consulted about the appointment of the next Bishop of London. We, the clergy of the Two Cities Area (over whom the Bishop of London exercises personal oversight), were invited to come along to be consulted by the Archbishop's Secretary for Appointments, and the Prime Minister's Appointments Secretary. At this session there were just four of us, but it would be fair to say that we represented a broad spectrum, as the others were a conservative Evangelical, a liberal Evangelical and a traditionalist Anglo-Catholic. It was fascinating to meet these shadowy bureaucrats and to make a contribution to the process. Clearly, our discussions were confidential, but I think I can say that all four of us were horrified that the Secretaries claimed to be unaware of the "London Plan" (which is the legally constituted scheme for keeping traditionalists on board while affirming everybody's ministry): if I am genuinely the first person to have brought that to their attention, I think I've made a significant contribution to the process.
Two Years Ago
The last general election (twenty-five months ago) was the first in which I voted late in the day: I have always voted early. Down in Cornwall and sometimes in Reading I used to unlock the church hall for the poll clerks, and witness the unsealing of the ballot box, so that really was voting early. Today I went at 9.45am, but in 2015 I voted just before 10pm, when it was dark, which felt very strange. It was, though, a strange day, as it was the day when Helen was told that she had inoperable cancer. We had walked over to St Mary's to the clinic in the morning, and after telling us they had sent us to A & E in order to get Helen admitted that day, so it took until after 9pm for her to be admitted to a ward. When she was settled I hared back to the Warwick Community Centre to vote and then collected all the things that Helen needed from home and cycled back to St Mary's with them. It's the sort of day that you remember with awful clarity.
Actually, not bright, but overcast. When I came out of church from saying Morning Prayer I found the Labour parliamentary candidate, Karen Buck, standing there accosting parents bringing their children to school. She told me that she'd already spoken to three people who had needed reminding that the General Election was today! The exercise was precisely to remind people to vote; here on the Warwick Estate it is presumed that no persuasion will be necessary to get them to vote Labour. Karen and I agreed that it had felt a very strange sort of campaign, the strangest either of us could remember. I was pleased to see her there, though I'm not sure that it was the best choice from her point of view, as we're only a small school. People generally say, though, that what candidates do on polling day is basically just displacement activity. There is a real point for all parties in getting the vote out in areas like this, because those who feel themselves marginalised are less likely to vote, as they will already feel despair at their lack of influence over anything in their lives. The frustrating thing, of course, is that they are the people for whom political change is most likely to make a difference. If you are comfortable and successful, most things the politicians might do will only be a minor annoyance but if you're struggling to make ends meet then small changes, one way or another, make a huge impact.
Vote Early, Vote Often
That's what we used to say in the political association of which I was secretary at University; it's an old joke from Ulster politics, where "personation" was rife. Personation is the offence of pretending to be someone else in order to use their vote, which remains difficult to police. In most countries you have to present your identity card in order to vote, but, since we don't have them here, there is no accepted method of checking who someone is. I know we have this collective folk memory of Nazis demanding "papers" from innocent civilians, and rejoice that we are not like that, but isn't there actually quite a good argument for the usefulness of identity cards? The civil liberties argument that it enables the government to store information about you doesn't impress me, I'm afraid, because they can do all that already, and basically I'm inclined to trust the state not to misuse such information (I'm much more concerned about my bank, frankly). It remains not difficult for personation to take place, though the system is not as leaky as it used to be. If you knew someone's number on the electoral register and went to the polling station early you would be undetectable (unless you were silly enough to turn up at the same polling station multiple times). There were Ulster constituencies where the dead were particularly keen voters (and I don't know whether that has been remedied, though it could have been). Now the big loophole is postal votes, with people turning up to vote in person and finding that they've already voted by post because the safeguards for the issue of postal votes have not been tremendously demanding, and have been carelessly applied by some local authorities.
Not An Election At All
The Church of England is the only section of the worldwide Anglican Church where bishops are not elected in one way or another, which is an ironic hangover from the medieval contests between popes and monarchs. Nowadays it is all much less secretive than it used to be, and a virtue is made of consultation with the diocese, and so it was that I found myself at Church House on Monday, being consulted about the appointment of the next Bishop of London. We, the clergy of the Two Cities Area (over whom the Bishop of London exercises personal oversight), were invited to come along to be consulted by the Archbishop's Secretary for Appointments, and the Prime Minister's Appointments Secretary. At this session there were just four of us, but it would be fair to say that we represented a broad spectrum, as the others were a conservative Evangelical, a liberal Evangelical and a traditionalist Anglo-Catholic. It was fascinating to meet these shadowy bureaucrats and to make a contribution to the process. Clearly, our discussions were confidential, but I think I can say that all four of us were horrified that the Secretaries claimed to be unaware of the "London Plan" (which is the legally constituted scheme for keeping traditionalists on board while affirming everybody's ministry): if I am genuinely the first person to have brought that to their attention, I think I've made a significant contribution to the process.
Two Years Ago
The last general election (twenty-five months ago) was the first in which I voted late in the day: I have always voted early. Down in Cornwall and sometimes in Reading I used to unlock the church hall for the poll clerks, and witness the unsealing of the ballot box, so that really was voting early. Today I went at 9.45am, but in 2015 I voted just before 10pm, when it was dark, which felt very strange. It was, though, a strange day, as it was the day when Helen was told that she had inoperable cancer. We had walked over to St Mary's to the clinic in the morning, and after telling us they had sent us to A & E in order to get Helen admitted that day, so it took until after 9pm for her to be admitted to a ward. When she was settled I hared back to the Warwick Community Centre to vote and then collected all the things that Helen needed from home and cycled back to St Mary's with them. It's the sort of day that you remember with awful clarity.
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