In a civilised society men working in deep mines in dangerous and unhealthy conditions hacking at a seam of coal is unacceptable. Taking the coal produced and burning it in a boiler to generate electricity whilst polluting the atmosphere and damaging the climate is unacceptable as well. But let’s be clear. Prime Minister Thatcher’s attack on the traditional mining industry had nothing to do with Health and Safety and even less with concerns about the Environment. It was all about political power.

In 1974 Edward Heath took on the miners and failed. Later in the decade James Callaghan failed as well. They both asked the nation “Who governs Britain?” They were told “Not you”. Thatcher was not going to make the same mistake.

The decline and fall of deep mining and then of coal-fired power stations was indisputably a good thing. The way it was done was scandalous. There was no coherent strategy to the pit closure programme. Mining towns lost their raison d’être, their employment and their self-respect. As the pits closed nothing opened to replace them. It was largely left to the market, and the market failed.

It may be that working with the National Union of Mineworkers to implement a strategy to run down coal mining was never going to be possible. That there was no room for compromise and that Binary Britain had its origins among the coalfields. But working at a higher level with the TUC to co-jointly put in place a strategy could have been possible. Who knows?

It was in 1963 that CLR James, adapting Kipling, asked the question “What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?” That quote illustrated perfectly the dilemma faced by cricket lovers about South Africa. Not for the first time the Marylebone Cricket Club is putting cricket sentiment before principle in its decision to erect a gate in Rachel Heyhoe-Flint’s memory. The decision is an affront and in this age of cancel culture it may become a target for Black Lives Matter activists.

In 1960, with Apartheid firmly in place, Rachel Heyhoe had been a member of an English women’s team touring the country. In her autobiography she revealed that the tourists had been warned “…to make absolutely no comment on the ‘racial issues’ (sic) in the country)”. Black spectators were banned at the matches and the coaching the English women did was only for the whites. The British Women’s Cricket Association (WCA), in which Rachel played a significant role for many years said that the 1960 tour “engendered goodwill”.

Rachel obeyed the rules in 1960 but by 1978 when her memoir was published, she revealed her true feelings “[I] retained the view that it was their country, and hardly the place of any English people to criticise”. This was a naïve even offensive remark, not least because it was made ten years after the D’Oliveira Affair and seven after South Africa had been banned from all international sport.

Rachel’s position on Sport and Apartheid was made crystal clear in her 1978 autobiography “[if] the British Government consider it their duty to register their disapproval of South African policies I suggest they cut off every contact with them, including banking and trading links. For, as things stand, sport is merely being used as a political lever. Who are we, in any case, to tell the South Africans how to run their country”?

Rafaelle Nicholson, a historian of Women’s cricket, has written that “in the build up to the D’Oliveira Affair, it was the women’s cricket community who continued to wholeheartedly to embrace South Africa.” The WCA was in the forefront of this, and Rachel Heyhoe played a significant part as player and later administrator. In 1968 once MCC reluctantly cancelled the men’s tour to South Africa over D’Oliveira the WCA followed suit cancelling their own planned cricketing stopover.

Nicholson writes further “Several members of the [WCA] Executive Committee had wanted to go ahead with the stopover… but had been outvoted. Presumably, this included England Captain Heyhoe-Flint, who told The Times that she was “very disappointed”. Nicholson calls her chapter on Women’s cricket and Apartheid “Who are we… to tell the South Africans How to Run Their Country”. She quotes Rachel Heyhoe-Flint verbatim.

Rachel’s position on South Africa, including her participation with many luminaries of the world of cricket to try and ensure that the 1970 men’s tour took place, was unequivocal. Her position in 1969 was an establishment one and many joined her in the “1970 Cricket Fund” which was set up to pay for security to allow the games to go ahead. Those in cricket opposed to the tour, most notably Mike Brearley and the Rev. David Sheppard, were in a minority. So Rachel was far from alone in supporting the 1970 tour.

The politics of all the “1970 Cricket Fund” supporters was probably “Reactionary Right” and these supporters included the Monday Club. The official TCCB position on Apartheid was that they “disliked it” but that “they could not change the law in South Africa [and that] playing against South Africa would be the best means of changing Apartheid”. This was certainly Rachel Heyhoe’s view. She said in the Preface to her autobiography that she had a “deep-seated interest in politics – I could dream that I might one day become minister of sport” so we are not dealing with someone politically unaware.

The 1960s and 1970s saw a binary divide between those who wanted to build bridges with and those who wanted to boycott South Africa. That Rachel was in the bridge-building category is not in itself to be condemned. So were many others including future MCC Presidents M.J.C Allom, Colin Cowdrey, Tony Lewis, and many other members of the cricket establishment. The Women’s Cricket Association was particularly pro South Africa ties and Rachel was often their go-to spokesperson.

By the early 1980s the issue had not gone away – a planned England Women tour to the Caribbean was cancelled because three of the England party had played on private cricket tours in South Africa. Rachel declared her position once again unequivocally and said “…perhaps the time has come for a stand to be taken against the removal of our freedom and rights”. The Times reported on 19th February 1983:

“Rachael Heyhoe-Flint, England’s best-known woman cricketer, said yesterday that she was “completely shattered” by the decision to cancel the tour “We heard through the Jamaican High Commission in London some 10 days ago that there could be a problem, but we never thought it could come to this,” she said. “The big irony is that the five people referred to went to South Africa four years ago on what was a completely unofficial visit and that subsequently the West Indies have played in England and have not raised any objection against the players who had been in South Africa.” John Carlisle, the Hard Right Conservative MP and a member of the MCC, said: “This cancellation illustrates the total chaos that now surrounds cricket and the extent to which political interference rears its head at every turn.”

The “freedom and rights” issue was, of course, to stay in play as the rebel tours began in 1982. This is a large and contentious subject and perhaps Mike Gatting’s statement that “I know very little about Apartheid [but] I do believe that there shouldn’t be any politics in sport” encapsulates the naivety or more likely hypocrisy often involved.

With hindsight Rachel can perhaps be seen as only being naïve but I think that would be a cop out. She was unquestionably in her statements and actions close to being an apologist for Apartheid. She could hardly claim like Gatting to “know very little of Apartheid” having toured South Africa as a player and visited as an administrator. She said, again in her 1978 autobiography, “And if we are honest, can’t we other examples of oppression, perhaps just as odious, in the recent histories of counties such as Chile and Russia?” This takes us into some very dark areas indeed. She implicitly acknowledges that Apartheid is “Oppression” but defends not doing anything about it by saying that there is oppression elsewhere. For someone with a declared “Deep-seated interest in politics” this is not surely ignorance or naivety but a declaration of her true feelings. There is a token criticism of Apartheid in her statement “…South Africa, apartheid apart, is such a wonderful country for a visitor”. But the idea that you could praise a country by avoiding any comment on its institutionalised racism, and with Nelson Mandela locked up on Robben Island, does rather stretch credulity!

“We must not turn our backs on the Afghans” says William Hague in The Times today. Can he really not see that in the post-war era Western interventions in the internal affairs of independent countries have been an unmitigated disaster? With one or two exceptions American and often British military action in pursuit of some specious high-sounding goal like “freedom” have resulted in outcomes which were worse than the start point.

In my lifetime Korea, Vietnam, Suez, Iraq, Afghanistan and countless other adventures have been long on pompous rhetoric but short on effectiveness – often tragically so. America has in theory the military strength to be the policeman of the Western conscience but, as we saw in Asia and the Middle East more than once, not the strategic nous to know how to win.

The Taliban is like the Vietcong a flexible pragmatic force which can disappear into the hills whenever it needs to, regroup and fight another day. In Iraq the sheer power of America backed by Britain’s largely token forces overthrew Saddam alright. Leaving still unresolved chaos behind, tens of thousands dead and continuing instability. Not to mention hundreds of bereaved American and British families.

President Biden is right to recognise that the American dream of honourable defence of liberty, articulated so eloquently in John Kennedy’s inaugural address in 1960, has proved to be bunkum. And the British Government should get real as well and realise that our obligations extend no further than the defence of our own borders. No more body bags returning from far away countries of which we know nothing please.

If we believe in Freedom of Speech, and so long as there is no public incitement of illegal acts, we have to tolerate these fools. It’s not illegal to be Katie Hopkins or David Icke.

I’m not going here to try and analyse or even condemn stupidity. I regret it, but struggle to find what to do. We live in an age of Fake News and have a head of Government who makes it up as he goes along. We recently had a President of the United States who added incomprehensible ranting to his manifest stupidity. What to do in both cases?

In 1939 Oswald Mosley held a massive rally at Earl’s Court spouting his usual vile but not illegal (just) vitriol. It was largely unreported in the media (Newspapers and Radio). There’s a clue here. Publicity seekers who get no publicity might just eventually give up. I couldn’t avoid La Hopkins if I tried. But if the media had said “Let’s show a few doctors talking about saving lives” rather than showing Katie Nobrain might that have worked ? Just a thought.

Interesting that Hugo Rifkind mentions France at the beginning of his piece on “Freedom” in The Times today saying that the French are different. Those twenty miles of the Channel really do keep us apart from the rest of the world eh? Except of course they don’t. No outpouring of good old English exceptionalism can obscure the truth that what is “freedom” one side of the Channel is also freedom the other side. Freedom is not a British value – it’s universal.

Rifkind demolishes the anti-vax brigade comprehensively and rightly in his article. But then he fails to point out that those who object to carrying and showing proof of their vaccination status are just as bad as the anti-vaccers. That isn’t defence of freedom one tiny bit, it’s insular and selfish arrogance.

The NHS letter showing your vaccination record is clear and uncontroversial. I’ve posted mine on social media to explain why it is a wholly benign document. To suggest that there is any loss of freedom if someone entitled to asks me to show it is perverse.

There is such a thing as society and we are all more than just being entire in ourselves and our families. We have a duty of care that goes beyond the walls of our home. Every day I leave my home, as well as when I’m in it, I must obey society’s laws. Society would descend into anarchy if there were no restraints on our freedom to act.

The virus is a deadly and unprecedented threat to us all and we all know families that have been devastated by the loss of someone dear to it. It is the duty of Government to protect us. If the judgment is that to have and show proof of vaccination is desirable to help do this let’s get off our high horses and accept the minuscule loss of freedom involved.

This is fascinating and checks with my own memories. We Brits were a beer and spirits (mostly beer) nation in my early childhood. My parents went to the pub and drank beer. My Nan drank Gin and French (and anything else actually) but we rarely had wine.

Then in the late 1950s Mum and Dad started to holiday abroad and wine started to appear at home, mostly for high days and holidays. Brands like Nicholas and Chianti in straw clad bottles appeared in the off licence and, roughly from when I got married in 1969, the beginnings of a wine culture started.

In the 1970s wine was still elitist, expensive and snobbish. But gradually the choice widened and imports exploded. The supermarkets stocked wine on their shelves and value brands from around the world became available. For wine consumption to today equal that of beer is remarkable, and slightly worrying – a litre of wine has rather more alcohol than a litre of beer!

Britain has the most varied wine choice in the world. Other big wine consuming nations like America, France, Italy or Australia have their own indigenous winemakers and consumers tend to stick to these. In the U.K., whilst we do now make now some good local wine, 98% is imported and the wine world beats a path to our door. In my wine rack you can find bottles of wines from ten different countries quite often (they only stay briefly in the rack).

Wine today is far less snobbish and much better value. It’s also far better to drink! The norm now is to drink wine young – even some Bordeaux reds are now drunk only a year or two old and far better for it. Supermarkets, and not just the posher ones, have excellent wine choices and value for money. The tend towards screw top closures is a positive one, though I now have a battery operated corkscrew for the traditionally cork sealed bottles!

In The Times today Matthew Parris compares Johnson’s COVID gamble with Margaret Thatcher’s Falklands. It’s an interesting analogy, though I think a false one. Parris exaggerates the risk of failure in the South Atlantic in 1982. The United States played a crucial often covert role in supporting Britain. Had the Task Force got into serious trouble the US would have upped her involvement to a more military one. It may have been the beginning of the end for the Old Alliance in the 1980s but it was still there, just.

Today Britain is friendless, an extraordinary state of affairs when looked at historically. In 1956 at Suez we at least had the French and the Israelis – but the Americans thought we were mad, said so, and the game was immediately up.

The Britain without allies after Suez is strongly analogous to the Britain without friends today. Try and find nations that support us, let alone want to copy us, on COVID and you’ll look in vain. In 1956 we hung out the flags and the media was mostly behind Eden. So it is today for Johnson with the dash for “freedom” – for now. The support for Britain’s dishonest attempt to unravel the Northern Ireland protocol is also totally absent beyond the Orangemen. Crucially President Biden, like his predecessor over Suez, thinks Britain is wrong.

Having rejected a formal partnership and economic ties with Europe the “Belarus” option is in play. That country is the only other European nation other than Britain to go it alone. We are increasingly like the fans of Millwall FC seeming to delight in the fact that everyone hates us.

Britain Contra Mundum is then far from new. Suez, The Falklands, Iraq and other adventures had little or no support from allies and friends. But COVID is different, it’s a global enemy demanding global solutions. Not a time for English exceptionalism you’d think. But that’s what we’ve got. Similarly we are actually putting at risk the Good Friday Agreement with our volte face in Northern Ireland. The similarities between these two acts of stupidity and treachery are that people will die unless somebody stops our reckless Prime Minister in his tracks.

There is an excellent leader in The Times today. In response I would sat that the biggest disease in these shores for five years has been English exceptionalism driven by a separatist and nationalist ideology.

Increasingly we resemble Millwall Football Club whose fans proudly proclaim the slogan “Nobody Likes Us and We Don’t Care”. Britain’s international reputation has never been lower. At the heart of this is ignorance and arrogance. As The Times says it’s a “bold and chaotic experiment”. England is a giant Petri dish.

The world is like a millipede with 99 legs moving in one direction and one in the opposite direction. We are the one hundreth leg. We eschew cooperation and do our own thing.

We will all have our coping mechanisms – at least the thinking amongst us will. As a double-vaccinated oldie I’m going nowhere. I won’t offer advice to others other than to say listen to the scientists and then decide. I am conscious, though, that the facile decision to put the recovery of the economy ahead of protecting the people means that many will be obliged to return to work before it is safe to do so.

The consequences of this further and culpable mismanagement of the pandemic, both collectively and for bereaved families, are tragic. There’s not much to be proud of in Little England. Lack of Leadership is matched by Lack of Logic. I don’t think that we have become ungovernable, but we are close. We are certainly ungoverned though.

David Aaranovitch in The Times today looks at Johnson/Cummings with a wry eye and with a fair degree of “WTF”.

When Michael Gove made his famous remark demeaning experts I was puzzled – even for Gove it seemed a strange, populist load of intellectually deficient detritus. Now I realise it was a statement of Government policy.

Dominic Cummings has revealed (a) Nobody in Government knew what they were doing and (b) the experts who did know what to do were often marginalised or ignored.

As with Brexit the people pulling Johnson’s strings were the Conservative Right – what Cummings referred to as the “Leave” campaigners. Also the ERG, the anti May coup organisers. We know who they are. (Now, incidentally, they argue to tear up the NI Protocol. Johnson obeys.) And they are in charge.

The string-pullers are the antithesis of “experts” driven not by science and logic but plotters driven by ideology and prejudice. Their numbers were boosted in the 2019 General Election when the Conservative benches were boosted by the arrival of shallow Johnson cheerleaders not overburdened with grey matter.

It takes something for those charged with a national emergency to make it worse. But when that failure is compounded by an unwillingness to listen , dishonest statements, delayed action that was deadly and a contempt for substantial cohorts of the population you know we were, and are, in trouble.

Danny Finklestein, who knows a bit about the subject, looks at Prime Ministers Questions in his Times piece today.

The question I’d ask the Prime Minister is whether he can’t or he won’t answer questions. That he doesn’t is not open to debate but whether this insouciance is just a subset of his arrogance or whether he really has completely lost the plot it’s hard to tell. If the latter a follow up should explore why.

Is Johnson’s failure to answer laziness ? Early onset dementia ? Substance abuse ? Some combination of manifest personality defects and declining mental powers ? It’s hard for the more distant observer to tell.

At his best Keir Starmer tears Johnson apart. But even this brilliant QC seems sometimes to show compassion as his opponent waffles incoherently on. Key players in this Parliament should be the Speaker, who is weak and servile, and Tory backbenchers who are obsequious or thick – generally both.

So PMQs are unwatchable as the PM like Archie Rice in “The Entertainer” tries an act that might once have worked but doesn’t. any more. The jokes are tired, he often forgets the punchline, and he is openly contemptuous of his moronic audience, at least on his side of the House.

Boris Johnson is different from any other Prime Minister in living memory. Watching Dominic Cummings’ BBC interview made one realise how different. And not in a good way. And yet despite his obvious inadequacies he seems fireproof. In normal times a PM so manifestly incapable of answering questions about his job, let alone doing it, wouldn’t survive. Johnson seems to prosper.

In an age when image succeeds more than substance freaks abound. The Music Hall of public life is packed with strange people doing very strange turns. In the heydays of the Halls the great performers , however strange, packed ‘em in. Now the Rees-Moggs, the Patels and the Johnsons (and the rest) are just walking shadows – poor players who strut and fret upon the stage telling idiot’s tales full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

John Osborne used “The Entertainer” as a metaphor for Britain’s decline at the time of Suez. Sixty years on that decline is almost complete. The Union is on its last legs. We are adrift from Europe. The special relationship across the Pond, like the Empire, is long gone. We are diseased and dispirited. And our head of Government whilst waving his flag and encouraging us to clap loudly forgets that he’s the caretaker of a very old ill-maintained building and that it’s unwise to make too much noise.