This is on the front page of the Sunday Times:
Not long ago the fight at the National Trust was over whether it was right for it to point out that some of the properties it owned were built with the proceeds of slavery. "Wokeness" was the big concern of the right-wing dogmatists who fought it on that issue.
In the circumstances, the willingness of the Trust (of which I am not a member) to take on the government might have seemed low. In that case, I am delighted to see it joining with the RSPB, the Wildlife Trusts and the Wetlands and Wildfowl Trust (of all of which I am a member) and others in tackling the gross irresponsibility of the government in promoting policies that treat the natural world as an expendable commodity to be c0nsumed and then discarded in the course of fuelling unnecessary excess consumption of goods that serve little need and only meet artificially manufactured wants.
Truss is already on the back foot. Her so-called 'growth coalition' is very obviously tiny, as it takes a person of very little intelligence to think that growth matters more than all else in life. Thankfully a great deal has been done to demonstrate to most people that this is not the case. But now she has the bastion of small c conservatism lined up against her.
I believe the time to be rid of neoliberalism has arrived. I very much doubt that most of the members of the National Trust would express their opinion in that way. What I do think is that they will not tolerate abuse of the natural world and all that is good in it on which we depend in so many ways in pursuit of the greed and exploitation of a few. And when it comes down to it, that is a rejection of neoliberalism.
It is going to be an interesting fight, and one from which it seems very likely that there will be only one winner.
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The National Trust is right.
I can tell you now, that by centrally deciding/decreeing on house building numbers for cities and towns, the Tories have effectively destroyed the planning system as all applications for housing will have decisions biased toward it.
On the face of it this looks OK, but it will result in developers building on more green belt land and even more of their expensive executive homes – the ones that earn more profit for developers, not more starter homes (priced at £500,000+ in the home counties!!).
There is no grant system or help with brown field remediation at all since the Tories got rid of it in 2017.
And even worse, no national programme of sewer improvement that will have to accept the waste from these new properties.
It’s one big mess from end to end. It’s as if all they’ve been doing is listening to the house building lobbyists and no-one else.
As a member of the national trust and supporter of your blog, I am very happy to see the NT and other similar charities speaking out against the monstrous march of neo-liberalism. My personal experience is that, in the case of the NT, the small “c” has got smaller over the past few years. Perhaps this action will help to allay the stereotyping.
GDP of the UK has increased by over 30% over the course of the last couple of decades. Who feels 30% better off. GDP is an unsuitable metric for measuring anything beneficial to humanity as a whole.
Just reinforces my impression that they seem to be really stupid – even in their own terms – setting up a series of targets and constraints about taxes, and spending , which are mutually incompatible – and which won’t be tolerated , backed up by equally unfeasible ‘supply side’ measures in ‘free for all’ investment ‘zones’ which seem to invite fraud and will still involve lots of bureaucracy.
And – as you say Richard, wrecking nature – which again is widely understood and will be widely resisted.
Will parliament or the wider public (including organised labour – nurses, public service, rail, workers etc) allow this to continue for another two years – I doubt it. I hope not.
I have joined the National Trust ahead of last years’ attempted takeover by what I unkindly think of as “the UKIP brigade”.
And it’s delightful to get their emails. They are finding interesting ways to rephrase their intentions to support a more honest approach to British history., and they are clearly intent on joining the “anti-growth coalition”.
This year’s AGM will be interesting: there are once again anti-woke motions and candidates, but also motions demanding that they stop using Barclays Bank (how many times have I fought that battle over the years?) and stop supporting the government’s plans for Stonehenge.
Which way will the battle go?
I’m not sure.
But I am thinking of opening a new front, demanding that they change their land agents to make sure they support the ecological needs of their tenant farmers rather better than the ones they use at the moment, if reports from farming friends are to be believed.
Onwards & upwards, is the phrase…
The Tories are the living embodiment to me of something rather dark and sinister.
Their polices since 2010 have been killing people (more suicides, lower life expectancy, killing hope even etc.) and also killing the earth we live on in our country (wanting to do coal mining and fracking and dumping raw sewage into our rivers and seas). They have successfully killed our economy and are also in the process of killing the NHS.
There is something therefore rather ‘necrotising’ about them and their effects on economics and society whether during pandemics or not:
‘Necro- is a combining form used like a prefix variously meaning “the dead,” “corpse,” or “dead tissue.” It is used in technical and scientific terms, including in biology and medicine.
Necro- comes from the Greek nekrós, meaning “dead person, corpse” or “dead.” Similar in meaning and use to necro- is the common combining form thanato–, from the Greek thánatos, “death.”’
And then there is the way they go about their necrotising of the country and its people: What word could we use to describe that I wonder? Well, how about:
‘Mongering’? A monger is:
‘A dealer in a specific commodity. Often used in combination.
A person promoting something undesirable or discreditable. Often used in combination.
A trader; a dealer: now used only or chiefly in composition: as, fishmonger, ironmonger. It is often used allusively, implying a petty or discreditable traffic or activity, as in scandal-monger, mutton-monger, whoremonger.’
So, there we have it folks – the Tories are Necro-mongers – here to kill you, your community, your society and your planet by dealing out death with their necro-polices based on necro-economics in the necro-fascist world.
It sums them up a treat.
There is a really big effort being made to takeover the National Trust. My wife who is a Life member get’s lots of emails from them about voting at the forthcoming AGM
I know
It is organised from Tufton Street…