It was when we'd reached about the twenty mile mark in our walk, yesterday morning, that I broke the flow in my conversation with John Christensen and David Quentin to suggest that the time we'd spent together had already proved more valuable in terms of my thinking than any conference I'd been to for a long time.
Starting from Wells-next-the-Sea we walked west on Thursday and east on Friday. The walking is not tough, but the scenery is stunning. We were blessed with good weather. We kept up a pretty good pace throughout. And the conversation flowed continuously, barring the odd moments when, to my friends' bemusement, I insisted on looking through my binoculars at some of the great bird life North Norfolk has to offer.
David had set our theme. In essence this was to debate how tax justice fitted into the necessary processes of change that must now take place if the future is to be claimed for people and not be passed over solely to the interests of international rentier capitalism that has the capacity to destroy life on earth and the well-being of the vast majority before it does so.
We covered enormous ground, and a massive range of ideas. One person who overheard us when we were setting out on Friday morning said "That sounds heavy". John cheerfully assured him it wasn't: it was precisely what we'd set out to do.
I am not promising we have all the answers. But I came back more optimistic than I have been for some time. I think answers are possible. With alternative approaches and new thinking we persuaded ourselves that reconciliation across the left may be possible. One of our ways of addressing the issue was to think how politicians we knew with seemingly irreconcilable views could be persuaded there was common ground.
What will the outcome be? Almost certainly a book, but certainly not of the sort I have been engaged with before and in which I may only play a small part. But that would just be a focal point. The real aim would be more conversation. It's a shame the whole world can't go for a walk. We'd get radical change a lot quicker if it could. In lieu of that dialogue is key.
We'll beat this around some more but we recognise time is of the essence.
I'm truly grateful to John and David for two quite exciting days.
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Lovely. I sometimes stayed at the Youth Hostel in Hunstanton and did some practise walks for the Nijmegen Vierdaagse. The beaches are some of the best in the world. My children went camping for a week in Cromer a couple of years ago – I wish I’d taken them for some misty eyed nostalgia.
It’s too far for casual trips now. Twenty miles from the Peak District and ninety for Snowdonia is not a bad compromise though. The north Wales coast and Anglesey have some great beaches as well but different.
The YHA in Wells provided our accommodation for the night and very good it was too.
The Peaks and Snowdonia are both great too. But I suspect my heart will always be in East Anglia
East Anglia-Roundhead country- home of robust and principled opposition to vested interests and monopoly power.
This sounds great, I remember you said your greatest ideas before were had staring out of the shed window. The next great ideas in tax thinking coming from a walk along the Norfolk coast can only be 100x better, so inspiring. Who needs all those economics PhDs telling us theory!
I hate to say more than a little theory and a mighty lot of economic history was discussed on the way
Shamefully, of course, Marx got a mention. So too did Smith, Ricardo, Marshall, Pigou, Keynes, Hayek, Veblen, Freidman and many of the more modern era
The Mail would only have heard Marx
I have loved reading what you have done and the benefits of doing so to you (and as a result the benefit to fellow progressives) are tangible but we must remember that it not only progressives like you and your friends who go for walks.
Regressives – like Theresa May – also go for walks unfortunately if only to dream up more lies and meaner ways to wage war on people they do not fit in with their jaundiced view of our society.
I hope Theresa May does not go for any more walks – that’s for sure!!!
As for you – keep at it but do not forget The Derbyshire Dales – there are some cracking walks here too.
Another day PSR….
I imagine that your conversation will have included/focused on global finance. As I understand it, there may be potential for positive change from Brexit. In one of the TJN podcasts, John Christenson seemed to think that the EU, unleashed from the demands of the City of London, would move to regulate the financial sector more appropriately. There was also a potential (mentioned in TJN post) for renegotiating our existing as well as prospective trade deals such as to make mitigating climate change, the priority. Both gave me some hope.
We spent a great deal of time on such issues, I assure you!
If a book is the result of 2 days walk then we need to send you out more!
It has to be written as yet
Mind you, there is an outline as of late last night….
Sounds to me like a Channel 4 documentary – happy to write the script…
It wasn’t Alan Partridge even if we were in his county!