Before the Chancellor stands up to deliver his Budget speech today at 12.30pm, I would like him to read a letter and a poem.
Here is the letter...
And here is the poem - Philip Larkin's 1972 poem, GOING, GOING.
I thought it would last my time -The sense that, beyond the town,There would always be fields and farms,Where the village louts could climbSuch trees as were not cut down;I knew there'd be false alarms
In the papers about old streetsAnd split level shopping, but someHave always been left so far;And when the old part retreatsAs the bleak high-risers comeWe can always escape in the car.
Things are tougher than we are, justAs earth will always respondHowever we mess it about;Chuck filth in the sea, if you must:The tides will be clean beyond.- But what do I feel now? Doubt?
Or age, simply? The crowdIs young in the M1 cafe;Their kids are screaming for more -More houses, more parking allowed,More caravan sites, more pay.On the Business Page, a score
Of spectacled grins approveSome takeover bid that entailsFive per cent profit (and tenPer cent more in the estuaries): moveYour works to the unspoilt dales(Grey area grants)! And when
You try to get near the seaIn summer . . . It seems, just now,To be happening so very fast;Despite all the land left freeFor the first time I feel somehowThat it isn't going to last,
That before I snuff it, the wholeBoiling will be bricked inExcept for the tourist parts -First slum of Europe: a roleIt won't be hard to win,With a cast of crooks and tarts.
And that will be England gone,The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,The guildhalls, the carved choirs.There'll be books; it will linger onIn galleries; but all that remainsFor us will be concrete and tyres.
Most things are never meant.This won't be, most likely; but greedsAnd garbage are too thick-strewnTo be swept up now, or inventExcuses that make them all needs.I just think it will happen, soon
I'll post our verdict on the Budget, later.
I never see not an item on environmental justice just middle class sentiemtality; in my view the environmental movement of the last 30 years has failed; not a molecule of CO2 has been reduced, forests are still felled, population grows......in UK housing is unaffordable re the wages for the median to bottom 50%. Half the population and more is on a poverty treadmill; reducing housing costs is key while wealth is hoarded offshore.
If the environmental movement is ever going to spread beyond the priviliged upper middle into a meaningful lifestyle options then there has to be some basic principles that transfer economic justice to more than just the elite. I support the RSPB and continue to do so for its excellent reserves and targetted initiatives; its general politics I often find the sort of mish mash that has not delivered nada/rien post Rio 1992 unless a vision is delivered for all the people.
The big environmental picture is now out of our humanities hands and nature will take its course; most likely through decline in antibiotic resistance and a population crash.