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In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields

During the Second Battle of Ypres a Canadian artillery officer, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, was killed on 2 May, 1915 by an exploding shell. He was a friend of the Canadian military doctor Major John McCrae.

McCrae was asked to conduct the burial service owing to the chaplain being called away on duty elsewhere and later that evening he began to write his poem ‘In Flanders Fields’.

Today, nearly a century after McCrea’s poem was written, the wearing of the poppy which it inspired has increasingly attracted as much controversy as it has publicity.

Since The Saturdays were invited to frolic half naked in a sea of poppies to launch this year’s Poppy Appeal, you can’t turn on the television (is it just me, or like Halloween and Christmas, does the build up to Remembrance Day seem to start earlier every year?) without seeing celebrities, sportsmen, presenters, politicians and other public figures mandatorially adorned with the scarlet flower (Check out the X Factor this weekend and you’ll see what I mean!). Ben Griffin, the first SAS soldier to refuse to go into combat has called it a ‘month-long drum roll of support for current wars’.

Whether you agree with him, the Poppy Appeal by the British Legion (which hopes to raise £36m this year) is for many a most worthwhile of charitable causes. Whatever we may think of the modern wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, British servicemen and women injured there, or in earlier conflicts, surely deserve our respect and care. Service people don’t start wars but they are the ones on the front line and we are all in their debt because of that.

That’s why the fate of the simple poppy and its meaning in the mass-media age is a real concern. Has it become so banalised that its ambivalent origins and meaning, as McCrae’s poem, have been forgotten?

Attempts to enforce poppy-wearing as a patriotic act diminish the true value of the poppy as a personal statement. Likewise the attempts, allegedly by some national retailers in Belfast City Centre, Connswater Shopping Centre and other retail outlets around Northern Ireland to prevent staff from wearing poppies (and even refusing to serve some customers who wear them) are an affront to the memory of all those who sacrificed themselves in defense of their country and a denial of the freedom that they fought for.

The wearing the poppy is not political (although some would make it so).

As one commentator has said quite rightly this weekend, ‘The scarlet poppy is a symbol of blood sacrifice and death; it is also a symbol of the stubborn renewal of hope and life. It can be worn as a symbol of pride but also as a symbol of grief and of refusal to forget the lessons of the past’.

So let’s not allow the politicians, the military and the bigots to exploit the meaning of the wearing of this scarlet symbol for their own agendas.

Let’s not forget today or on Thursday, or on any day what the real significance of the simple little Poppy is.

Silent Single

If you want to show your support for the Poppy Appeal this year you can also purchase the Silent Single now on iTunes, featuring Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, superproducer Mark Ronson, David Cameron, Bryan Ferry, Bob Hoskins and tennis star Andy Murray during two minutes of silence.

Well he may have beaten his big brother to the Labour leadership but judging by his first performance as leader at the Labour Party Conference today, it really doesn’t feel like Milliband E is ready to lead the country any time soon. We may be 5 years away from the next General Election, but it’s probably more likely that Wallace (or even Gromit?) will be the next PM than Red Ed.

No harm to Labour but watching the coverage of Ed’s day at the Conference on the news, you can’t help but wonder what genius behind the scenes thought that it would be a great idea to bring Gillian Duffy (yes that bigoted woman) to the conference to give her expert opinion on the state of the party; then to introduce her to the new leader as he left the stage having delivered his speech and to share that cringingly awkward moment with the viewing public when Ed tries to be all warm and friendly to her with all the sincerity of his predecessor when he met her back in May; and then to play that beautiful moment out against a musical backdrop of the Kings of Leon’s Someone Like You (genius)…whatever you think about Tony Blair - as a charismatic, refreshing, dynamic new leader of a party that is ready for government…Ed is no Tony…but maybe, as the song went all those years back, Things Can Only Get Better (whatever happened to DReam?).

What must poor old Tony Benn have thought of the whole charade. We’ll probably never know. For those of you who missed it on the ITV News, he fell asleep in mid-conversation with Mrs Duffy as she was sharing her views on the state of the nation, classic moment. Probably sums up the state of the Labour Party right now.

A new generation for change? Doubt it.

Say goodnight to the folks Eddie.

“The harsh reality is that Northern Ireland must raise more income or cost less to run, there is no alternative to this stark choice”.

A report compiled for NICVA by Oxford Economics, ‘Cutting Carefully’, has said at least £1.2bn would have to be saved from public spending in Northern Ireland between now and 2015 to meet government targets.

Launching the report on the challenges facing the economy, NICVA chief executive Seamus McAleavey warned frontline services could be at risk if the wrong approach was taken.

He said: “This is the most detailed external analysis yet of what is coming down the track and it makes for painful reading. It presents a significant test for our Executive and it is vital that the correct decisions are made. The choices made now will shape our economy and society for a generation.”

The Northern Ireland Executive already faces making £128m in spending cuts following the emergency budget earlier this summer, though it’s still not yet clear whether that will be incurred this year or next.

Earlier, £367m of efficiency savings were announced for this financial year.

Government funding for the voluntary and community sector stands at £260m, 45% of the sector’s income, NICVA said.

Northern Ireland receives a massive subsidy from the rest of the UK, calculated by looking at the difference between tax receipts contributed and public money received. The report warned that if cuts were made across the board, they would amount to 8.4% of spending over five years. If the health budget was ring-fenced it would mean 15% reductions across all other departments.

“Protecting health and education would mean 22% cuts on everything else.”

Mr McAleavey warned:

“The Executive needs to be fully aware of the wider social and economic repercussions of every decision they make. The very worst thing that could happen is panic or bad choices during the process, or worst of all delaying action, which is going to make our problems even greater.”

It is currently estimated that Northern Ireland has 31% of its employment in public services, compared to 25.9% in the UK as a whole.

The new report states that Northern Ireland must “transform the economy in such a way that public services cost less to run, or alternatively that the tax base (from local businesses and consumers) provides significantly greater tax payments to the Executive”.

On a more positive note, the report argues that spending cuts may well leave Northern Ireland with a leaner, more efficient and cheaper to run public sector.

Leaner certainly, cheaper probably, but in the rush to cut spending and make our public sector more ‘efficient’, we all need to understand the long term impact that cuts will have on our public services and on our ability to attract the type of investment that our economy will need to get through these challenging times.

We all want value for money, but not at any cost!

For a full copy of the report click on the following link: http://www.nicva.org/news/smart-solutions-tough-times

Just saw a recent suggestion on Nick Clegg’s Your Freedom website mentioned in my blog post on 1 July 2010.

Latest idea under ‘Restoring Civil Liberties’?

Conscription for delinquent youths!

http://yourfreedom.hmg.gov.uk/restoring-civil-liberties/conscription-for-delinquent-youths

What a brilliant idea…and so simple.

Young people on the streets in Ardoyne, you’ve been warned!

For more brilliant ideas, go to www.yourfreedom.hmg.gov.uk

There is some priceless stuff on there but having read some of the suggestions from ‘the people’ on laws they’d like to repeal and how they’d like to restore civil liberties, if I was David Cameron, I’d be having a serious re-think on the whole concept of The Big Society.

Well it looks like it’s finally happened.

According to reports in the weekend’s press, Nick Griffin’s BNP is facing financial ruin after featuring Marmite in its election broadcast. The party has been hit with a massive claim – up to £170,000 over its TV stunt in which the BNP leader was pictured beside a huge jar of Marmite with the slogan ‘Love Britain. Vote BNP.’

While the BNP thought the broadcast was a humourous dig at Marmite, which they believed had mocked the BNP in their online and TV ads featuring ‘The Love Party’ and ‘The Hate Party’, Marmite makers Unilever didn’t appreciate the ‘humour’ quite so much and started High Court proceedings for breach of copyright. 

The undisclosed settlement, estimated at between £70,000 and £170,000 has put the party ‘on the brink of bankruptcy’ according to former National Organiser Eddy Butler.

Seemed like a good idea at the time?

“I think we’re onto a really big idea, a really exciting future for our country”.

David Cameron today launched his “big society” concept in Liverpool of all places, with among other things a suggestion that community groups should be able to run post offices, libraries, transport services and shape housing projects.

He also announced radical plans to use dormant bank accounts to fund projects, in what he said would be a “big advance for people power”.  Hundreds of millions of pounds apparently will eventually be available in start-up funding through a Big Society Bank, to be matched by private investment.

While reducing the budget deficit was his “duty”, he said giving individuals and communities more control over their destinies was what excited him and was something that had underpinned his philosophy since he became Conservative leader in 2005 and had also been a central theme in the Conservative’s general election campaign (but did anyone really had a clue (or care) what it meant or how it would be delivered?)

We’re all for people power, but seriously David, give us a chance!

Followers of this blog won’t need to be told, least of all by David Cameron, of the potential of people power to change things around them. It’s one of the reasons why this blog was set up and we have consistently highlighted the great work of organisations and individuals across Northern Ireland using technology and new thinking to make a difference in our community. It is our ‘passion’ and it is the passion of thousands of people like us. People power is not a big Cameron idea; it is a reality that he needs to deal with and it won’t be hijacked by any politician or any government.

That’s why it is very interesting that Eric Pickles said the government’s schemes would represent “the biggest, most dramatic redistribution of power from elites in Whitehall to the man and woman on the street”.  With the most swingeing cuts to public spending in most of our lifetimes looming over us; unemployment set to rocket; pensions under threat; house prices stagnating; and our education system and health service about to be dismantled…‘on the street’ is where more and more of us are going to end up!

Although maybe Cameron’s Big Society concept will help keep the recreational rioters off the street in Ardoyne in future. Let’s see.

To read more, go to www.thebigsociety.co.uk or to get involved in the conversation, go to the blog at www.thebigsociety.net

In the meantime…here’s a short film: