by Nick Corble
There is a theory that sometimes you need a shock, or a series of shocks, to shake you out of a rut, and I believe we are in a rut. The danger of this theory is that no one can predict what form the reaction to that shock might be: it might bring us to our senses, but it might make us lose them, too, and result in us doing something stupid. There is precedent here after all. We have already seen the ugly side of populism, not just in the UK, but in the US, South America, Turkey and elsewhere in Europe. Revolution isn’t really very English. On the other hand, it isn’t unprecedented.
To move away from Brexit and conclude with a broader observation, I would say that England is a country that needs to re-contract with itself. To agree both what it wants to be in the wider world, how it wants to organise itself internally as a state, and how it wants to organise and pay for things the individual can’t do on their own. Assuming that the way we did things in the past was great – ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ – just doesn’t cut it any more. If the Brexit vote told us anything, it told us that our society and many of our institutions are pretty creaky, if not actually damaged beyond repair, and we need to engage in some fundamental thinking. Where’s the vision, the sort of thinking that gave us new towns (let’s be honest, Ebbsfleet Garden City is hardly Milton Keynes when it comes to innovation)? Where’s the belief that the future can, and will, be better?
England also needs to re-contract with its history. The past was not always a better place, and is unlikely to provide a great template for the future. We need to make sure it doesn’t become our anchor against the prevailing tide. There also needs to be a process of recontracting between the young and the old. During my walk the suggestion was made that pensioners should be taxed more so that every twenty-five-year-old could be given a lump sum £10,000 on reaching that milestone birthday. It was an idea, even if it was one that assumed all problems could be solved with money, what I dub ‘the NHS Panacea’, but at least it was a suggestion. There also needs to be a discussion about how the wealth the nation creates (assuming we continue creating wealth) is captured and distributed, rewarding those who make it appropriately, but recognising that there are wider social obligations too.
The problem is, this will require mechanisms which allow us to have proper grown-up discussions, ones which recognise that there are multiple sides to an argument, and that compromises require give and take on both sides; in other words to move away from the two-dimensional, the binary, to the reality of our three-dimensional world. Are we capable of this?
As I’ve already suggested numerous times, an overwhelming conclusion from my walk is that I believe our current politicians (and political system) are simply not up to the job. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde’s description of foxhunting, with the Brexit negotiations they have shown themselves as ‘the incompetent in pursuit of the impossible’. Equally, the conduct of the referendum itself hardly offers grounds for confidence. But there are signs of hope.
The debate and subsequent referendum north of the border on Scottish independence in 2014 appeared, to this outsider at least, to have been a much more mature process. It involved passion it’s true, but also reasoned discussion – at least until the establishment became worried and intervened, bullying their way to getting the result they wanted. It even had the foresight to include sixteen-year olds in the franchise, seeing as they were the ones most likely to be affected. I wonder what the outcome might have been if that had happened in the Brexit vote. We can’t assume all sixteen- and seventeen-year olds would have voted for Remain (I met three along the way who, when asked, said they’d have voted the other way), but the evidence39 suggests that most would have.
Towards the end of my walk the leader of the Liberal Democrats put forward the proposal that future leaders of his party need not necessarily be Members of Parliament. The idea of tapping talent, almost on a contracted-in basis; that people other than experts, careerists or self-regarding elites, might be able to offer missing skills and insights, appears on the surface at least to be one worth exploring. Others40 have put forward suggestions such as national ‘deliberation days’, inviting citizens to become involved in public community discussions, ideally just before an election.
Some glimmers perhaps?
I have no qualms in stating my own pride in England. Walking diagonally through the country has reaffirmed my affection for what it has to offer, while at the same time opening my eyes to the challenges it faces. We have much that is worth hanging on to, but we need to be realistic and open to change, rather than frightened of it, or hiding away from it in some largely mythical past.
It’s going to be an interesting few years.
Maybe I will have to walk the other diagonal in twenty years’ time to see how we all got on.
Finally …
A big thank you to all those who participated, both knowingly and unknowingly in Diagonal Walking. This includes my diagonal walkers, Airbnb and traditional B&B hosts and those who helped in the early planning stages, before a step had been taken. Equally, those who helped knock the words into shape at the end, such as Andrew Kerr-Jarrett and Dan Coxon, thank you again. Thanks too to all the hundreds of decent people, too numerous to list, who made the walk such fun and were probably unaware they were contributing to anything in particular. Special thanks are due to Tim and Sue Graham and Simon and Judy Corble for all the Nature Table advice. The biggest thanks, however, are due to Annette for her tolerance and driving around, as well as for my absences, both physical and when I disappeared into my head. Thanks, you wonderful woman.
As I’ve already stated, this book is a record of my journey, furnished with details I picked up along the way. No doubt there are mistakes, and ownership of these lies with me also. If you spot any, or think you know something I didn’t, please don’t shoot me down in flames or give the book a one-star review. Be better than that, just let me know at [email protected] and share your knowledge. I might even acknowledge it in another edition. After all, sharing is part of what Diagonal Walking is all about.
Finally, a recommendation. If there’s something you’ve always wanted to do, find the energy and time to do it. It won’t happen unless you do.
Notes
1See http://jerryward.co.uk/Home.php
2Source: BBC. See:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43729508
3Source: The Guardian Online. See:
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2018/jan/08/made-in-stoke-on-trent-episode-1-we-have-lift-off
4Source: UK Council for International Student Affairs. See:
https://www.ukcisa.org.uk/Research--Policy/Statistics/International-student-statistics-UK-higher-education
5Source: The Revolution in England’s Universities 1980-2000 by Peter Maitlis. See:
http://warlight.tripod.com/MAITLIS.html
6Source: The Prince’s Trust annual UK Youth Index
7Source: The Social Mobility Commission. See:
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/social-mobility-commission
8As above
9In her speech to the 2018 Conservative Party Conference, the Prime Minister Theresa May announced plans for a post-Brexit National Festival inspired by the 1851 Great Exhibition. It didn’t go down well.
10Source: The Ramblers. See:
https://www.ramblers.org.uk/policy/wales/rights-of-way/public-rights-of-way.aspx
11England, Your England by George Orwell (Essay)
12Source: The BBC. See:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-44142843
13Source: The Birmingham Post. See:
https://www.birminghampost.co.uk/lifestyle/house-homes/idyllic-harlaston-unspoilt-by-time-3957312
14See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-228904
63 if you don’t believe me.
15Source: The Ramblers. See:
https://www.ramblers.org.uk/get-involved/campaign-with-us/past-campaigns/footpath-funding-cuts.aspx
16The result was actually 58.6 per cent in favour of Leave in the District of Daventry in which Long Buckby is located, although it may have of course been higher in the village itself.
17Source: The Ramblers. Walk Magazine Autumn 2018. Also, The Economist 1 September 2018 ‘A New Furrow’
18Source: BBC. See:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44306737
19Source: The Sun (I did say it was unscientific). See:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/5240287/ilivehere-englands-10-worst-places-to-live-in-2017/
20Search ‘Diagonal Walking’ on iTunes or download direct from www.podomatic.com.
21Source: BBC. See:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36325311
22Source: Quoted in ‘The Perils of Perception’ by Bobby Duffy (Atlantic Books, 2018) using data compiled by Ipsos. See
www.perils.ipsos.com for more.
23Source: Office for National Statistics, covered in The Guardian here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/10/majority-of-britain-eastern-european-residents-are-in-work
24See Note 20.
25Source: Migration Advisory Committee. See:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/741926/Final_EEA_report.PDF
26Source: The UK in a Changing Europe. See:
http://ukandeu.ac.uk/minority-ethnic-attitudes-and-the-2016-eu-referendum/
27Source: Migration Advisory Commission
28Source: The Office for National Statistics, covered on Sky News here:
https://news.sky.com/story/unemployment-climbs-while-wage-growth-improves-11553077
29Source: Harvey Redgrave of The Tony Blair Foundation, quoted in The Economist 22 Sept 2018.
30Source: The NPD Group, quoted in The Economist 17 March 2018.
31No End In Sight: The Economist 18 August 2018.
32Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-government-initiative-to-reduce-rough-sleeping
33Source: BBC. See:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-44567824
34David Graeber: Bullshit Jobs. See review in The Guardian here:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/25/bullshit-jobs-a-theory-by-david-graeber-review
35Source: The BBC. See:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38762034
36Source: BBC. See:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-44142843
37Although often quoted, and sometimes attributed to The Times, this well-known headline is almost certainly apocryphal, but it’s still fun to use.
38Given the tendency towards alliteration when describing leaving the EU, it probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise that stickers proclaiming ‘Bollox to Brexit’ began to appear in public places towards the end of the summer.
39Source: BBC. See:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/b8d097b0-3ad4-4dd9-aa25-af6374292de0
40Source: Deliberation Day by Bruce Akerman and James Fishkin (Yale University Press). This is an American book. In the UK we are of course still ‘subjects’, not ‘citizens’.