The Bewilderness

A closing of the Sussex border

Once the Sussex border passes Copthorne and stretches past East Grinstead, the countryside becomes more open and undulating with vistas that look both north and south finally straddling the Weald. The path may have outdistanced the South Downs and the land may be gentler in elevation, but this does not mar the overall beauty of the walks. East Sussex is not famed for its wildness (or its railway links!) but pretty villages march across the hills from Gatwick to Canterbury. 

The final two stretches of the Sussex Border Path from Wadhurst to Rye encompass a length of 40 miles. The path wends east and south in a meandering lazy style, so that you can sometimes wander and wonder if any distance has been eaten up. This is one of the effects of walking round reservoirs, in this case, Bewdley Water. That large stretch of water has a shoreline on the north of abouth 5 miles and you walk around these pretty picnic sites.

The second day is of a different duration. The hills peter out as you cross near Bodiam Castle: a ferocious keepsake from the past set in its own moat. Once the fields and the woods are walked through, all that remains is the river running into Rye. The path is mainly long grass; lethal when wet as you get soaked to the skin after rain. Three miles of this skidding and sliding is replaced by the final stretch of the Royal Military Canal; some strange distance markers and the site of Rye Castle gradually looming in the distance. On a warm day, the unfurled flag draws one like the sirenic cries of the Newhaven mermaids to try some of the local cider. And I did! 

This increases my enthusiasm for the 1066 trail.

Scottish independence: a single issue country?

I dislike the acronym that could come into play if Scotland voted for independence; this, more than any other element of the charade, disturbs me. I do not wish to live in the Former UK.

When one hears Salmond and the Scottish National Party intone on these matters, there is a hint of complacency. They took a literal view of the Scottish electorate. If you are voting for a Scottish Nationalist party, then you are voting for a positive vote in the forthcoming referendum. The party could not shake its single issue mentality: focusing on independence at a time of economic upheaval and forfeiting trust in their governance. (An example of their complacency is lowering the voting age to 16 in the belief that teenagers are more inclined to support independence. An assumption not borne out by the polls). Parallels with the Tory focus on Europe at a distraction to the greater worries of the economy or health have surely preyed on the mind of the Scottish voter.

The SNP has difficulties in explaining why the risk of independence is worth taking. Instead of governance, questions now focus on how matters will be undertaken in a separate country. The Scottish administration states that everything will be fine and assumes that the rest of the UK will sign for their package withoutr preconditions. Hmmm....Fears of change are becoming entangled with everyday questions of performance. The Scottish voter: Why should we vote for you if you can't solve skoolzanhospitals because you are too busy dreaming of a future with more capability to boss us around

Can they square this circle? 

Barroso Cake

When Jose Barroso set out his stall for further treaty changes at the European level, he used the phrase "political science fiction" to describe the potential recommendation that the Commission would champion. Avoiding the open and tedious door of satire, I do wonder if Barroso's words were chosen with an understanding of the term. Science fiction is a genre that embodies rationality, problem solving and futurist solutions as part of its suite. 

All of these virtues are embodied within the self-fashioned identity of the Eurocracy. Later on, Barroso appealed for democratic changes that would counter Eurosceptic and Europhobic parties through rational argument and "unwavering convictions". It is these small admissions that tease out the fundamental and irrational contradictions underlying these statements of 'cake and eat it'. Rhetorical homage to democratic outcomes and parliamentary debates are undermined by this teleology of development towards a European unity. If you vote the right way, welcome to Enlightenment and reason! If you vote the wrong way, you belong to an irrational and populist horde of darkness.

Perhaps Jose Barroso was unwittingly remembering some famous dystopias and how some were achieved by the stupidity of elites.

One day they will regret the long grass

The Draghi put may come to be seen as a short-term delaying tactic that destroyed any potential for implementing a deeper political and economic union. A deluge of money reduced the pressure on Italy and Spain removing the need for a coordinated bailout. Proposals for a banking union and greater political unity lost any immediacy and, as Euractiv have reported, are now pushed forward till next year. The drive for ever closer union has also become entagled with the electoral cycle of the paymaster, Germany: due to take effect in September this year. Angela Markel is not allowing European issues to affect the election since Eurosceptic parties are already outflanking the Christian Democrats and the Free Democrats on this single issue. 

But political expediency, in its own terms, is not news. Angela Markel agreed with Francois Hollande, at a summit meeting on the 29th May, that these issues would be negotiated and agreed upon after the European elections in May 2014. That is a delay of a year, probably eighteen months. This is where the issue of the slow burn may find them out.

The Economist cover for last week described the political leaders of the Eurozone as sleepwalkers. The urgency of the markets has been replaced by the apathy of stagnation. The problems have been institutionalised with an economic desert in southern Europe. This leaves the ingredients for further emergencies and bail-outs in place; spreading to other candidates within the currency union such as France and the Netherlands. The balm of press releases will not delay or prevent this crisis. The continual decline in economic activity and rise in unemployment cuts across the nonsense spouted by Eurocrats and renders the continent vulnerable to global crisis.

The Europeans will regret that they did not act whilst they had an opportunity to do so. Pain postponed is crisis redoubled.