A tale of two countries

Citation

Millson, S. (2005), "A tale of two countries", European Business Review, Vol. 17 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ebr.2005.05417aab.003

A tale of two countries

A tale of two countries

Purpose – To put the debate over fox-hunting and field sports in the UK into a wider political, social and economic perspective.Design/methodology/approach – Provides the historical and political narrative to an issue that has divided UK politics and has confused external observers. The article combines narrative with argument and analysis.Findings – Places an apparent “single issue” campaign – the hunting debate – into the larger context of a society adjusting to seismic cultural and economic changes.Value – This paper is a useful source of information and ideas for students of UK politics or academics and businesspeople in continental Europe who seek greater understanding of UK political culture.

Keywords: Civil and political rights, Government policy, Hunting, United Kingdom

The twenty-first century has not started well. From the appalling terrorist mass-murder of the 11 September 2001, to the scenes of war, chaos, anarchy and squalor in Iraq, we seem to be living through a period of deep uncertainty. The word of politicians throughout the West is either ignored (or rather, switched off by TV remote control) or laughed at; and politics has become a strange mixture of uninteresting consensus (we – the politicians know what’s best!), with occasional and shocking bursts of confrontation – and even radical rejection of “the system”. Nowhere has the latter been more obvious than in the case of post-Millennium Britain – a country whose politics is dominated by an increasingly presidential Prime Minister, with a subservient House of Commons in the iron grip of a massive Labour parliamentary majority.

To someone reading the international press, it might seem that Labour’s hegemony – not to mention its mantra of “change”, “reform”, “updating”, modernisation” – is something that commands the overwhelming support of a nation profoundly happy with the Blair experience. But this is not so, for Labour’s power exists by default – the result of a demoralised and ineffective Conservative Opposition, apparently sulking because it feels itself to be the “natural party of Government” (it came an abysmal fourth in a recent parliamentary by-election); plus a general, disquieting “couldn’t care less” attitude within the population. (We should never forget that at the last General Election, only about 65 per cent of the electorate could be bothered to vote – a sign of boredom, decay and general lack of national confidence that the vote of an individual could ever really change anything.)

However, despite the dull “official” political scene, some major tremors have been making themselves felt. Toward the beginning of Blair’s period in office, a petrol protest radiated out from Wales and the west country, which caught ministers completely by surprise. Farmers and road hauliers blockaded the ports, oil refineries and petrol stations, venting their anger against the Government’s policy to increase the duty on fuel, and within days, the trickle of traffic that was still able to run was doing so at 20 mph. A stark headline in the London Evening Standard seemed to symbolise the sense that normal life and the reliable day-to-day order was beginning to falter in Britain: “The capital runs out of petrol tonight”. The trains were packed to bursting point, filled with irritable motorists, complaining into their mobile phones about the indignity of being forced onto rail! Ministers appeared before cameras (adopting the “firm look”), reassuring the public that normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. In the end, it was, but the whole experience left a nasty taste in the mouth of our leaders.

The second tremor, was the realisation that fragmentation and disharmony had become entrenched in twenty-first-century, multicultural urban Britain. Disturbances broke out in north of England towns, and Home Office ministers appeared to express surprise that a strict sense of “them and us” (on both sides) existed between native Britons and British-born Asians, in particular, Muslims. After much disorder in the former mill towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire, the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, felt that the “communities” might best be brought together by special events, sports days, and so on. That a solution to these depressing problems could be envisaged by holding the equivalent of egg and spoon races and urban “fun days” added to the hopelessness of the situation. So far, an uneasy silence seems to hang over these urban landscapes, punctuated by occasional victories for anti-immigration council candidates, and the usual story of business closure, further urban decline, and people (of all races who have enough money to do so) trying as best they can to leave for the suburbs, and give their children a better chance.

The third tremor – the rumble which is opening up a deep fault-line in British politics – relates to the countryside, and although this particular story is set within a green and pleasant landscape, it contains many striking similarities to the previous examples of social unrest. One of the most distressing images of the opening of this century, at least in Britain, was the sight of huge piles of slaughtered livestock going up in flames. At the height of the foot and mouth “crisis” – a problem that was turned into a crisis, largely by the hysteria of a metropolitan Government and media – officials and police were descending on farms, putting the human residents under virtual house arrest, and taking it upon themselves to order the destruction of all animal life, including in some cases, the farmers’ pets. Healthy as well as infected livestock were slaughtered, with Tony Blair (a man who sees only “the big picture”) insisting that it was best to sacrifice millions of animals, just to be on the safe side.

It so happened that I was in Wales during the time of the foot and mouth horrors, and saw for myself the effect, not of the disease, but of the Government’s reaction to it. In west Wales, there was (as far as I am aware) little or no infection, or at least the infection that did exist was swiftly dealt with. Yet a siege mentality existed among the farmers (quite understandably, of course), alongside a deep distrust of state officialdom and its way of dealing with the problem. During one local television news report, cameras captured an astonishing happening – this time in mid-Wales, a scene that was chillingly reminiscent of the 1984 miners’ strike. Ministry of Agriculture officials had designated a certain moorland area as a suitable place for depositing dead livestock, yet the ground was drained by a stream, which ran close to a small rural community. Farmers and other locals complained about the “Min of Ag” diktat, and before long the dispute had grown into a full-scale physical confrontation – on a Welsh country lane – between the police and the farmers. I waited for the next news bulletin, but mysteriously, the pictures of a police line fighting with farmers had disappeared from the airwaves …

The aftermath of the foot and mouth outbreak raised many serious questions for the politicians, but for those who make (or made) their living from the land, it was a time of serious reckoning. Farmers of the new generation – the men who, at the age of 40, had taken over from their fathers – came to realise that agriculture had now changed for ever. No longer could an average farm survive on the once-established pattern of rearing and maintaining cows or sheep; with the enterprise supporting a farmer, his wife and two children, and the family expecting to pass it all on once again to the next generation. A farmer who once dealt exclusively with his own affairs, now has to act like an urban “temp” – trying to make up the shortfall in income through contract work at larger farms, or driving delivery lorries. Farm buildings, which once housed small milking machines, or provided storage for hay or equipment, are either demolished, or turned into holiday lets. The foot and mouth episode showed the whole nation just how much rural Britain had been turned on its head. It was the moment when city-dwellers came to realise that an average annual farm wage (and I am referring here to small or medium-sized farms) could be as little as £20,000 – the sum sometimes shared between three or four people; that depression, unemployment and suicide was not just a phenomenon of inner-city council estates; and that a whole way of life was now on the brink of extinction.

Small dairy production, ruined (in part) by the high demands and monopolising tendencies of the supermarkets, has all but disappeared from West Wales – milk production being only possible and profitable among the larger, more “industrial”-type farms. Imports from the EU hardly help matters. Indeed, in Carmarthenshire – one of the richest regions of pasture-land in the UK – it emerged that the local education authority was supplying schools with imported powdered milk from the Republic of Ireland, a policy which prompted huge protests outside the county hall. Meanwhile, in Downing Street, Tony Blair and his advisers could only offer the following advice to rural Britain, the Prime Minister telling farmers to “embrace the exciting new world of e-commerce”. But the advice was hardly welcome. To a farmer, whose business is done with a nod and a wink on market day, or by word-of-mouth among his neighbours and friends, Mr Blair’s suggested approach was about as useful and practical as Marie-Antoinette’s famous exhortation: “Let them eat cake”!

Where it has occurred, rural recovery has been painfully slow, and has only managed to occur among those farms and smallholdings which either have little or no debt, or which have been fortunate enough to have a strong link to supermarket or other buyers. But as this article was being prepared for publication, another great upheaval was unfolding – and it may be that it will come to symbolise, more than anything else, the discord and polarisation that exists within Britain today. The battle over the future of fox hunting could not have come at a worse time for rural communities. Despite promises by the Government to allow hunting to continue in a modified, licensed, “reduced” state, ministers have nevertheless caved in to overwhelming pressure from their backbenchers to ban the sport altogether. Dismay and impotent rage boiled over among the usually good-natured countryside demonstrators – leading to the now famous “invasion” of the Chamber of the House of Commons (itself quite empty, despite the gravity of the debate), and the battle with the Metropolitan Police in Parliament Square.

Leaving aside the questions of whether hunting is “right or wrong – questions which should possibly not concern any politician or legislature – the ending of this sport in Britain marks another nail in the coffin of the countryside. For although not everyone in the countryside hunts foxes, the fact is that another part of established, unregulated and traditional life in these islands has been eliminated by Government decree. It is almost as if ministers view the countryside as some vast, uncontrollable, even slightly dangerous area; where its beloved officialdom cannot properly function, and where licence forms, CCTV and all the paraphernalia and apparatus of the modern state have not quite penetrated. How can any area in Britain be without human rights advisers, or allow any activity to go on without the knowledge and say-so of the powers that be? (At least, that is what one imagines them to be saying in Government offices!)

What began with a hunt ban will logically follow to other pursuits – and there are many within New Labour ranks who dislike horse-racing, angling, and even some types of farming. Such people may be among the fringe today, but they could be tomorrow’s Secretaries of State (that is, if such historic offices have not been abolished or “modernised” by the time we reach the year 2010!). Today, the Government is even considering the licensing of sea-fishing (i.e. angling from beaches or small craft) – a sport once completely free and unregulated. We await the official reasons for this measure with interest, although the likely reason – “the preservation of fish stocks” – will not stand up to much serious scrutiny! The Government, after all, is quite happy to see hundreds of tons of fresh fish dumped back into the sea by trawlermen who have slightly exceeded their EU quota; this appalling waste being a requirement of the Brussels fisheries policy.

So what will become of the rural economy, and of rural life in decades to come? Will the “countryside” merely consist of EU-authorised soya bean production; with housing development linking the once distinctive villages to superstore-ringed towns? Is the farmer destined to become a semi-landowner, working “in partnership” with some regional government agency, to see how best to maximise land, tourism and utilities? And will those who once followed the hunt, or bred hounds or raced horses, end up working in an out-of-town Tesco, Sainsbury or ASDA? It might not possibly come to this, but the point is clear: life is being changed in our countryside – and in our country as a whole – by political elites; by social engineering; by forces beyond the control of communities and individuals.

Unless drastic measures are taken to reverse the depressing march of paranoid, overpowering government; the disturbing trend toward illiberal and puritanical state intervention in every aspect of life; and the sense that only the big, the “modern”, the cruelly efficient and entirely profitable have a place in human affairs, normal civic life will become impossible in Britain. And it is an appalling prospect given our rich legacy of democracy, checks and balance, seeing the other chap’s point of view, and cultural cohesion. With every passing month, the distinctiveness of our national life seems to be fading away – Jaguar motors, midlands manufacturing, considerate statesmanship in a place once revered as the Palace of Westminster, all going the same way as the Welsh dairy farmer, the huntsman and the rural individualist or eccentric.

This is a tale of two countries: of the relatively settled Britain of the recent past, and the crisis-ridden Britain of 2004; and the two nations which exist on this island today – one fighting a rearguard action for its “liberty and livelihood”, the other (the urban Britain) painfully struggling to come to terms with its own Balkanisation and decay. Unfortunately, it is a tale that seems to have no foreseeable ending, throwing up in its wake a thousand questions to which there are no clear answers.

Stuart Millson(Stuart Millson read politics at the University of Essex. He is currently a commercial copywriter, a freelance contributor to a number of journals, and a member of the Chartered Institute of Journalists. He lives in Kent, UK. stuart.millson@tm-ltd.co.uk)