The best Leader Labour never had?

Political  commentary is littered with references to people who might have been leaders of their party, and it is too easy to see a politician's merits when she or he hasn't been put to the test in office.

However, the British Labour Party has two contenders for the "lost leader" epithet in recent history. Just over twenty years ago, the sudden and premature death of John Smith robbed the party of a leader who would surely have profited from the inevitable post-Thatcher demise of a Tory government. At the time he died, he was remodelling the party after the "looney left" years under Michael Foot, building on the legacy of Neil Kinnock (let us never forget that it was the oft-derided Kinnock who first took on the Militant Tendency in the famous put-down of Derek Hatton at the 1985 Bournemouth Conference). Smith, with the air of a prudent bank manager and the same traditional Scottish Christian values as Gordon Brown, would surely have romped to victory in 1997, as his successor Tony Blair so famously did. Blair's three victories, and all that followed them, meant that Smith was perhaps never mourned as a "lost leader" to the extent that he would have been had Labour not been so successful so relatively soon after his death. 

But then there's Alan Johnson. I have just finished reading his book "This Boy", a memoir of his childhood and teenage years, and I have to say that it strengthened my impression that Johnson's decision to stand down from front-line politics was a grievous loss not just to the Labour Party, but to the country as well.

These days, Johnson is still a backbench MP, likely to be re-elected to parliament as the member for Hull next month, but he stays out of the political limelight. He appears on TV shows such as "Have I got News for You", and seems to enjoy the freedom to express his views in a more relaxed and open manner, free from the constraints of high office. His gentle humour, smiling face and lack of bitterness belie a life which has been far from easy.

Johnson's acclaimed book brings home to the reader just how "genuine" he is, in a manner which inevitably invites comparisons with the soundbite-driven leaders who are presently fighting for our votes. By comparison, they  look like a bunch of automatons. He certainly has no need, as so many politicians of the Left feel compelled to do, to talk up his working class credentials: he was raised in abject poverty in London's Notting Hill, long before the gentrification of that area. 

His feckless father abandoned his mother and her two children, leaving her to scrape by on meagre wages from unskilled work until she died at the age of 42, leaving 12-year-old Alan as an orphan, cared for by his 16 year old sister. His account of this genuinely deprived childhood is told with gentle humour, self-deprecation and entirely without self-pity in such a way that you feel he really knows what it means to be a "hard working family", in the words of that over-used cliché. 

The undoubted heroes of the story are his sister Linda and his mother Lily, but Johnson himself comes out of the book as a man who has "seen it all" when it comes to deprivation and poverty. His unsurprisingly Left-Wing views have, however, always seemed to be borne of compassion and a desire to do the right thing for all people, rather than the humourless bitterness and envy which have so often undermined the appeal of other left wing politicians and trade unionists.

Perhaps therein lies the sad truth. One cannot help but conclude from his writings, and indeed from his TV appearances, that here is a man who is perhaps just too nice, too human, for the nasty world of politics, and one suspects that perhaps this was among his reasons for stepping aside in 2011. It is funny how politicians of all parties gain in popularity once they leave politics: think Michael Portillo, who in 1997 was the lightning conductor for all the built-up resentment after 18 years of Tory government, and is now a much-loved presenter of gentle railway travelogues on TV.

Nevertheless, I suspect that a Labour Party led by Alan Johnson might be further ahead in the polls than Milliband is managing right now.

"It's not Fair"

This post takes as its title a phrase I instinctively dislike and use very sparingly: "It's not fair". It's a great song title (thank you Lily Allen), but apart from that a rather futile protest.

Very little in life is fair - as a teacher, I slap down complaints that something isn't fair with a riposte stolen from one of my own teachers years ago: "if life were fair, I'd be good looking!" That always takes the wind out of pupils' sails, and in any case as a teacher, I have always tried very hard to be fair. Apologies if you are an ex-pupil reading this and you disagree.

However, diabetes - especially Type One - isn't fair. It strikes randomly, and once the fickle finger of fate has chosen you, it is unrelenting. It never gets "better" or "worse" - it is just a question of how successful the unfortunate victim is at dealing with it. And that success or lack of it is very often beyond your control - especially, I feel,  for children, adolescents and women, for whom other unavoidable things like growing and hormones take an unwelcome delight in interfering with management of diabetes.

I don't get down about my diabetes. I am lucky that I lived 40 years without it, and have lived the subsequent 17 years in pretty good shape, all things considered, still able to live a full and active life, doing all that I want to do, within reason.

However, I did have an "it's not fair" moment this week, when on the same day, I ordered a new set of Freesyle Libre sensors (cost £101.52 inc postage - precisely 4 weeks supply) - and a repeat prescription for all my usual diabetes stuff (insulin, needles etc). I realised as I ordered the prescription that I had used virtually no test strips since I started using the Libre. I didn't need any tests strips, so an item worth just under £60 was not on my prescription: I was, in effect, saving the NHS that amount because I am spending £100 a month on a Libre.

I have started using the Libre at the same time as several fellow T1's from the GBDOC community, and I think I speak for all users of it, and indeed those who are using more expensive CGM, that the amount of information we get about our blood glucose levels is light years ahead of the "snapshot" provided by a one-off test. I don't yet feel that it has actually improved my health, but I am very sure that it is helping me better to understand the subtleties and infuriating  complexities of the relationship between food, exercise and insulin. And in so doing, I will inevitably get better at avoiding the lows, and especially the highs, which are such a threat to my long-term wellbeing. This will save the NHS money in the end.

On the right is a recent reading, showing a pretty good overnight (sorry to be smug). Taken after breakfast, it also illustrates wonderfully how injected insulin deals with what has been eaten at breakfast, and how the libre warns me that I need to be aware of a fast-falling blood glucose level and take in some more carbs before the day is much older.

So I hope that perhaps those who make decisions about what is and isn't available on prescription will give serious consideration to making the Libre - at least the sensors - a prescription item. Yes, I know the NHS is hard-pressed, but I am pretty sure that a well-observed response to Libre readings would quickly pay for itself.

Meanwhile, I will continue to generously save the NHS £60 a month by hardly using any test strips, and will spend £100 a month of my own money so that I can continue to monitor my own blood glucose better than any doctor or nurse is able to. I'm not convinced that's very fair.....

Please share this blog post if you agree.

Keith Mansfield - Unsung musical genius

My aim in my blog is to publish at least one post for each of the elements of my Twitter profile. One, if you like, for each of the squares on my background wallpaper.

So this is from the part of me that is a "music geek".

My taste in music is eclectic and catholic. I could easily be accused of being undiscerning, but I prefer to think of myself as musically very tolerant and inclusive. I could never say what kind of music I like, because it would take me too long to answer. My spotify playlists are vast in scope, and I love anything: not everything, but many things.

Musically, I delight in guilty pleasures, I refuse (and always have refused) to be influenced by prevailing tastes, so I can be found wallowing in classical,  rock and pop, punk, new wave, choral music, hymns and much more besides. I delight in theming music (hence my love of Spotify), often in the most absurdly contrived ways, resulting in playlists of remarkable diversity.

I also enjoy discovering unsung heroes: popular music in particular, with its focus on the performer rather than the composer, producer or arranger, often overlooks those without whom the finished product - the recording - would be nothing. Perhaps the most famous example of this is the real "5th Beatle", George Martin, but that is perhaps too obvious. Few would deny that without him, the genius of the fab four would have been much diminished.

So this post is about a less well known unsung musical genius: Keith Mansfield. "Who?", I hear you say. Well, he is described, in that font of all knowledge Wikipedia, as a "composer and arranger", but that won't help much. But try this and you'll know it:-

https://youtu.be/Qm2jfSrrFkk

I bet you're transported straight to warm summer afternoons, Robinson's Barley Water, strawberries and cream. It's the BBC's Wimbledon theme.

Now try this:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLHMxFGqhIs

If you were born any time before 2000, I bet you're transported back to Saturday afternoons, probably in winter: old school rugby league, five nations rugby union, football preview, horseracing, the teleprinter and classified football results. It's the BBC's Grandstand theme.

These two iconic pieces from TV history were both composed by Keith Mansfield, to my mind an unheralded musical genius. Both pieces are upbeat, driven along by brass, defying you not to feel uplifted and excited at what is to come. Their link to favourite sporting memories only serves to strengthen the appeal.

However, it is as an arranger and orchestrator that his genius is fully revealed. I was reminded of Keith Mansfield today when listening to  one of my "sacred and secular" playlists, indeed one of my favourites: Easter songs. Now if ever a straightforward pop song works with a deeper meaning, try listening to the Love Affair's 1968 classic "Bringing on back the good times" at Easter. Of course it's just a song about a relationship lost, found again and re-ignited, like millions of others, but try thinking of it as an expression of the joy that is the resurrection, and it works brilliantly. I would defy anyone not to feel uplifted by this song,  indeed it is the lead track on another of my Spotify playlists - Feelgood Songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlZ9IOaQ8zw

Like those sporting themes, it's driven along by brass: the bold and confident introduction draws you into the song by introducing the hook of the chorus line before you get to the verse. But listen to the orchestration in the chorus and hear the way it complements the bluesy voice of Steve Ellis, with a simple harmony line that works perfectly, and just try to imagine the song without the orchestra. And once you know it's the same orchestra that did those iconic sporting themes, you realise that you are hearing the unmistakeable mark of a musical genius at work.

Keith Mansfield's body of well-known work is not vast, but in the late 60's and early 70's that distinctive orchestration gave us classics such as this No 1 by the Love Affair:-

https://youtu.be/JaYTNsS_m2w

And these two by Scottish outfit Marmalade,  often wrongly categorised as 60's bubblegum but actually a versatile and capable blues band:-

https://youtu.be/aSa5D2IaM10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMspzf7_oHY

Marmalade's finest song, from 1970, is also enhanced by Mansfield orchestration this time with strings more than brass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTeI65yrhGw

I hope that older readers will enjoy re-discovering some familiar stuff, perhaps in a new light, and younger readers will enjoy these fine examples of  the contribution made by a  real musician to 60's pop.

Happy listening!

What's good about Good Friday?

This post is on the theme we’re often scared to discuss: religion. So if you object to religion, stop reading now. However, if you can bear with me, you might just come to see that being religious doesn’t mean you’re opinionated, self-righteous, and in-your-face, or that you necessarily have to believe in implausible miracles.

I don't often write about religion on my blog, and I certainly don’t wish to bore people who are not interested, but if I can’t write about religion at the most important times of the Christian year, when can I? It is very sad that it seems to be becoming embarrassing to call yourself a Christian: a gay clergyman friend of mine recently told me that he now finds it harder to tell people he is a Christian than to tell them that he is gay. I rejoice with him that we live in a society that now overwhelmingly accepts peoples’ sexuality as no big deal and certainly no reason for hostility and prejudice, but there is something wrong if peoples’ religion has become an object of embarrassment and even hostility. It doesn't help when Christians make fools of themselves by being over-sensitive about their faith, as happened last week with the storm-in-an-egg-cup about the National Trust's supposed dropping of the word "Easter" from their Cadbury's-sponsored Egg Hunt. Those, including the Prime Minister, who professed such outrage should have looked at the relevant websites before making public statements, as the reality was that both websites made plenty of references to Easter.

As a Unitarian Christian, the whole business of Jesus’s death and resurrection is complicated for me. Many people now pay little attention to the traditional meaning of Good Friday and Easter, yet nobody can deny that the events of what we call Holy Week are as significant as any in the history of mankind. The fact that many of us are on holiday from work, that we are eating hot cross buns today and chocolate eggs on Sunday is a direct consequence of our commemoration of those events 2000 years ago.

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, the events of Holy Week and Easter are pretty hard to deal with. The day on which the hero of our belief system was cruelly and violently put to death by a tyrannical occupying power is called, in English at least, “Good”. As if that’s not bad enough, Christians are then supposed to believe that he did it “for their sake” and that he then rose from the dead, thereby defying the one certainty in life: death. According to many, that’s what’s “good” about Good Friday – the idea that Jesus “died to make us good”, to quote C F Alexander’s wonderful hymn, “There is a Green Hill far Away”.

Actually, calling it “Good” is a largely English-speaking oddity. Most other languages have a different term, most commonly some variant on the word “Holy” – in French, for example, it is “Vendredi Saint”. Of the major European languages, only Dutch – which is the living language closest to English in many ways – uses the term “good”: “Goede Vrijdag”. I actually think the German term is pretty apt in terms of telling us what happened: Karfreitag – which means Sorrowful or Suffering Friday.

Whatever you call it, it wasn’t a very good day for Jesus and his followers. They would have taken some convincing, at the end of that terrible day, that what he went through was in any way good. I too struggle to see what’s good about the cruel and horrible death of a patently good man.

As a Unitarian, I certainly don’t accept the idea that we are all inherently sinful and need someone to suffer and die in order to save us. I believe that we human beings are all capable of the most terrible sins, but that’s not the same thing as being sinful, and I certainly believe that our salvation lies in our own hands, not those of an innocent man. So in that sense, there is nothing good about Good Friday for me.

However, I have an aversion to well-meaning attempts to manipulate language to make it match literal truths. After all, Easter is a term derived from the name of a pagan goddess of Spring and fertility, so at one level I’m happy to accept Good Friday as “just a name” for an important day.

Yet the explanation that today is a good day because it recognises the good thing that Jesus did for us is not necessarily the correct explanation for the name of the day. Another very plausible explanation comes from the fact that the words “good” and “God” are often interchangeable in the English language. We need look no further than the word “goodbye”, which means “God with you” (God-by-ye) for proof of that. So if we accept this explanation for the term, “God Friday” is perhaps a little easier to accept.

I certainly prefer this explanation: to call it God’s day is much easier for me to accept, in that my own interpretation of God is that it simply means “good”. My concept of God is not as an omnipotent father-figure and creator who ordains all that is, was and shall be, but rather that “God” means all that is good in the world. After all, it is commonly observed that there is only one letter of difference between God and good, and also only one letter of difference between devil and evil. Etymologists rightly point out that this is probably just a neat coincidence, but it certainly suits me to believe that “God” can simply mean all that is good in the world, while “devil” can simply mean all that is bad in the world.

Jesus’s death, and especially the manner in which he was condemned by a fickle and baying mob, was surely the work of the devil – of evil. No different from many other acts of betrayal and violence throughout history. But it is my view that wherever there is evil, good is never far away, and good always has the last word. Time and again, when something dreadful happens in our world, we are left to despair of humankind’s capacity for evil. Yet invariably, and especially if we look for it, there is a response which is good, although you often have to look harder for it, because the media prefer bad news to good news. There are so many examples, but one that always sticks in my mind is the way in which the family of 12-year-old Tim Parry, the boy killed by an IRA bomb in Warrington in 1993, used his death and that of 3-year-old Johnathan Ball in the same incident as a catalyst to set up a peace foundation, contributing in no small measure to the eventual end of the IRA bombing campaign and the start of the Ulster peace process. I could quote numerous other stories from throughout history to make the same point. Good – or God – had the last word.

So instead of despairing when something dreadful happens in our world, and bemoaning the absence of God at such times, perhaps we should look for the good – the God – which is always there to respond, to comfort and to heal. And in that respect, Good Friday is aptly named, in that it however hard it must have been to believe it at the time, God (or good) was not far away. Good Friday comes just two days before we remember that even if the physical Jesus was put to death, his spirit, his values and his example of how to live a good life continued to shine in an at times dark and evil world, and still do so to this day.

This Friday is indeed good.