Parish politics and the public toilet
Published 07 August 2006
People who go to the Game Fair feel like a persecuted minority of hunter-gatherers. The trade stands offer doggy gourmet food. There is even a dog crèche
I celebrated the first anniversary of my leaving Channel 4 News by becoming the lowest form of political life - a non-elected, independent parish councillor for my village in Wiltshire. After 30 years at Westminster, I wanted to get involved with politics from the bottom up. I am proud that my first act was to back a motion helping keep open the public lavatories in a neighbouring village. The district council has withdrawn support for them, so the parish has had to take them over, which gives a new meaning to the penny precept.
Our other decision was to reject a proposal from the Department for Environment to send someone off to be trained in the necessary legal and communications skills to become a shit sheriff with the power to fine anyone £80 for letting their dog foul in a public place. We decided that, in a small community like ours, public opinion was a bigger deterrent.
For in a village, we care about what our neighbours think. So much so, that there is an outcry about the privacy implications of the new wheelie bins. The rubbish police are ruthlessly going through our black boxes to make sure everything is recyclable - shamefully my box was rejected because I hadn't washed out a tin properly. I was just cross, but one friend is so embarrassed at the binmen knowing she drinks three bottles of wine a week that she is going round at night slipping her empties into other people's boxes.
Challenge ahoy
I left TV because I wanted a new challenge. Chairing the Affordable Rural Housing Commission was certainly that. Instead of smirking on the sidelines, I had to come to grips with a complicated issue. Arguably, if the government accepts our recommendations, the report will have more impact on people's lives than any story I ever wrote. Anyway, radio is what I really enjoy now. I have been doing a programme on Margaret Thatcher's life after she left No 10. It might be thought that a fading memory would protect her from the embarrassment of her children. Far from it; apparently she watched Carol on I'm a Celebrity . . . Get Me Out of Here! with great enjoyment. "That Carol," she said. "You can see she's a Thatcher - she's a winner."
England of festivals
I am not going abroad this summer, but exploring England through its festivals. So on Friday I went to the Game Fair, where I could indulge my love of all things rural and four-legged, and on Saturday to the Womad festival of world music in Reading. I suspect the only other person who went to both was Martin Salter, who took on the pro-hunting lobby at the Game Fair before basking in his more natural environment at Womad - which is in his constituency.
I concluded that the difference between the thousands who turned up at each event was not so much class - the voices at the Game Fair may be mainly public school but you also hear the accents of deep rural England - as tribal. Those who go to the Game Fair feel like a persecuted minority of hunter-gatherers. Most either fish or hunt, and they are passionate about the countryside and dogs. The trade stands offer doggy gourmet food alongside rows of Barbour coats and ranks of fishing rods. There is a dog crèche and even the charities, such as Dogs for the Deaf, have an animal connection.
At Womad, the atmosphere is pastoral. Children - and adults - are dressed as fairies, and one stall invites people to "find the faerie within". The audience is also more multicultural. People who enjoy world music are internationalists. Rather than wrapping themselves up in the Union flag, they wrap themselves in Indian fabrics, and the stalls reflect their interests - developing-world charities, ethical travel, ethnic clothing, pixie outfits and tutus. You could even buy a vegan feather boa. The two tribes sometimes wear similar clothes - the ubiquitous baggy shorts of the summer of 2006 and panama hats, though at Womad they are sold as "Fairtrade" panamas.
Both, in different ways, care about the environment, and both hate Tony Blair. At the Game Fair, even though hunting still goes on in some form in much of the UK, people wear "Bollocks to Blair" badges with pride; at Womad, the badges demand an end to war on Palestine. Comfortingly for him, I suppose, neither tribe is exactly typical of Middle England.
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