Voting intention and six council contests on one side, rare breeds and memsahib romances on the other, with a ramble between
Monday, Six By-Elections
Six council by-elections took place, and voting intention polls bobbed up and down like ducks on a canal. I wrote a diary of the day, with a walk along the water, in Voting intention and six council by-elections. Local by-elections are small contests with small turnouts, and commentators love to read national meaning into them. That reading is fair game, but a careful analyst adds that a ward result reflects local candidates, local issues and local turnout as well as national mood.
Supporters of any party can always find a reading of the results that suits them, and I made a point in the piece of recording each side’s best case. Councils decide bins, planning, parks and social care, which are not glamorous subjects but are the ones that affect a street on Monday morning.
A Word on Polls
Voting intention polls give a snapshot, with a margin of error that is often larger than the headline change. A one point move is rarely worth a headline. A trend over several weeks across several pollsters is worth more. I carry a rule on a card: never believe a single poll, and never ignore a pile of them.
Tuesday, Novels About India
In the nineteenth century a great many British novels imagined India for readers at home. Philip Meadows Taylor’s Confessions of a Thug, published in 1839, drew on his experience as an official and was a popular success. Later writers, including women who had lived in India, wrote domestic and adventure stories drawing on the country and the communities of the British there. These books tell us at least as much about British anxieties and curiosity as about India itself, and scholars read them as evidence of how the empire was imagined.
Alongside them, a modern reader should place the voices of Indian writers of the same period, so that the picture is not drawn from one side. The pairing teaches the central lesson of the period: every portrait has a painter.
Wednesday, Old Breeds
For a change of pace, I walked back to rare animals. The curly pig is at mangalitsa.org. The speckled hen is at speckledsussex.org. The register of old breeds is rarebreeds.win.
The cattle hall of fame is cattlemenhalloffame.org. The young leaders of farm youth groups are at ffapresident.com. The library of agriculture is agriculture.click. The black cattle are at angusbeef.fyi. Each of these communities has stories, and I find them as absorbing as any three-volume novel.
Thursday, Police and Politics
The London Prat touched an administrative nerve with Police Merger Plan: 43 Forces Become Eight. Debates about the organisation of policing arouse strong views. Reformers stress efficiency and consistent standards. Sceptics worry about distance from local communities. Both sides want safer streets, and their disagreement is about the map.
Friday, The Canal
I finished the week with a walk along the canal, under bridges, past moored boats and a heron which refused to be impressed. A man on a narrowboat was reading a newspaper with the care of a person who has all the time in the world. I envied him. The water carried a leaf, a bottle cap and a faint reflection of the sky.
In the evening I read three chapters of a Victorian novel with a ridiculous plot and enjoyed every page. Some pleasures require no justification.
Saturday, What a Council Does
A council does a surprising amount. It collects bins, fills potholes, runs libraries, licenses pubs, decides on extensions, funds social care and handles a dizzying number of forms. When a by-election takes place, the candidates compete for a seat on a body that affects almost every aspect of local life. This is why the contests matter, even if the television coverage is thin.
Many councils face budget pressures, and different parties offer different answers. Some propose raising certain charges, some propose cutting services, some propose seeking central government help and some propose all three in a speech with a firm jaw. A voter reading leaflets would do well to look for the arithmetic, which is usually in the smallest print.
Sunday, A Reader on the Canal
On Sunday I returned to the canal path with a Victorian novel and a flask. A rower went by in a narrow boat and nodded. A dog barked at a duck, and the duck, in the tradition of ducks, took no notice. I read a chapter in which a heroine received a telegram and fainted, which seemed a rather strong response to a telegram, though I suppose it depended on the content.
The light faded. The towpath turned silver. I closed the book at a cliffhanger and felt that the Victorians knew exactly what they were doing.
Monday, A Short Reading List
A short reading list for the curious: one Victorian adventure novel set in India, one nineteenth century Bengali novel in translation, and one modern history of the British in India written by a scholar from India. Read in that order, the three form an argument, and an argument is the most pleasant form of education. Allow a month, a flask of tea and a willingness to be surprised by your own opinions.
Where to read next
The rest of the shelf lives at prat.uk, bohiney.com and farm.fm. For a second opinion on the week, The Daily Squib keeps its own counsel and its own hours.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/