The Great Easter Debate

The current debate about whether the Christian festival or Easter should be fixed at the same time every year instead of wandering about over a period of weeks as it does now (something to do with the Spring equinox and full moons I think - does it matter?) falls into the same category as many other issues where there it is blindingly obvious that something should be done and the vast majority of people want something to be done, but nobody can actually bring it about. Just to dwell on Easter specifically for a moment, it is absurd that Christians should accept that Christmas falls on the same date every year but that Easter does not (yes, yes, I know the Easter Church has a different Christmas, but it is still on the same date every year), after all, both were specific events which, if they did indeed take place (let’s assume they did)took place at a specific time, and did not somehow wander about. Why is Easter different? An expert I heard recently has established that Good Friday occurred on April 5th, 34 AD, i.e. two days after Passover in that year. Passover, by the way, also wanders about for no apparent reason. That’ll do for me. Apparently the rules governing the date of Easter date back so some sort of convocation of clerics in the Middle Ages. I will leave what I think about that to your imagination. So there is a widespread support for fixing the date of Easter, it will help schools (some of which are no longer basing their Spring holiday on Easter but simply having Good Friday and Easter Monday as separate holidays, very sensible except that it causes problems with kids at different schools), it will help businesses and will also help all those involved in the celebration of Easter including vicars and priests. Above all it would be triumph of logic over superstition and inertia So what has this to do with anything? Well quite a bit actually. It falls into the same category as issues like reforming the House of Lords and abolishing Greenwich Meantime (or is it British Summer Time, whatever, changing the clocks, I mean?) and, stretching the point a little, adopting a more sensible voting system for Westminster. We all know it should be done, most want it done, the world would be improved if it were done, but it never gets done. Sometimes it is arguments over detail that create inertia, as in the case of Lords reform, but generally it is because of a lack of political will. In the end the people who could effect change simply can’t stir themselves to do it. They just can’t be bothered. This means that all the good that can flow from reform is lost. What’s the answer? Sometimes it is a crisis or key event of some kind. For example, had the UK elected a second hung parliament in a row in 2015 the calls for a change to the electoral system might have become unstoppable. Until such occurrences happen we have to listen to the voices that say ‘it ain’t broke so let’s not fix it,’ or ‘it has stood the test of time etc.’ The trouble is, very often it is ‘broke’ and it will not stand the test of time any longer, but still the voices of inertia drone on. In the end only two possibilities are left. One is people power and the other is the emergence of a charismatic figure who can lead us into the light. Sadly most of these issues just aren’t important enough so we will have to muddle along for another thousand years. The really sad thing is that the UK is, at least in name, a parliamentary democracy. Parliament has the power, MPs have little enough to do while they are in London, so it’s up to them to stand up and be counted, show a little chutzpah and get on with it. Otherwise what is the use of parliament if it refuses to do slightly difficult things?

The Jeremy Hunt conspiracy theory

A conspiracy theory is doing the rounds, well at least the rounds of the North London chatterati, that Jeremy Hunt’s woeful performance as a minister is actually a subtle long term plan to privatise the NHS. Put simply, the idea is that he will prove that the current NHS arrangement is unworkable by stumbling from one crisis to the next, so that getting rid of it will seem like a blessing. My political memory goes back a long way but I cannot remember a senior minister who has so startlingly created such a poor record for themselves another. Worse still, in this case it all seems to be of his own making. There was the case of Labour education minister Estelle Minister who ‘outed’ herself in 2002 as ‘not up to the job,’ but she was not in post for very long and did not perpetrate any major single gaffes. Specifically her department missed its numeracy and literacy targets and she promised to resign if this happened. Well, if ministers resigned when their department missed its targets, the government benches would look pretty empty most of the time, not least George Osborne’s seat. If we go back to the sixties, Frank Cousins, a prominent trade union leader, was found a safe parliamentary seat for Labour and elevated into government (as technology minister - a strange appointment as trade union leaders were notorious at the time for obstructing technological advances on the grounds that they cost jobs). Cousins proved to be incompetent and lasted only twenty months. The Conservatives, too, have appointed a number of ‘business leaders’ who have failed as ministers. It is always difficult to know whether dismissed minister has lost his or her job because they have fallen out with the PM or they simply aren’t up to it, but there has undoubtedly been a cavalcade of poor tenures as long as the list of failed England football managers. Hunt, though, takes the biscuit. Since taking office in the last government he has consistently missed targets, the performance of several key aspects of the NHS has declined, he has failed to secure from the Treasury anything like the funds needed to maintain the service at its current levels, there are now chronic staff shortages, and, of course, he has succeeded in provoking a war with his own loyal employees. By any standards it is a dismal record. Hunt is, I suppose, unlucky in that he compares so badly to a number of ministers who have considerable experience and who have gained the respect of parts of the political community; I mean May, Osborne, Duncan Smith and the like. Beside them Jeremy Hunt increasingly looks like the hapless schoolboy who has forgotten to hand in his homework...again! Before you accuse me of being anti-Conservative, I should say that, when I look over at the Labour benches, I am not sure much better is available. Certainly Andy Burnham was not exactly a roaring success. So what is going on? Certainly Hunt’s survival seems to be largely about the fact that he is a close ally of the prime minister. Cameron needs allies at this difficult time and Hunt is as staunch as they come. But what about the conspiracy theory? I am not normally a fan of such phenomena. I do think that Kennedy was shot by one or two left wing fanatics and not the Mafia, I do believe that man landed on the moon in 1969 and that it was Islamic extremists who flew the planes into the World Trade Centre in 2001 and not the CIA. In this case, though, the Hunt Conspiracy that is, I have to say it seems to hold more water than most of the other theories.