Thursday 22 December 2016

Post-truth team of the year

Post-truth luminaries
Podium finish for this figure of fun
"That was the year that was, it's over let it go," sang Millicent Martin in the days when satire was in its infancy and post-truth was still half a lifetime away.

2016 has shattered many hopes and created a sense of despair about the deceptions that have been heaped on the British public. I was reminded this morning when Minister for Culture, Karen Bradley, was avoiding questions from John Humphries and making false claims about the rollout of super-fast broadband. The media inquisitors are just as adept at employing post-truth accusations as the politicians and corporate elite are at reciting post-truth idioms to evade them.

It made me reflect on the major culprits who have made post-truth such a construct of choice for our politicians, media types and corporate elite. There are so many contenders in what has been a bumper year for the post-truth artists formerly known as liars. Here is my post-truth team of 2016.

1. Nigel Farage, is always a strong contender for his ability to stay calm when delivering unreasonable, unsubstantiated hateful remarks. He tops the list for his appalling sleight on Jo Cox's husband - "he would know more about extremists than me" after the Berlin massacre earlier this week.
2. Liam Fox for not knowing the price or the value of anything.
3. (Sir) Philip Green for his avarice, arrogance and brashness as he screwed up UK retail businesses and then blamed...
4. Dominic Chappell, a serial bankrupt, for behaving as we expect hedge funders to behave by bankrupting BHS and its pension fund, causing devastation for thousands of loyal low-paid staff.
5. Boris Johnson for being the self-obsessed purveyor of fiction as fact and all-round bad egg
6. David Cameron for calling a referendum and then claiming that the deal he had negotiated with EU leaders had addressed the concerns of the British public.
7. Owen Smith for bullying his way to being the challenger for the Labour leadership and promising Jeremy Corbyn that we could both be heroes if I could be the leader and you the party president.
8. Derek MacKay, the Scottish Finance minister for failing to deliver a progressive first Scottish budget and instead simply pissing on councils and blaming the treasury.
9. Laura Kuensberg for trivialising and failing to provide an objective analysis of political news, something that the BBC used to do so well
10. Jose Mourinho for extreme egoism in claiming he is the top coach whilst destroying Man Utd and Chelsea as attractive and winning teams for which I thank him.
11. Dido Harding for spinning the mistruth about Talk Talk and failing to inform customers of hacked accounts whilst blaming BT for everything.

Mrs May was a non contender having failed to say much, answer any questions or do anything yet.

The overseas prize was a tight affair with Donald Trump, President Rodrigo Duerte, and President Jacob Zuma pushing Rupert Murdoch hard. But Murdoch wins it for the 35th consecutive year. His end-of-the-year sprint to purchase Sky after its price had dropped 31% post-Brexit was hacking immoral. When he last tried to buy out Sky in 2011 he had been found as 'not fit to lead a major international company' and his son James of 'showing a wilful ignorance of the extent of phone hacking ' by the Culture and Media Commons Select Committee. I fully expect that Trump will take the crown next year assuming he survives the travails of being President.

The Lifelong Achievement Award goes without saying to Katie Hopkins.

Thursday 15 December 2016

Social Care: the Government are deceiving, delegating and delusional

Social care but only for the lucky few 

So the social care crisis that everyone agrees has reached breaking point is going to be solved by allowing Councils to increase council tax by 6% over the next 3 years. Mrs May claims that this is a sustainable solution. She is either dafter or more devious than I had taken her for. Most of the media fell for it, the ability of journalists to gather or make any useful diagnosis of government press releases is increasingly disturbing. The BBC in particular are culpable with their health correspondent having a palpable lack of analytical skills. The NHS has been cast by the media as the poster public service in relation to the needs of the elderly. The hard truth has been apparent for years; it is social care that has been underfunded and allowed to disintegrate in the face of a rapidly ageing population with a significant longer life expectation.

Lets examine the facts.
  • Over the next 3 years the Office of National Statistics (ONS) predicts a rise in the number of over 75's of 8.1%. (Over 75s is a better measure of the need for care than the over 65's - the majority of whom live independently.)
  • The increase in care costs over the last 3 years, when inflation was almost negligible, was 7.1%. For the sake of simplicity lets assume that it will continue at this level for the next 3 years. In reality inflation will push these costs higher. 
  • If care costs increase by 7.1% and there is 8.1% growth in the over 75s, the total increase in cost to keep services at present day levels will be 8.67%. Yet everyone agrees that these levels of service are unacceptable.
  • Council tax in England provides only £23bn (24%) of the total council expenditure of £96bn.  
  • The rest of council income comes from charges, 10% e.g. nursery fees, school meals, planning and building control fees and car parking, a further 10% comes from business rates, and 55% from government through the revenue support grant.
  • So over 3 years, the government will give permission for local government to increase council tax by 6%. This will be ring fenced for social care but applies to only the 24% of councils total budget. 
  • That adds up to 1.5% growth in council funding for social care over 3 years compared to a growth of 8.67% in social care needs. 
  • The funding gap may increase further as the introduction of a national living wage of £9 by 2020 and the loss of workers from the EU are factored in.
  • Many existing care providers have claimed that they are operating at a loss and may not be able to survive without increased payments from councils.
  • Sajid Javed is now claiming that the government will fund another £240m for social care but this will be diverted from council's new homes budgets. 
In other words the government will allow councils to raise just a sixth of the total increase in care costs over the next three years. There is no attempt to address the present shortfall in social care provision that has prompted the crisis. It will, of course, allow the government to claim that they have made funding available to councils and that councils must decide priorities. If some councils manage to meet social care demands they will be quoted as a justification of the government's policy. Other councils will be tarred by Ministers who are teflon-coated when it comes to accountability for their austerity policies.

Mrs May, this is not sustainable and it follows a cut of £1.95bn in grants for social care over the last 6 years by the Cameron governments. Social care has been protected by councils as much as possible, which is why libraries and sports facilities have closed, buildings have been allowed to detiorate, roads have not been repaired, assets have been flogged off and dozens of other local services have been starved of funding.

This is a deception that even such post-truth luminaries such as Michael Gove, Liam Fox and Ian Duncan Smith would be proud of. Delegating responsibility for investing more on social care to councils at the same time as stripping them of funding and assets is morally reprehensible. Or it could be that ministers are supine in the face of the social care crisis that they have imposed on the frail elderly and disabled. Justice is being served cold by the May government, it is a cruel twist of Mrs May's pledge on becoming PM. She is, to translate her rhetoric into reality, 'entrenching the disadvantages for the unfortunate many.'

Tuesday 13 December 2016

Tesco Man wins accolade from Kendal Fellwalkers

On Ladhar Bheinn 2007
I received a copy of the Kendal Fellwalker newsletter bearing a feature on my walking friend Mark. He had moved from Scotland to the Lake District 18 months ago after an early retirement and set about the Lakeland hills with a gusto that had seen him climb over 3000 Munros over the previous 25 years. The gist of the newsletter is that he is crazy or 'hardcore'.

The diagnosis did not surprise me as we had walked on dozens of occasions over a 15 year period and we had climbed together on most of Scotland's munros, some of them several times. I chalked up munro rounds whilst Mark counted the number of munros. He was walking twice as many munros as me most years and I was averaging 65 or so each year. He broke 200 in one year but has never completed the Munros because he promised his wife that he would not climb those that required rock climbing skills - the In Pinn and Am Basteir on the Skye ridge.  He would have no difficulty climbing either of them but a promise is a promise, Mark is principled as well as erudite.

Even before our first walk together on a sunny July day in 2002 I knew that he was an obsessive hill walker from the way he dressed at work - trainers, woolly jumpers, rucksacks and he had a long languid stride pattern. The afternoon was too good to be stuck in the office and I had already arranged to leave work early and go for a walk with my son. I bumped into Mark and asked if he fancied a walk in Glencoe, maybe Bidean nam Bian. The answer was an unhesitating yes after he had spoken to his boss, the formidable Mr Risk.

It was almost 4pm when I left work to collect my son from home and then drove to Callander to pick up Mark. We reached Glencoe at 6:00pm to climb its highest and best peak, Bidean nam Bian and despite time being against us we climbed by the longer route via Beinn Fada and Stop Coire Sgreamhach. We tested each other out on the challenging slopes up Beinn Fada. No quarter was given and we summited Bidean before 9:00pm. We completed the walk in less than 5 hours and made it home just after midnight. Compared to what came later it was a minor skirmish with the hills.

Over the next dozen or so years we walked together on over 80 occasions taking in almost 200 munros, countless corbetts and lesser hills. It included lots of walks of over 12 hours, a score of finishes well after darkness, bivvying on hilltops, camping in lay-byes, and long weekends in May and September to climb the more distant hills in Torridon, Fisherfield, Glen Shiel and the far north. We climbed 28 munros in a week in 2005 and skipped round the 5 munros in Glen Affric in quick time in order to get back to the hostel in Cannich to watch Liverpool beat AC Milan in the European Cup Final.

I introduced Mark to my rather brutal habit of doubling up on hill walks - two or more outings in a day. Most famously we drove 200 miles on a Friday night, grabbed a 4 hour camp on a nettle bed by the beach at Glenelg before climbing Beinn Sgriol and the two nearby corbetts followed by a 100-mile drive into Knoydart to climb Gairich and then 120 miles home. On another occasion, the Aonach Eagach ridge was climbed on a cloudy 5 November after which we had a late afternoon walk up Ben Lomond and watched the fireworks from the summit.

We even managed an 18-hour walk from Kinlochhourn to Barrisdale, the three Knoydart munros and then back on a late September day. On this occasion, Mark was christened Tesco man by three thirty something walkers, whom he had just cruised past on the seriously steep ascent of Luinne Bheinn. As I passed them at a more sedate pace they asked: "Is he with you and are you sure he is safe to go out dressed in that equipment?" "Well, yes" I replied not having thought about it before. He usually walked in an old pair of Asic trainers, woollen jumper, carried a small cheap rucksack, which on this occasion was topped by a Tesco bag containing his charity shop waterproof jacket and trousers. He was a goretex free zone. Walking meant walking, it was not an excuse for shopping for outdoor gear, shopping merely wasted good walking time.

My answer had obviously not convinced the walkers and when I strolled into the Barrisdale bothy alone at 8:15pm after crossing the tidal channels at Barrisdale they looked worried. "Where is Tesco man," they asked. I explained that he had slowed down after falling waist deep into one of the tidal channels but that he would be here soon. I had watched his head torch zig-zagging across the braided tidal flats. Climbing the three munros, Luinne Bheinn, Meall Bhuidhe and Ladhar Bheinn had been a big day after walking in from Kinlochhourn. The thirty somethings had done the first two but had started from the bothy. When we put on rucksacks at 9pm for the 3-hour walk in the dark to Kinlochhourn they knew that Tesco man was hardcore.

And this was echoed in the Kendal Fell Walker newsletter that summed up Mark as suffering from a fanatical hill walker tendency that drives him to walk virtually every day. Here is the text.

The Lord of Walking    

As the clock struck midnight on the 31st December, 2015, lots of people were making New Year’s resolutions to give up smoking or stop eating chocolate. Many were promising to turn off the television, cycle to work, or even join a gym class while others will have promised to try a marathon or a triathlon. For mountain folk, like us Kendal Fellwalkers, the challenges might have been a Coast-to-Coast walk, or the Pennine Way, or finally driving round to the western Lakes to finish the Wainwrights. But not our Mark; his target was to walk 5,000 miles, climb 1,000,000 feet, and bag 1,000 Wainwright’s, including three consecutive sets.
IN ONE YEAR.

To put that into perspective, Mark Tye was promising himself he would average 14 miles, 2800ft of ascent, and 3 Wainwrights, EVERY DAY of 2016. Our first reaction, on a Sunday A walk in early January was, ‘he’s winding us up’. But then we thought about it. He already regarded ‘A’ walks as a rest day, and often walked over the fells to meet us at the start, then walked home afterwards. His stats for the walks he led, as given to Janet and shown on the program were, quite frankly, a fiction; in that he’d just go as far as anyone let him. We generally rebelled and he accepted our weakness without derision. He never missed an opportunity to add an extra summit for himself and then rejoin the group.

Before he moved to Ambleside he had climbed a mighty 3092 Munros. We had not named him ‘Lord Tye of Ambleside’ for nothing. We already knew he was ‘hardcore'. He walks in knackered old trainers and his knitted jumpers are legendary. He wears one all day, even when the temperature is into the 20’s. We thought they were a sort of anti-fashion statement on all our fluorescent Goretex, but on reflection, there is no artifice about him whatsoever. 

Mark has never been known to sit down, even at lunch, we put out a reward of £5 for anyone who could persuade, trick or cajole him into it. It’s unclaimed of course. 

In Scotland this year he’d already done four monumental days before the KFW tribe even fell out of our cars; and then put in another huge distance every day of our ‘holiday’. This being early June we asked him about his targets and he smiled, saying he was ‘ahead’. But his brow dipped as he added, ‘Mind you I’m getting behind on my Wainwrights.’ Some people are never happy. But actually, that’s just what he is. Mark is happy on the mountains. And never gets impatient with our snail’s pace, nor upset with other people, however unreasonable they may be. He is modest too, claiming his greatest achievement as ‘still being married.’ All in all he’s an inspiration to those of us who are tempted to slow down and he carries your bag with a smile. 

So now it’s December 2016. How did he get on with his targets? 
No sweat. By December 8th he has summitted 1195 Wainwrights, walked 5071 miles and climbed 1,172,000 feet. 
Surely next year he’ll have a rest, won’t he?


Presented with a sit mat by Kendal Fellwalkers



Sunday 4 December 2016

Stob Dubh, Glen Etive

Stob Dubh from Beinn Ceitlein
Saturday, 3 December 2016

Ascent:        1045 metres

Distance:     11 kilometres
Time:           5 hours 0 minutes

An Grianan          494m    52mins

Beinn Ceitlein     834m    2hrs 10mins
Stob Dubh           885m    2hrs  52mins

The first snows of a fortnight ago had largely melted and today was to be clear and warmer than of late. Stop Dubh has been high on the list of remaining corbetts to be climbed for at least ten years. I had always intended to climb it along with the five Glen Etive munros including Ben Starav but that is for a long summer's day and Stop Dubh is not a enticing prospect at the end of an already long day. From the south side it is just about as steep and long a continuous slope as you get anywhere in Scotland. The.walk highlands website recommends a route from higher up Glen Etive starting from the bridge over the river to Alltchaorunn cottage. This would be the last corbett south of Glencoe that I had to climb, the guidebooks said 7 to 8 hours but with my intuitive optimism I thought it looked more like four and a half hours on the map.

I was up by 7am hoping to leave at first light (8:15am) but breakfast, reading up the route, putting the bins out for a Saturday collection, selecting appropriate gear - would I need crampons, ice axe, bivvy bag etc. meant it was 8:45am before I began the journey. I parked at a passing place along the single track road 4 miles down the Glen Etive road about 200 metres past the incongruous steel girder bridge. There was already a fully specced Mercedes 4x4 parked and room for another 5 cars. The bridge crosses to a gate that could have been designed for a prison. Made of steel with massive bolts, 12 feet high and fencing at either side. The bolt was unlocked so it was an easier entry than the next two locked but low gates leading to the cottage and  the hillside. Two outbuildings to the cottage were in ruins and the cottage itself unoccupied.

The Allt a' Chaorainn carries a massive volume of water and tumbles down the glen over exposed bedrock. A bridge just beyond the cottage leads to the fenced enclosure that is protecting the regeneration of native trees. It was blocked by a photographer, presumably the guy with the Mercedes. He asked me to wait whilst he took a long exposure onto a plate camera. He had a rucksack full of lenses and plates that must have weighed 15kg.. The equipment looked capable of capturing the secrets of Mars or the DNA of deer excrement. He made me feel a bit of a cheapskate when I took the digital camera out of my pocket to take a view from the bridge. At least I would have better subjects than him later in the day.

A muddy path winds its way through the woodland with bedrock exposed in places until a gate through the deer fence at the end of this part of the walk. A faint path turns to the right and scores its way through long grass that had turned the colour of straw, it eventually petered out so I aimed for the notch in the skyline below the prominent crag, An Grianan. It is a distinctive point at the north end of the long 3 kilometre ridge up to Beinn Ceitlein. An extra 55 metres of ascent was required to the summit of An Grianan but was worth it for the splendid views across Glen Etive to both Buchaille Etive Mor and Beag as well as Bidean nam Bian.

The sky was a serene mix of deep blue dappled with grey clouds. The walking conditions were perfect, there was no whisper of  wind and, although it was just about freezing, the hard exercise of the climb kept the body warm. It was the steep slopes, greasy rocks and patches of hard ice that made the walking difficult. This changed for the better as I turned southwards from the narower section of the ridge and began the traverse across the gentler slopes leading to the cairn of Beinn Ceitlein. There were rock bands, glinting frozen lochans, patches of snow, scree and boulders. In the distance the objective of the day, Stop Dubh, stood dark and proud like a wedge of toblerone, it seemed well named.

There is a 70 metre descent to the bealach from Beinn Ceitlein before the final 120 metre climb up steeper scree slopes to Stop Dubh. I contoured round and as I approached the face of Stob Dubh I saw what I assumed to be another walker sitting on a rocky ledge below the summit. I thought he/she would be descending down the slopes that I was climbing but owing to the concave nature of the slope the figure was hidden for 10 minutes as I scrambled through the boulders. On reappearing the figure took off flapping its massive wings a few times and then glided across to the distant peak of Stob Coir' an Albannaich. The sixth sighting of a golden eagle this year, which must be a record.

It was 1:30pm as I reached the summit just as the sun lit up the hills to the north west. The lighting of Bidean nam Bian, one of my favourite mountains, could not have been better achieved by the best of stage lighting teams. The autumn hues of amber and copper on the lower slopes were capped by snow covered ridges and in the distance Ben Nevis loomed like a primeval monster. I sat at the summit for 15 minutes, it was comparatively warm with no gloves required - a great reward for the long slog up to Beinn Ceitlein en route to reaching this challenging hill. I drank a flask of coffee, ate an orange and marvelled at the spectacle of the light show on a fine winter's day.

The descent was quicker and I enjoyed the walk over the gently descending plateau of Beinn Ceitlein. The final descent of 300 metres down to the glen was hard on the feet with the long grass concealing ditches and loose rock. I decided to make a beeline for the bridge to save some time and distance but ended up having to climb a couple of high fences and then traverse across a bog to reach the path. It was 4pm before reaching the bridge, two large stags were heading down to the river to drink. They sized me up and stood their ground, I roared at them and they turned and gave me the space to reach the road. I was mighty pleased as I doubt that the new hat that Louise had crocheted me would have stood much of a chance against the antlers. Only 41 more corbetts to climb.


Allt Chaorunn by footbridge

Buchaille Etive Mor from An Grianan
Summit of Stop Dubh from south east
Bidean nam Bian from Stob Dubh
Buchaille Etive Mor from Stob Dubh
Beinn Nevis from Beinn Ceitlein
Beinn Starav and Loch Etive from Stob Dubh
Looking north across Beinn Ceitlein ridge