Corporate BS a la Primark's reminds me of Soviet propaganda. You know, a snow-lashed street somewhere in Baku, people queueing for turnips, posters showing ruddy-faced maidens eating fresh bread in the sunshine.
A painful and somewhat bleak read but I can’t disagree. The first thing that caught my attention was the photo at the top. My Dad used to work in the Midland at Charing Cross in the 1980s.
We share memories of those streets, that shopping centre.
You capture the decayed grandeur of Birkenhead very well - the architecture and the grid of streets with a still beautiful Park. Until recently my mum was in a care home that backed on to the park a well maintained and impressive bit of civic amenity.
My maternal grandfather worked in a shipyard, my uncle went to sea, others worked for Lever Brothers in Port Sunlight. There was industry, jobs, pride and production. It’s a different world now but as you say a drive over Bidston Hill and into West Kirby or Heswall or the villages of Frankby or Thornton Hough will have you thinking you are in some Cheshire playground for millionaires.
It’s bleak but there is still humour and life. The staff in that care home were lovely - many local, although more and more are African and Indian.
Sadly too true. I see a big national disappointment with politics as an 'improving factor'. Labour has abandoned the working man, the Conservatives have abandoned the striving man, and other established parties have abandoned reason. Where Reform will stand remains to be seen.
And yet if you shift the width of your vision you realise that towns and cities rise and fall, possibly over centuries. Cities that were wealthy because of their specialised trades (wool, coal, leather work, hosiery, shipping) fade back towards the average as those trades wane in importance.
It is almost not worth the effort of prediction that government initiatives will fail to achieve any turnaround because they are working to too short a timescale. Vanity projects get great billing but fail as the dull maintenance is neglected.
So what's to be done? Place not your trust in princes but hang on grimly to the notion that individual efforts will 'improve society'. Just acknowledge that the improvements will take a lot of effort and it may be your children, or your childrens' children that will see the benefit.
Perceptive insights and excellent writing, as always. Primark as a symbol of the horror of the age...
The decline feels psychological (or spiritual?) as much as anything else. TS Eliot and Joyce and co were writing about the Wasteland of modernity a hundred years ago. Yet in many ways the world they inhabited feels like a utopia compared to what we have now. I find that I begin 2025 with a great sense of sadness, weariness and foreboding. Is some sort of renewal possible or do we have another hundred years of slow decline, decay and degradation ahead? Not a bang but a long, drawn-out whimper.
Another dispatch from the front that the Donkeys will never read.
The sky is clear blue and the sun is streaming through the glass. Christmas is over and the new year brings a new and what should fulfilling chapter in my families's story. However I can't get to enthusiastic because all my observations of Mordor's grip are triangulated by others observations. From family to friends, from ground level all the way up to the top, the observer core (and I think you are one of them David, albeit with an exceptional gift of description) now not only see it, but sense it.
We know it cannot go on, but we don't know how long it can not go on for, as, in Smith's words 'there is great deal of ruin within a nation' and therefore I'm reluctant to say we're close to something changing though I am sure the herd is restless and ready. Perhaps we have been readied by the last decade and we now waiting for some signal to come, and the good thing about that is, no Starmer or any individual can or will stop it. The problem for the observer core is that they are to close, we have been 'feeling' it for a few years but we lack the height to give it a timescale though I would wager it will be in the next 5 years.
It must be remembered though it will not be a return to anything that has gone before and I was reminded when reading your essay of Ken Clarke's comments on the 'bleached bones of greek civilisation lying in the sun' as he stood with his foot planted on a horizontal column in the breeze of a mediterranean island which seemed to echo with your description of the towns architectural jewels. It seems to me that in our case though the drip feeding of essential nutrients via the largesse of the sate is keeping the patient alive but not functioning and we would all be better if the supply was switched off so we could start to look inward to ourselves rather than outward for a new beginning.
Actually I am not sure that "the gambit which everybody in our chattering classes seems to be banking on is that, by some miracle, making ‘the planet’ better will also make life better on Birkenhead high street".
I suspect most of them care much more about whether their actions make their own lives better than about Birkenhead High St.
They are not working for the good of the country. They are working to increase their own power and prosperity. They "virtue signal" to increase their own prestige in the eyes of the people who matter to them - others in the chattering class.
On the rare occasions when the plight of somewhere like Birkenhead impinges on their consciousness, their answer is to become even more prosperous themselves, so that they can afford to live in gated communities with private security.
Why would they care if public services are collapsing? They never use them anyway.
I have never in my lifetime seen a bigger gulf between the rulers and the ruled in Britain. And this, I believe, is the reason for the rise of Reform UK. We will have to hope they are successful, because they look to me somewhat like the last roll of the dice for democracy in the UK.
Stable money (as we had for 250 years until 1971).
Somewhat less regulation.
‘Planning’ laws (ie post WW2 central planning for building) reduced to two sides of A4.
Modular nuclear power station in every single county.
Push back net zero goals 10 years.
Basically just do again what made us rich 200 years ago with no government initiatives at all - low tax, stable money, freedom to build and do business and cheap energy.
I agree - while reading about Birkenhead I was mentally substituting my own city and feeling more and more depressed at the similarities between the two.
You can cross to the other side of the Pennines and find similar places with similar problems. With few job prospects, all those with 'get up and go' have got up and went.
FWIW it was in Frankfurt (a/M) Hbf 30 years ago that I first saw someone shooting up in public.
The difference is even more stark in California, where the transition from "shiny, bright future" to "gritty, grimy present" has taken place within a much shorter period of time.
If you take requests, please do Ellesmere Port next. This was a cracking read, inspired by a place I know well.
The strand that leapt out for me was the incongruity of modern branding. It is created by people who know nothing of the spaces in which their ideas will eventually appear. This seems apposite in the context of what appears to be the emergence of a netherworld represented by places like Birkenhead and the Port.
As a 'surface dweller' it feels like a kind of adventure to walk those streets. They're like Mansoul, in Alan Moore's Jerusalem. More of another dimension than just down-at-heel spaces.
Yes, there really is a metaphysical aspect to this that is worth noting! Ellesmere Port - a weird place that I only tend to have driven past. When I was a kid I used to get dragged along to raucous New Year's Eve parties held at the house of friends of my parents at a housing estate somewhere on its outskirts. Otherwise there has never been any reason for me to go there (which itself says a lot...).
Corporate BS a la Primark's reminds me of Soviet propaganda. You know, a snow-lashed street somewhere in Baku, people queueing for turnips, posters showing ruddy-faced maidens eating fresh bread in the sunshine.
It increasingly has that kind of a feel to it, doesn't it?
A painful and somewhat bleak read but I can’t disagree. The first thing that caught my attention was the photo at the top. My Dad used to work in the Midland at Charing Cross in the 1980s.
We share memories of those streets, that shopping centre.
You capture the decayed grandeur of Birkenhead very well - the architecture and the grid of streets with a still beautiful Park. Until recently my mum was in a care home that backed on to the park a well maintained and impressive bit of civic amenity.
My maternal grandfather worked in a shipyard, my uncle went to sea, others worked for Lever Brothers in Port Sunlight. There was industry, jobs, pride and production. It’s a different world now but as you say a drive over Bidston Hill and into West Kirby or Heswall or the villages of Frankby or Thornton Hough will have you thinking you are in some Cheshire playground for millionaires.
It’s bleak but there is still humour and life. The staff in that care home were lovely - many local, although more and more are African and Indian.
Anyway, a piece that hit me hard.
Sadly too true. I see a big national disappointment with politics as an 'improving factor'. Labour has abandoned the working man, the Conservatives have abandoned the striving man, and other established parties have abandoned reason. Where Reform will stand remains to be seen.
And yet if you shift the width of your vision you realise that towns and cities rise and fall, possibly over centuries. Cities that were wealthy because of their specialised trades (wool, coal, leather work, hosiery, shipping) fade back towards the average as those trades wane in importance.
It is almost not worth the effort of prediction that government initiatives will fail to achieve any turnaround because they are working to too short a timescale. Vanity projects get great billing but fail as the dull maintenance is neglected.
So what's to be done? Place not your trust in princes but hang on grimly to the notion that individual efforts will 'improve society'. Just acknowledge that the improvements will take a lot of effort and it may be your children, or your childrens' children that will see the benefit.
Yes, exactly right.
Perceptive insights and excellent writing, as always. Primark as a symbol of the horror of the age...
The decline feels psychological (or spiritual?) as much as anything else. TS Eliot and Joyce and co were writing about the Wasteland of modernity a hundred years ago. Yet in many ways the world they inhabited feels like a utopia compared to what we have now. I find that I begin 2025 with a great sense of sadness, weariness and foreboding. Is some sort of renewal possible or do we have another hundred years of slow decline, decay and degradation ahead? Not a bang but a long, drawn-out whimper.
We're going to find out, I think, within this Parliament.
Always always profoundly thought provoking. Thank you, Uncibal is first thing I look for
Thanks, Marek!
Another dispatch from the front that the Donkeys will never read.
The sky is clear blue and the sun is streaming through the glass. Christmas is over and the new year brings a new and what should fulfilling chapter in my families's story. However I can't get to enthusiastic because all my observations of Mordor's grip are triangulated by others observations. From family to friends, from ground level all the way up to the top, the observer core (and I think you are one of them David, albeit with an exceptional gift of description) now not only see it, but sense it.
We know it cannot go on, but we don't know how long it can not go on for, as, in Smith's words 'there is great deal of ruin within a nation' and therefore I'm reluctant to say we're close to something changing though I am sure the herd is restless and ready. Perhaps we have been readied by the last decade and we now waiting for some signal to come, and the good thing about that is, no Starmer or any individual can or will stop it. The problem for the observer core is that they are to close, we have been 'feeling' it for a few years but we lack the height to give it a timescale though I would wager it will be in the next 5 years.
It must be remembered though it will not be a return to anything that has gone before and I was reminded when reading your essay of Ken Clarke's comments on the 'bleached bones of greek civilisation lying in the sun' as he stood with his foot planted on a horizontal column in the breeze of a mediterranean island which seemed to echo with your description of the towns architectural jewels. It seems to me that in our case though the drip feeding of essential nutrients via the largesse of the sate is keeping the patient alive but not functioning and we would all be better if the supply was switched off so we could start to look inward to ourselves rather than outward for a new beginning.
What rough beast slouches towards Birkenhead Primark?
Great comment!
Sadly all true, David.
Actually I am not sure that "the gambit which everybody in our chattering classes seems to be banking on is that, by some miracle, making ‘the planet’ better will also make life better on Birkenhead high street".
I suspect most of them care much more about whether their actions make their own lives better than about Birkenhead High St.
They are not working for the good of the country. They are working to increase their own power and prosperity. They "virtue signal" to increase their own prestige in the eyes of the people who matter to them - others in the chattering class.
On the rare occasions when the plight of somewhere like Birkenhead impinges on their consciousness, their answer is to become even more prosperous themselves, so that they can afford to live in gated communities with private security.
Why would they care if public services are collapsing? They never use them anyway.
I have never in my lifetime seen a bigger gulf between the rulers and the ruled in Britain. And this, I believe, is the reason for the rise of Reform UK. We will have to hope they are successful, because they look to me somewhat like the last roll of the dice for democracy in the UK.
A lot of truth in this, sadly.
National renewal could start next week, but the uniparty don’t seem to want it
Massively reduce taxes (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Magic-Formula-Timeless-Economic-Prosperity/dp/1733635505).
Stable money (as we had for 250 years until 1971).
Somewhat less regulation.
‘Planning’ laws (ie post WW2 central planning for building) reduced to two sides of A4.
Modular nuclear power station in every single county.
Push back net zero goals 10 years.
Basically just do again what made us rich 200 years ago with no government initiatives at all - low tax, stable money, freedom to build and do business and cheap energy.
The problem with that is that there would be much less need for government - and we can't have that, can we?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/24/state-will-take-back-control-of-peoples-lives-says-starmer/
My Grandma (born 1897) used to say 'fine words butter no parsnips'. I think people in Britain are increasingly aware of that simple fact.
Great read David, thank you.
Thanks, Penny.
For Birkenhead, substitute just about any town or city in Britain, to a greater or lesser extent
These sorts of places are everywhere, to be sure.
I agree - while reading about Birkenhead I was mentally substituting my own city and feeling more and more depressed at the similarities between the two.
Another excellent piece, David. All this thinking has to coalesce into a book at some time, surely?
Possibly!
You can cross to the other side of the Pennines and find similar places with similar problems. With few job prospects, all those with 'get up and go' have got up and went.
FWIW it was in Frankfurt (a/M) Hbf 30 years ago that I first saw someone shooting up in public.
The difference is even more stark in California, where the transition from "shiny, bright future" to "gritty, grimy present" has taken place within a much shorter period of time.
And probably the wealth disparities are even more stark!
If you take requests, please do Ellesmere Port next. This was a cracking read, inspired by a place I know well.
The strand that leapt out for me was the incongruity of modern branding. It is created by people who know nothing of the spaces in which their ideas will eventually appear. This seems apposite in the context of what appears to be the emergence of a netherworld represented by places like Birkenhead and the Port.
As a 'surface dweller' it feels like a kind of adventure to walk those streets. They're like Mansoul, in Alan Moore's Jerusalem. More of another dimension than just down-at-heel spaces.
Yes, there really is a metaphysical aspect to this that is worth noting! Ellesmere Port - a weird place that I only tend to have driven past. When I was a kid I used to get dragged along to raucous New Year's Eve parties held at the house of friends of my parents at a housing estate somewhere on its outskirts. Otherwise there has never been any reason for me to go there (which itself says a lot...).
Hugely enjoyable post, thank you, even though it makes me reflect sadly on the decline of my own city.
A wonderful piece. Thank you.
Thanks!