How strange it was to find the Labour government giving the country three weeks to consider sweeping new changes to local government that no one had asked for, while simultaneously specifying three years for a new report by Lady Casey on Social Care – a subject on which everyone is desperate for action. Could this be because local government reorganisation is a cost-cutting exercise and ministers know that dealing with Social Care will cost money? How shabby that the White Paper on Devolution was slipped out just before the Christmas and New Year break to limit media scrutiny and public engagement. Introducing the White Paper, Deputy PM Angela Rayner wrote these noble-sounding but hollow words: ‘If we are going to build an economy that works for everyone, we need nothing less than a completely new way of governing’. Yes, so why not bring in Proportional Representation and an elected Second Chamber? Both are essential for a modern democracy. Labour are not doing either.
Devon’s Green councillors met up online on 31 December to discuss Devolution. A letter has now been sent out to the press, including North Devon’s Journal and Gazette. You should see them in print this week. I worry not only for the democratic deficit actually worsening but for the futures of the really talented and committed professionals who run our council’s services.
With friends on New Year’s Eve we chattered about favourite books of 2024. Most mentioned was Samantha Harvey’s Orbital. I read it a few pages at a time over several weeks, savouring each well-crafted sentence. It is fascinating about the daily routines of astronauts but also an unexpected and original hymn to the earth the rich and powerful seem intent on destroying.
Although we avoided snow in my part of North Devon, the rain was torrential. The River Taw filled its flood plain and became a series of lakes divided by the Tarka Line on its embankment. Along with a dozen or so other birders, I count wading birds as part of the WeBS project which feeds into a national data base at the British Trust for Ornithology. We go out at high tide every fourth Sunday. My patch is from Bishop’s Tawton to Newbridge. I could not get to the river at Tawton last Sunday because of a collapsed tree across the footpath – there since Storm Darragh – but I understand that part of the path has given way too. I drove down to Newbridge. South of the bridge I saw 16 Little Egrets – more than I’ve ever seen together before – and in the lagoons on the north side were 32 Mute Swans and another 8 Little Egrets.
If you can, please visit Threads of Survival, a poignant and often funny exhibition of quilts created during the Covid pandemic, many celebrating that great creation, our NHS. It is on at the Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon until 11 January (Monday-Saturday, 10am to 4pm, free).