Why is Surrey so loathsome?

Perhaps not so much Surrey, as the people who choose to live there. First there was the furore in July over the purchase by an Armed Forces charity of a house close to the Headley Court Military Rehabilitation Centre, near Ashstead in Surrey. Now, if Boris Johnson is to be believed (The Spectator,15 – 29 December), a woman swimming at a public pool in Leatherhead berated 15 wounded soldiers and their trainers, because part of the pool had been roped off for them. This apparently prevented her from doing her daily laps. “I pay to come here, ” she is reported as shouting at them, “and you lot don’t”. Although one hopes that her problem was that she hadn’t engaged her brain before opening her mouth, I wouldn’t have money on it. There seems to be a deep current of hostility to the military, possibly because many people seem unable to separate their opposition to the war that the Blessed Tony took us into, and the men and women whose job it is to fight it for us. Thankfully the Surrey woman’s reaction contrasts vividly with the recent TV reports of the public lining the streets of Cardiff and other UK cities and towns, to welcome home returning troops.

Not now darling

From the FT today: “The latest debacle in the CGT saga lays bare the weakness and dysfunction at the heart of Gordon Brown’s government,” said George Osborne, shadow chancellor. Vince Cable, acting Liberal Democrat leader, added: “It’s a textbook example of how not to run the Treasury and make tax law.” And what was Gordon doing? Well, he was in Lisbon, late, signing the Treaty.

The clunking fist

Less the clunking fist, more the dead hand. Once again, as “Pensions ministers fight Treasury for extra cash” [FT Monday December 10], it seems that the Treasury team can make no decision without Gordon’s approval. ‘Careful consideration because of public spending implications’ is no more than an excuse for unappealing timidity. First the Forces, now 120,000 pensioners. It beggars belief.

Dealing with Dictators

Meeting people your mother would not like you to meet, and dealing with dictators are, whatever Jose Manuel Barroso may think, not one and the same thing. However you see the job specification for an international leader, it should not include giving respectability to tyranny. Had Gordon Brown given way to pressure to attend the EU-Africa Summit in Lisbon, he would have been doing just that. Better Kate Hoey’s comments in her letter to the Daily Telegraph this morning: that Gordon Brown should be congratulated for his principled stand.

Nature’s Fireworks

To reach the hide at Dawlish Warren, you have to come off the sandy spine that runs from the car park towards the tip of the Warren, skirt the golf course and then walk back along the beach. There is a sign, some 25 yards or so along the edge, asking birdwatchers to take care not to walk when golfers are about to tee off; and not to stop on the shore to watch birds, as this may interfere with people taking their shot. As we walked down the path towards the shore, it was clear that few were paying attention to the warning. It was not hard to see why. It was at the top of the tide, and a great flock of Grey Plover, with Dunlin mixed in among them, were settled on the spit of sand in front of the hide, jostling for space with an equal number of Oystercatchers, with the odd Turnstone and Sanderling.

The Plovers were unsettled, lifting off and turning and wheeling in the sky in front of us, before landing again. This was happening regularly and as the bright sunlight caught their white undersides and wings, the whole flock glittered against the grey sky behind. It was if silver foil was caught in the wind, but the swirling cloud of shorebirds moved as one: now light, now dark, now silver. The Oystercatchers just tucked their beaks in, and faced the wind.

We spent over an hour in the hide, watching the the birds as the tide fell, and wishing that we had had the gumption to bring our thermos of coffee. Our neighbours in the hide, a son and his elderly parents, had arrived not only with the usual birding paraphernalia, but with lunch. I am not sure what hide etiquette about lunch is, but we had to wait for coffeee until we got back to the Land Rover, just as the rain expected all morning arrived.