In October last year parliament voted on and rejected an amendment to the Environment Bill that would have forced water companies to stop allowing untreated sewage to enter British waterways.
Only twenty-two Conservative MPs were brave enough to defy their government's order to reject the amendment.
Last week the Environment Agency issued 'Do not swim' orders for twenty-two beaches in England amid fears the waters would be unsafe, and after footage emerged of sewage lapping the beach at Whitstable on the east coast.
The water authorities shrug and blame the heavy rain falling last week on very parched land resulting in overflows.
Twitter meanwhile is full of images and posts along the line of: This is my MP. He/she voted to allow sewage to flow into our waters.
It makes me want to weep. How much can this country take of the Conservative government?
Red markers show unsafe beaches
* * * * *
I decided to start writing my radio talk today as usual without a lot of idea where it would go. At least I can blame Covid brain fog this time!
Anyway I decided to talk about hymns - don't ask - and on thinking of those we sang in grammar school I recalled there was one we often sang. To be fair, we sang most of them numerous times. It was probably easier once we'd learned a song to just keep singing it.
But the one that on reflection I am most surprised by is, "And Did Those Feet In Ancient Times." Written originally as a poem by William Blake it wasn't put to music until over a century later, but has now become something of an English anthem. And that's the thing.
I was in a school in Wales in the 1960s just as nationalism was once again on the rise but there we were singing about England's green and pleasant land. Maybe the teachers were keen to clamp down on any budding nationalistic tendencies in the girls in their charge. (The next decade saw the burning of second homes, belonging to absentee English rich folk.)
Altogether the poem is a bit of a mystery. It seems to make much of the legend that Jesus travelled to Britain with Joseph of Arimathea during his wilderness years i.e. those years not covered by the gospels. There are also several schools of thought about how patriotic Blake really intended it to be - or whether he was in fact mocking the fervent nationalism of England at the time.
It's amazing where you end up when you begin innocently pursuing a topic. Or is that just me? I'll just finish by saying that once Charles becomes King I do not want another English Prince of Wales, who brings absolutely no benefit to our land.
3 comments:
Interestingly this hymn is not sung in any English Catholic congregations I know of. I've always thought of it as one of the many "Catholics need not apply"' unwritten rules. Probably because of the WI where it's sung, being hostile to Catholic women. Unspoken, unwritten, unbending. My mom and her pals joined the holy family Guild, where they were welcome.
It's a weird little hymn or whatever it is,. more pagan than anything.
Better start now campaigning against William. It won't be long before his father accedes and the title comes to Wills.
I'm horrified at the little island unable to keep its own waters clean. Brexit put the price and availability of water treatment chemicals out of reach and Tories don't want to admit yet another downside to it. It's very sad.
That's interesting about the Catholic hostility and the WI. I never knew that. Although even today some 'Christians' would say Catholics aren't Christians.
I assume there would have to be an investiture for William to become Prince of wales which I hope and like to believe would be strongly objected to.
Brexit, Tories. I despair.
I love William Blake's poem and the hymn created from it. When we were on tour in Glastonbury with a group of largely American tourists, our tour guide started to sing it at the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey and invited us all to join in. I was the only one who knew it. But we made a lovely duet, LOL!
Post a Comment