BILL KIRKMAN
Traditionally August has been the silly season for news. It’s been different this year.
Schools, and Parliament, are on holiday during August. That is a long standing tradition. Another tradition is that August is a dead month for news — the silly season.
The fact that families with children at school take holidays at this time reflects a reality; it is difficult for them to be away from home during the rest of the year. They suffer the disadvantage that roads and airport terminals are crowded, and those of us who are no longer dominated by the school year can take smug satisfaction that we can avoid all that.
In recent years, politicians’ holidays have become a matter of comment and controversy. To be more precise, Tony Blair’s holiday habits attracted much unfavourable comment, because of his choice of exotic locations and his liking for the hospitality of wealthy “celebrities”.
Visible change
One of the changes which characterise Gordon Brown’s assumption of the role of Prime Minister is that his holidays are clearly going to be more low-key. He has been holidaying on the south coast of England. Many of his government colleagues, who clearly know what sort of image is now in favour, are making similar holiday decisions.
So much for the August holiday tradition. The news silly season is not now a reality — if it ever was. This year, for example, the United Kingdom has faced two major crises. The first, serious floods in many parts of the country, came in July, but their effects, on individuals and whole communities, are still being felt. (The fact that floods in Britain are not common, and that these were the worst for more than a century, obviously makes their impact greater, but one corollary is that, this year at least, the British public has greater understanding of the seriousness of the devastation caused by the floods which have been affecting millions of people in India, Bangladesh and Nepal.)
The second British crisis has just hit us. An outbreak of foot and mouth disease in cattle on a farm in Surrey has led to a ban on movements of livestock throughout the U.K. — and has reawakened memories of the appalling situation four years ago, when a foot and mouth outbreak, and the serious mishandling of it by the government, caused distress to hundreds of farmers, and had massive repercussions on the rural economy.
This weekend, Gordon Brown immediately returned from his holiday to take charge of the government’s handling of the response to this outbreak.
There is another potential crisis bubbling. A bitter battle over pay and conditions within Royal Mail — the very British institution which delivers mail and provides post offices around the country — shows little sign of resolution. Management and unions are in aggressive dispute. What is at stake is the future of Royal Mail as we know it. The government so far is holding the dispute at arm’s length, but the implications are serious. Daily delivery of mail, and the existence of a local post office, are matters on which people feel strongly. Whatever the realities of the government’s capacity to solve the problem, this is the kind of issue where the government will attract public opprobrium if things go wrong.
The toll of events
Schools and Parliament traditionally close for August. Political crises are clearly no respecters of the August silly season, and as Gordon Brown has discovered, relaxing on holiday, whether on the south coast of Britain or in some exotic foreign location, is subject to sudden and unexpected disruption. Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister in the 1960s, famously replied when asked what constituted the most serious problems he had to face: “Events, dear boy”. Gordon Brown will certainly be aware that being Prime Minister is not all fun, when events take their toll.
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The August holiday tradition is deeply rooted, but the nature of the holidays themselves has changed dramatically. Destinations throughout Europe, and well beyond, can be reached at manageable and quite modest cost. That was definitely not true 50 years ago. The Guardian this week published an article which had first appeared in 1955, describing the unexpected popularity of day trips to Boulogne. Boulogne was, still is, a pleasant small French town, but no one would describe it as an exotic foreign location. For the 1955 British tourists it clearly was — and they had to be reassured by the existence of a restaurant where “you can eat ham, eggs, fish and steak, all served with chips…and a nice cup of tea”. The message was clear: foreign parts, yes; foreign food, no thanks.
Bill Kirkman is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge, U.K. Email him at: >bill.kirkman@gmail.com