While Boris Johnson is writing his £250,000 a year column in
the Daily Telegraph and advising us all to be optimistic about Brexit, the
pound is sliding through 31 year lows and six Property Funds in the city of London have closed to withdrawals.
On the day after the referendum result was declared Michael
Heseltine mounted a scathing attack on Johnson for “leading his troops to the
sound of the guns then quitting the field of battle”!
The further spectacle of Nigel Farage resigning as UKIP
leader is yet another example of the unwillingness of the “Leave” campaigners
to take responsibility for the Brexit negotiations and their consequences.
To quote Stanley Baldwin, three
times British Prime minister back in those far off days of the 1930’s when Britain
was still a Great Power, the principal Leave campaigners have achieved - “... power
without responsibility — the prerogative of the harlot through the ages.
Following Gove’s back-stabbing of Johnson we are, of course,
all enjoying the spectacle of the Tory leadership contest and also watching the
Labour Party tear itself apart. It would
be great fun if it wasn’t so serious!
Listen to Ken Clarke’s candid “off the record” comments, in
which he dismisses the idea of Michael Gove as Prime Minister and discusses the other leadership candidates with Malcolm Riffkind.
The Leave campaign’s lies and back-tracking on their undeliverable
promises are not, however, at all funny! Neither is their characteristic bluster about a bright future outside the EU!
They have created a climate of uncertainty that will affect
the country’s prospects for inward investment and employment for a decade and also probably provoked the break-up of the UK!
Who
would have predicted that Gove would stab Johnson in the back? There again he
has done the same to his friend David Cameron, so I suppose it should have been
expected. Govedoes not seem
likely to poll enough votes from MP'sto
get into the final two, who will be put to a vote by Tory Party members; it seems likely that the second place slot will go to
Andrea Leadsom.
Theresa
May does appear to be the safest choice for the negotiations with the EU but she's no charismatic Margaret Thatcher (more a British Angela Merkel) and was almost absent from the Remain campaign. Perhaps she was hoping to take advantage of the chaos that she knew would erupt after the result, whichever way it went. Nonetheless maybe it's time for a more realistic female approach instead of one lead by idealistic male dreams and fantasies!
There's
lots of comment even in the tabloids about the lies that were told by the Leave
campaign, particularly thebattlebus
£350 million a week lie. The biggest and most dangerous lie of all wasblaming
the lack of school places, social housing, healthcare etc on migrants. This
was a masterstroke, worthy of the worst demagogues of the 20th century and has
already given rise to an increase in racist
attacks against EU migrants. The real reason for those strains in public
services is aggressive Tory austerity cuts, but Corbyn was incapable of
countering the Leave campaigns slick slogans. Corbyn is a disaster for the
Labour party! The country needs an effective opposition to rein back the Tory right
wing and tell some truths that stick, otherwise look at the mess that they create! Corbyn, for all his honesty and idealism,
is totally useless as a political leader! Having lost the support of two thirds of his MP's he should go quickly, and not tryto hang on patheticallyin the hope of
being rescued by his £3 party voters in a leadership election that could not re-establish him as leader of the Labour Party even if he won!
Today
Johnson,writing
in his £250,000 a year column in the Daily Telegraph, is calling the chaos
and emotional uncertainty that he, himself, has created ”Project Fear Hysteria”
and comparing it to the national mourning which gripped the nation following
Princess Diana’s death. He can’t distinguish genuine feelings fromjournalistic
lies and half-truths. One
doesn’t need to add that his tasteless comparison is offensive and
disgusting.
He goes
on to accuse the Government of manipulating public opinion! Well he should
know! And he calls for the public to be told some basic truths – not, of
course, based on the opinions of the experts that he and Gove rubbished during
the leave campaign but on his own unverified unilateral assertions. Are we
expected to take him seriously! This man appears to be out of touch with
reality, but as a columnist he doesn’t need to believe in and stand by his
statements because he will probably need to write something more interesting
next month to retain his well paid post! You don’t sell newspapers by
being boringly consistent!
Thank you Michael Gove, for taking away from Johnson the possibility of being Prime Minister, and effectively ruling yourself out, at least this time round!
I have now moved beyond the shock of
the Brexit result into anger, although an uneasy, slightly nauseous, feeling remains.
I'm angry at the Tory right and at
Cameron for giving in to them, for allowing a referendum and creating a
situation which will lead not only to withdrawal from the EU but also to the
breakup of the UK. He will be remembered as the politician who made one of the
biggest mistakes of the last 100 years, alongside Neville Chamberlain and
Anthony Eden!
I'm also angry with Corbyn, with his
virtual absence from the campaign until the last few days and his lukewarm 7
out of 10 endorsement of the EU. He may be honest but he's no leader. With his
half-hearted campaign he has betrayed his own electorate by paving the way for
the most right wing government since the eighties. The economic reaction to the
uncertainty, reduction in investment, a drift away from the “UK” by businesses,
lower activity generally and higher unemployment, will all result in a
recession and lower tax receipts followed inevitably by further austerity
measures and public spending cuts by a government that will relish this
opportunity to impose their dogma. All of this will impact on the poorest and
the lower paid. With half his shadow cabinet about to resign Corbyn's on his
way out, but too late!
Apart from Nigel Farage the Leave campaign
team didn’t seem to be relishing their victory.
It’s much easier to win a battle than to take responsibility for
rebuilding from the rubble, but if Farage has his way the destruction will
continue, because he will try to unpick the last forty years of EU inspired
legislation whether good or bad.
I hope that you’ve read my previous
blog about Boris
Johnson’s lying and dissembling. With his turbulent personal history and,
as a proven liar, he should not even dream of putting himself forward for Prime
Minister. He’s just totally unsuitable for high office and he won’t be able to
joke his way out of the embarrassing interviews and press articles that will
come later. I'm waiting for an
"anyone but Boris" petition to sign. I've already signed a petition
calling for independence
for London (where I used to live) and another petition calling for a second EU referendum.
The UK will be blamed for every EU crisis
that arises. I don't accept the proposition, that the EU will get on with
reform in our absence and that Britain will be the sacrificial lamb that
enabled it to happen. France and Germany are already talking about closer integration
with more harmonization of tax and social protection. They just don't get it,
and without us they will have nobody shouting in their ears that this is not
what the people of Europe want! We stood a better chance of reforming the EU
from within. Our sacrifice is needless and will achieve nothing positive.
The country has never been so
divided; between young and old; rich and poor; between England and Scotland;
and between England and Northern Ireland. Great Britain is almost certain to
fragment into “Little England” and Scotland as separate nations and who knows what
Northern Ireland and Wales will do?
With almost all important world leaders, apart
from Putin, and also those responsible for financial institutions like the IMF
and the World Bank, telling us we should remain in the EU, a large
proportion of English voters put up two fingers in a protest vote ultimately
against their own best interests. Most were
voting about immigration concerns whipped up by the right wing and foreign
owned tabloid press. One of our acquaintances gave as a reason for
voting Brexit that "he didn't like the way they looked at our women".
Since he wouldn't be able to tell an eastern European from an Englishman by
looking at him, I can only assume that he was referring to the many Asians from
his home town, none of whom would be removed by Brexit.
As well as being worried about the possible
effect on my pension funds and investments, I have the certainty that a
lower pound will reduce our pension income, which is converted directly into Euros.
There is also the likelihood that our Statepensions will be frozen and not
increased annually because this rule was applied only to UK expats living
in the EU and certain other countries with which bilateral agreements have
been established.
I voted remain and I hope that all
those who voted for leave will enjoy seeing their wealth and their employment
opportunities diminish.
Of course we all know that Boris, in his time as the
Telegraph’s Europe correspondent, made his reputation by inventing Euromyths
about straight bananas and one size fits all condoms etc.; in effect creating
the Big Euromyth which he has now used to pull the UK out of the EU; but when I
saw this interview with Chris Patten I was surprised that he was able to call Boris Johnson a liar so directly and without any risk of legal proceedings for
slander.
I investigated further and discovered that Boris was sacked from the Times in 1987 following a story in which he fabricated a quote from
his godfather, an Oxford academic, who was ridiculed for Boris' inaccuracies.
He has also
been sacked from Michael Howard’s shadow ministerial team in 2004 for lying to Guy
Black, (Howard’s press secretary), David MacLean (the Tory Chief Whip) and the
Press about an affair that he was having with Petronella Wyatt that resulted in
her having an abortion.
But the most revealing episode of his character so far has been in a recorded
telephone conversation with Darius Guppy,
one of his Old Etonian chums, in which he agreed to get the address of a News of the World
journalist, Stuart Collier, so that Guppy could arrange an assault intended to
scare him off investigating a fraud case in which Guppy was involved. This took place in 1990 when Johnson was the Daily Telegraph's Europe correspondent. In an
interview with Eddie Mair, Johnson subsequently denied that he had done anything
wrong and said that he was just humouring his friend.
Judge for
yourself whether he was asking Guppy questions about how much he was going to
hurt Stuart Collier in order to humour him.
Government
ministers have had to resign for far less than any single one of these
escapades and yet Boris is still being considered as a potential Prime
Minister. We are now in a period of
post-truth politics in which skilled individuals, who are good at saying what
people want to hear, whether it is true or not, can rise above reasonable and
sensible discussion and get away with it.
Do we really
want a proven liar leading the country?
As the New
York Times says we would be in control again but of what and who would be in charge? Let's speculate!
David Cameron resigns because, although the
“Leave” camp has said that they want Cameron to stay in office after the
referendum, his position is unsustainable and made impossible by the undermining of his negotiations with the EU by his own reinforced and confident right wing.
After a great show of agonizing and false
reluctance, Boris Johnson agrees to stand and is elected leader of the Tories
and therefore Prime Minister. In a re-run of the Blair -Brown Agreement he picks Michael Gove as his chancellor, and together they quickly set about implementing the radical right wing policies proposed by members of the Leave Campaign. With Gove as the brains and Boris in the role of spin-meister, dealing with the task of presentation, amongst other things they:
Withdraw from the European Convention on Human
Rights (sorry that was Cameron's idea!);
Receive a frosty reception in Brussels and are forced to agree to a secretly negotiated, ill considered trade deal which is on worse terms than the EU's current TTIP negotiations because of the urgent need to unblock trade barriers not just with the EU but also around the world ;
Northern Ireland is forced
to close its borders with Eire to limit migration and thus reneges on a central
plank of the Good Friday Agreement.
After a couple of years of spin and fantastic stories from
Boris (who is after all a journalist at heart, who made a career as the Telegraph's Europe correspondent, out of
writing “funny” EU stories about straight bananas and one size fits all condoms) is
finally called to account for his policy U turns, broken promises and the
growing economic chaos. Unable to joke or lie his way through it, he loses a vote of confidence in Parliament and is forced to call an early general election
before he is replaced as leader.
Then we are presented with a choice between the left, in the shape of Jeremy Corbyn, the original charisma black hole, and Boris because, although he is a proven liar, he is at
the same time the personification of Teflon Man and the UK’s answer to Donald
Trump, don't forget that he compared the objectives of the EU to those of Hitler. To complete the choice, standing on the sidelineswill be Nigel Farage, the ghostly reincarnation of Enoch Powell.
So if you want a radical right wing government and a bright future vote Brexit!
If you’ve not heard of Gustavo Gimeno then you probably
missed him directing the first concert by a symphony orchestra, the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, in the newly rebuilt “Theatre de l’Usine” at Saint Céré last night.
This is the only concert hall in the North of the Lot and we
owe our thanks to Olivier Desbordes, who runs Opera Éclate, and has for decades
directed the Festival of Saint Céré from the jumble of buildings that used to
be a factory making suitcases. As a
result of his track record he has been able to successfully negotiate the
funding necessary to redevelop the site, and as one of the residents of the
area I am very grateful.
Perhaps you think that Gimeno is the young assistant conductor for the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, who substitutes for the Grand Chef when they leave their base, but you would be wrong because he's much more noteworthy than such a role might imply. In a packed hall Gimeno conducted Beethoven’s Eroica in a
fashion worthy of its name. From the
startling opening chords through to the coda it was a performance to remember. The energy and drive that he gave to this long symphony was sustained throughout. In only his second performance with the orchestra he drew playing of superb accuracy and detail from a somewhat
reduced ensemble together with some beautiful solos from several of the woodwind principals.
To open the concert he chose Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite and he achieved a delicacy of colour and precision that my partner and I found surprisingly affecting in that rather episodic piece.
The room at the “Theatre de l’Usine” is too small for a full symphony
orchestra and has a rather dry acoustic. It wouldn’t be kind to singers, but
that same quality is very revealing of ensemble playing and the strings were up
to the task.
So who is Gustavo Gimeno and what has he done?
He was the principal percussionist for the Royal Concertgebouw
Orchestra from 2002 to 2012, when he became the assistant conductor to Mariss Janssons.
He has also held the post of assistant to the late Claudio
Abbado working with the Orchestra Mozart, the Filarmonica de Bologna, the Lucerne
Festival Orchestra and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. In 2013 he assisted
Bernard Haitink with the Orchestra Mozart. Here in an interview with Classical Music he
talks about the experience of working with Claudio Abbado as his assistant.
In 2014, when Janssons cancelled unexpectedly for medical reasons, he took on a series of concerts with the Royal Concertgebouw . These
were a sensational success and heralded the start of his international career.
In less than two years he has established a full schedule of
international engagements ranging from Europe, to the USA, to New Zealand and has accepted the post of chief conductor for the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg. Between March and August 2016 he will be
appearing with:
Chicago Symphony Orchestra Such a rapid acceptance by the major orchestras reminds me of another Gustavo (Dudamel) who has also had a meteoric career, but he is based in Los Angeles and only visits Europe occasionally.
Looking Forward (English with French subtitles) In this video Gustavo Gimeno talks about conducting and Mariss Janssons,
and some of Gustavo’s colleagues, recall his first concerts with the Royal
Concertgebouw. Don’t miss the snippet of
Die Fledermaus at 3:34.
Here he lets Sibelius work his magic, creating the
serene image of a swan via the cor anglais solo in The Swan of Tuonela.
And how about a little Tchaikovsky?
Or the wonderful sound he creates in Bruckner's 7th?
I will certainly be looking out for him in future programmes and wish him every success!
I spent last week in London, taking some very interesting and helpful singing
lessons from Christopher Jacklin.
On Friday 13th November 2015, whilst the horrific
terrorist attacks were happening in Paris, I was at a concert in the Wigmore Hall.
The concert was given by the outstanding Franco Fagioli, an
Argentinian counter tenor, who was supported by Il Pomo d'Oro, an excellent string and
harpsichord ensemble led by Riccardo Minasi.
I have to admit that up to now I’ve not been a great fan of
the vocal music from the High Baroque, finding the melismatic passages artificial and wearisome. But I now realise that this
is because they are often not performed well and suffer from the limitations of some contemporary singers concerning the understanding of the idiom. In some cases the substitution of female mezzo sopranos for male alto roles changes the character of the interpretation, and stylistically the natural way that 18th century singers created and performed unwritten decoration
is partially lost to us; but Franco Fagioli's performance generated no such reservations.
The quality of Fagioli’s voice is both beautiful and clear
in the upper register, whilst also possessing a mezzo soprano quality in the
lower notes. In this performance well chosen decoration, together with his extraordinary vocal agility, produced accurately executed melismatic passages,
which never descended into purely vocal exercises but remained expressive and
focussed on the phrasing. His wide
range, perfect intonation and beautifully timed trills all supported his
artistry and musicianship.
Fagioli’s programme was inspired by the repertoire of the 18th
century castrato, Gaetano Majorano known as Caffarelli. He was taught at the conservatoire in Naples by
Nicola Porpora, who wrote the first item on the programme “Passaggier che su la
sponda”. Naples was at the time the centre of the
Italian opera industry and Porpora also taught the more famous Farinelli.
From the end of “Passaggier che su la sponda” the Wigmore Hall
audience, which surely must be the most educated group of music lovers in
London, broke out into well deserved and spontaneous calls of “Bravo!” which were frequently to be heard throughout
the evening.
The two famous castrati appeared together in the opera “Siroe
re di Persia” in 1733 from which the second item on the programme “Ebbi da te la
vita” was taken.
Fagioli has made a study of the gestures used by baroque
singers from paintings of the period and he uses them in performance. At first I found this mildly distracting, but
soon they became more natural in my mind, and helped me to feel that Fagioli very
convincingly both performs and portrays the music of the period, seeming for me
to inhabit the persona of a singer like Caffarelli whilst he is performing.
At the end of the
concert he didn’t get a standing ovation after his two encores, but in my
opinion he richly deserved it! I think that he takes the art of the counter tenor to a new level.
This bravura aria "Odo il suono di tromba guerriera" comes from Fagioli's outstanding debut
album "Arias for Caffarelli" and was written by Gennaro Manna (1748)
for the opera "Lucio Papiro dittatore".
And finally I have to include this most beautiful and moving aria
from Handel’s Ariodante, it's a real gem! At the end of “Scherza
Infida”you can see just how much he invests emotionally in what he is singing.
E vivo ancora?
E senza il
ferro,
oh! Dei! che farò?
Che mi dite, o
affanni miei?
Scherza infida
in grembo al drudo
io tradito a
morte in braccio
per tua colpa
ora men vo
Mà a spezzar
l'indegno laccio,
ombra mesta e
spirito ignudo
per tua pena io
tornerò.
Do I still live?
And without a sword,
O gods! What shall I do?
What do you say, o my troubles?
Enjoy yourself, o faithless one, in the arms of your lover
