Book review: Irreplaceable by Julian Hoffman: Are we the bad guys?

Starting as dusk gathers on Brighton pier and the evening strollers are transfixed by a murmuration of starlings, Julian Hoffman takes us around the world showing us how human activity is ravaging the wonders of nature that both nourish our sense of wonder and are vital to our health and wellbeing as part of a thriving ecosystem. It is not a happy book. The awe that Hoffman superbly captures at the beauty of the natural world only underlines what we are destroying by our wilful blindness and our obsession with economic growth and measuring everything with a short-term monetary value. From a previously unknown species of spider in an abandoned English quarry to the magnificent Balkan lynx and the few scraps of tallgrass prairie in the American midwest, we are pushing out irreplaceable biodiversity with roads and shopping malls and monocultured crops. 

The author makes it clear he is not merely arguing for preservation for nature for its own sake, but because it is vital to human health and survival in the short, medium and long term. In one chapter he writes about an established set of allotments in London that not only provides food for locals but an area of green growth teeming with life, and an area of abandoned "waste ground" in Glasgow that nearby residents have turned into a park and nature reserve. Both are under threat from development and he begins by telling us "Of the following two places, one will be saved, the other destroyed." 

He does show us successes, and how small groups of determined people can fight and even sometimes win against the encroachment - as well as the above, there is some success on those tallgrass prairies, a patch of ancient woodland not five miles from where I write this (which, along with mention of other Sheffield woods in which I played as a child and have visited regularly since really brought home the value, as if that personal connection were needed), the former British Army testing site that, due to the danger of left-over munitions has remained undeveloped and become a remarkably vibrant and important habitat. The rejection of a new motorway that would destroy much of the Gwent Levels on the South Wales coast. 

However, despite this, I was left feeling bleak at the prospects. Yes, I am a depressive and currently managing a particularly low patch which may feed into my pessimism, but these patches seem so fragile, so vulnerable, so at odds with the economic forces that see everything as a resource to be exploited. In his final chapter he points out how many pieces of good fortune were needed to ensure that we still have a few slivers of the Cambridgeshire Fens that are undeveloped, and when we see that a drug for cattle is approved in Europe despite evidence that it is responsible for almost eradicating vultures when used in India, or that - despite a law and specific court orders making mining small islands in Indonesia completely illegal, this is openly ignored and corporations land heavy equipment to strip the vegetation and topsoil to scour the minerals beneath, causing run-off that buries and poisons the most valuable reefs on the planet, I find it difficult to hold out hope of change. 

I have known since I was young that talk of "destroying the Earth" is pure hubris. We are a blip on this planet and, whatever we do, it will continue and repopulate itself with new organisms, new diversity. We are here now, for this moment, and have a choice of how to treat our home and the creatures we share it with, a choice for the legacy we leave our children and grand children and great grand children. 

Still, as the cartoon says, for a brief glorious moment we had great shareholder value. 

Increasingly, I think I'm on the side of the David Morse character in 12 Monkeys.

An open letter to Jeremy Corbyn

Dear Mr Corbyn




I have always been a socialist, and have almost always voted Labour ( the exceptions being voting tactically in an area Labour could not win, and in some local elections ), but I only became a Labour party member to support your candidacy. I, along with so many others, saw you as someone who would return Labour to its correct place, to fight for a fairer society and for the majority of British people who have not been represented in politics in recent decades, and in your promise to return to being a party led by the will of its members.




And you have fought for these things. You have shown Labour to be a strong, radical, socialist alternative. You have withstood attacks from the right wing of your own party and the constant denigration by the British media, and I have been proud to be one of your supporters. However, your recent comment on Brexit is not only a failure of your party membership, but a betrayal of us.




The vast majority of the Labour membership - 86% of us - are in favour of a referendum on details of the withdrawal agreement and that one of the options should be to remain in the EU. Many have been pinning our hopes to end this self immolation on Labour, so to be told by the leader that Brexit would still go ahead under a Labour victory in a snap general election is the most shocking betrayal.




Mr Corbyn, one of your greatest features is the strength of your convictions, and I understand that the history of the British left has not alway been easy with the EU - seeing it, not always wrongly, as a neo-liberal capitalist mission. This has been, and is, one aspect of the whole, but it is at tension with others; human rights, social progress, regulation of the excesses of corporate power. The EU comprises the most progressive nations on the planet as members - Sweden, Finland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany - or close associates, such as Norway. All these countries and more are far to the left of where the UK has been for decade, and should be models we emulate, so to pretend the club of which they are members and, indeed, run is some capitalist conspiracy is ludicrous. The EU is project is an active entity, shaped by and shaping the members and a socialist-lead UK should be part of that.




There is the argument that Labour represents many areas that voted Leave, so is beholden to its constituents. On the face of it this is a sound argument - we are an representative democracy whose politicians are elected to conduct the will of the people. However, leaders must also lead. It is often a fine balance - to serve but also educate and inform. In this instance, this is nothing but an excuse and rank cowardice. It is clear that, not only were the British people misled and lied to, but that there is no possible outcome of leaving the EU that does not render vast swathes of the country much, much worse off - and those working-class, under-privileged, poor communities that so often voted leave will be and are being hit hardest of all. It is the duty of those who represent these communities - as so many of the Labour MPs are doing - to talk honestly to their electors about the position in which we find ourselves and what the immediate decisions for our future, and that of our children and grandchildren.




Brexit is the most immediate threat to this country’s well being and prosperity. Mr Corbyn, as leader of the opposition, as leader of the party that should represent those most at risk, you should about face on your attitude. For the members of your party and for the good of your country, you should - you MUST - state that you will fight Brexit until there is no other choice. How can 86% of your own party support you otherwise?

Does how you spend your money matter?

Every pound or euro or dollar we spend is a vote on how we want the world around us to be.


This is not, of course, my original thought but it is one that requires regular restatement  against the constant counter narrative that is simply seen as normal.


It is easy to buy from Amazon. We all do it; it is easy and fast and cheap, so why not? Well, just think about what money is, and where it goes. Amazon are cheap partly due to the economies of scale and low overheads, but more so because of the power that they wield in the marketplace.. For instance, with books the standard agreement is that they sell at a 60% discount, and the publisher does not allow other retailers to undercut that price. Of course, that cut doesn't come from Amazon's profits, but from those of the publishers and authors, which is largely the reason that the average UK-based writer makes around £11, 000 per year from their work.


So the vast amount of your spend with Amazon goes to the company, not to those who produce the products it sells - and, of course, we all know how little Amazon pays in tax or staff wages.


Big chain stores are a little better. While they generally have a similar profile in terms of passing costs on to producers (see the various reports on how the major supermarket chains screw over farmers) , and often in paying taxes, but at least they provide jobs in the community in which they are based.


Best of all is the old mantra: buy local, as much as is possible. Spending £100 in a chain store mostly goes to the overpaid CEO (by definition, executives are grossly overpaid in the modern economy, with few exceptions) and shareholders, but £100 at a local hardware shop goes to the family that own it buying food and supplies, ideally in other local shops, strengthening the local economy in a virtuous circle. Maybe paying local craftspeople, or for repairs from local tradespeople.


Sometimes these decisions are fairly easy. I'm lucky enough to live in a city with many, many fantastic small - often family-run - restaurants, cafes, takeaways and sandwich shops, so I've not been to a chain eatery in years. I made the choice not to - but, let's face it, the places I frequent serve far better food than KFC or Nando's or Zizzi, and are often cheaper. If you're going to a local butcher or greengrocer, you're probably paying more than you would at Tesco or Aldi, but the quality is probably higher. But many of the groceries - the dry goods, the cleaning products, the toilet paper - are almost certainly going to be a damned sight more expensive at your local corner shop, and they'll have a poorer selection. And you might not even have the choice.


These and many other factors make it easier to shop online or at big supermarkets. While the greengrocer and butcher are closed by 6 pm (if you're lucky) the supermarket is likely open until at least 10, and the internet never shuts. But it is worth making the effort, rather than slipping into the most convenient way of doing things, because it's better for everyone in the long term. And it isn't all or nothing. I've fallen back to doing most of my shopping at one supermarket or other (Aldi is just so cheap and convenient...), mostly through working hours and a lack of planning. But I haven't given up.


So, if you're going for coffee look around from the Costa and find that little independent place around the corner, which is probably cosier and friendlier - and definitely has better coffee. Seek out that local Italian restaurant and get that warm welcome feeling when they recognise you on your second visit. And maybe, on the Saturday drive to the supermarket see if you can drop by some local shops or the town market and enrich your shopping experience.

Are immigrants making miners work til they are 75? Response to a Facebook post.

I meant to write this a few weeks ago when someone - a family member, actually - shared on Facebook a meme showing two pictures. One was a group of smiling white men wearing overalls and mining helmets and the second a photo of a large-ish family of brown-skinned, possibly muslim, people. The text suggested that the first group were being forced to work to 75 because the second group were sponging off the state.


I’m hardly on Facebook, and don’t think this person makes a habit of sharing this kind of thing, so was ‘lucky’ it was posted just as I popped on for five minutes. I commented with an exasperated “what utter bollocks!” and left it at that. I probably should have been a bit more constructive, but it was such a ridiculous argument (for want of a better word) I was just annoyed. The poster did quickly respond, asking if he wasn’t entitled to his opinion. I replied that of course he was, but that there was a difference between things which are opinions and things which were verifiably true or false, and this was both the latter and false. Again, I should probably have offered an explanation, so here it is.


I will leave aside the miners - of whom there are precious little left in the UK, and who are certainly not required to work to 75. I will assume they were simply being used to represent the “ordinary working Brit”, although that does bring into question why a group of white men was used but, again, I shall leave that aside.


More important are the false implications and assumptions of the brown, muslim-looking family. There are many, and I doubt I’ll cover all of them.


The points I’ll be making are about the value of immigrants, and are all based on hard fact. Not feelings, not ‘fake news’, not massaged statistics, but well-documented, consistent, incontrovertible facts.


Immigrants claim a lower proportion of benefits than any other segment of the population. These are people who have had the wherewithal to travel hundreds or sometimes thousands of miles. They have already worked hard are certainly not expecting an easy life. When allowed to, they work. As a group, they work hard. They set up far more businesses as a proportion than do native born people. There is a reason the ‘Indian corner shop’ is a cliche.


Linked to this, immigrants pay taxes.So, not only do they not drain the national resources, they actually add to the pot of money from which these resources come.


“Ah!” (I hear someone say) “But that is because they take jobs from honest, British workers!” Well, person who I have heard say that, no; you fundamentally misunderstand how economies work. Most of our economy is based on the consumption of goods and services. Whether it is using utilities (paying for gas, electricity, broadband, etc), buying cars or furniture or groceries or a bagel and coffee from the sandwich shop down the road, this puts money into the economy and is how other people’s wages are paid - gas engineers and call centre staff car mechanics and sandwich makers. Look at Germany, which has brought in more than a MILLION asylum seekers in recent years (on top of the immigration already happening), and has the lowest unemployment since East and West reunified - when, practically overnight, West Germany had to integrate 16.5 million poor East Germans and spend billions of marks changing 45 years of separation.


Then there is the demographic ‘time-bomb’. The largest population spurt we have ever seen are the baby boomers, that generation born after the second world war who benefited so much from the newly created Welfare State (and created so much wealth in return) and have been gradually retiring over the last two decades. Birth rates have been dropping, which means a smaller than ever working population are supporting a larger than ever retired population. Bt most immigrants are in their 20s and - as i said above - more than happy to work and pay taxes.


And, here’s another thing about that, it’s a damned sight cheaper to bring in immigrants than raise our own population to working age. How much do you think it costs - the state, and parents - to raise a child, to pay for 17, 18, 24, years of healthcare and education? Any cost in language skills or integration or even a few months of benefits is literally insignificant next to that.


There are people (mentioning no daily newspapers) that also suggest there is a crime problem associated with immigration, but this is also simply wrong. Immigrant populations, wherever they are from, consistently commit FAR less crime than native born populations. Seriously, a fraction as much.


Lastly, and on a different tack, why assume a brown family are immigrants in any case? I’ve known lots of people of Asian and African descent who were not only ‘born here’ but whose families have been here for generations. My own family are largely of Welsh and Irish descent within the last four generations or so, so are also immigrants. As is everybody else on this island. Yes, there are people who have traced their line back centuries (often to the Normans, who were of course immigrants who didn’t want to mix with the locals and learn the language) but that is only one branch of the family. It is clear that one of the main legions who held Britain for the Romans was the Africanus legion so (despite Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s ill-educated protestations) black people have been in these isles for at least two thousand years.


I’ve only covered the main points, but these are usually the ones made (or snidely hinted at) by racist memes and the EDF and the Daily Mail. All of them are facts and, I think, also make sense when given a moment’s thought. I hope everyone reading this will bear them in mind when responding to knee-jerk emotive posts.


Please, think about what a post is saying before hitting share.