A Day of Anniversaries

Today is a day of interesting anniversaries.

Let us start with 1469 when Niccolo Machiavelli was born. A man whose cynical attitude to government and politics has given us the adjective Machiavellian, a word that has survived 550 years of government in the western world and shows no sign whatsoever of becoming redundant.

May 3rd 1926 was the day that the only General Strike in British history began. The Prime Minister, the smooth operating and experienced politician Stanley Baldwin, managed to get everyone back to work in nine days but the cause of the strike - the intention of coal mine owners to reduce miners' wages and to increase working hours - remained unresolved. The miners alone stayed on strike for another six months but then starving and unsupported they went back to work. They achieved almost nothing and many miners were put out of work for years before being hit again by the Great Depression.

Another event of May 3rd was the opening by King George VI of the Festival of Britain on the South Bank of the Thames in 1951. I remember this quite clearly from cinema newsreels, although I never went to London to visit. The event was intended to exhibit Britain recovering from WWII and to an extent it succeeded. The only survivor of the exhibition is the Royal Festival Hall, which in spite of much criticism has settled comfortably into its place on the south bank of the river. It is not brash, it is architecturally undistinguished but, to me, it always feels like a much loved friend. It has now become so accepted as a "national treasure" that in 1988 it gained the status of Grade I listing - the first post-war building to be so classified. In these days of energy efficiency and conservation it is worth noting that even in 1952 the Royal Festival Hall was operating a very efficient heat pump system linked to the River Thames for its heating and cooling. The whole of the Festival of Britain was planned by the old London County Council and it employed its own architects to design the Festival Hall. The LCC planned for the first concert in the hall to be conducted by Arturo Toscanini - a man with somewhat tenuous connections to London, I would have thought - but the great maestro was ill and his place was taken by the English duo of Sir Malcolm Sargent and Sir Adrian Boult - but not, I suppose, both at the same time. The thing about the hall that appeals most is its being open to the public all day and ever day to visit the shops and restaurants, etc. It is a living building in a way that the architecturally more impressive Sidney Opera House is not. On my one and only visit to that exalted building, it struck me as more a mausoleum than a living opera house.

Other events of 3rd May include births of Bing Crosby [1903], Richard D'Oyly Carte [1844], Engelbert Humperdinck [1936] and such happenings as the demolishing of Worcestershire County bowling when, in 1934, that greatest of all batsmen, Don Bradman scored 206 runs against them at the County Ground in 3½ hours.

I suppose all dates are "historic" in some way. David Cameron may care to consider that on May 3rd 1979 the country elected Margaret Thatcher and caused eighteen years of uninterrupted Tory government. He must hope that he can do something similar on May 6th. He cannot, of course achieve an overall majority. If he does not - and the likelihood is that he will struggle to have 300 seats in the House of Commons - then we must have some kind of coalition or a weak minority government. In that situation, we must hope that Labour and the Lib-Dems can cobble together a proper working coalition capable of governing effectively for at least two years. David Cameron's Tories, I am sure will do everything in their power to maintain the first past the post electoral system and try to build up an entrenched Tory majority in England. On the economy Brown is right and we have to give that prime consideration in deciding whom we will vote for. I hope we get the right result.

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