Six of the Best

Time to go to bat for the away team.

Every bus/train/pub conversation will inevitably turn to the credit crunch and listening to the “we're doomed” brigade launch into a “bring back Maggie Thatcher chant”can be irksome and tiresome; so, it's time to promulgate the six best things about the UK and see if anyone agrees.

Number One

The Sunday Times – don't forget - despite the profligate number of Red Tops which are not actually newspapers at all, Britain still boasts some quality newspapers and a readership that is second to none – The Sun, The Mail and The Mirror are all in the top 13 selling daily newspapers in the world. Most of the really big sellers, of course, are from China, India and Japan.

The Sunday Times makes my Sunday. Any description of a perfect Sunday starts with reading the paper. The roast beef comes much later.

Number Two

The NHS. President Obama had health care reform as part of his electoral appeal and it worked. Unfortunately, the prospect of him persuading Congress to come up with anything like an NHS is very remote. Why? The vested interests in the United States just will not give up the milch cow that is the present system.

By contrast, Britain's NHS is the envy of the world – or most of it at least. It is far from perfect, but it does work. And it is genuinely free at the point of need.

People in Britain take it for granted and every paper has at least one story of an NHS failure on a daily basis; but it is so much better than any alternative; it would be easier to get the turkeys to vote for more Christmases than it would be to devise a better plan to cover a nation's health care needs than the NHS.

Number Three

The BBC. I never watch ITV – perhaps that's why they are losing money and advertisers faster than a man going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. I would watch ITV if there were any programmes worth watching, but since there aren't and we all pay for the BBC through the license fee anyway – why bother? ITV is full of soaps and naff game shows. I never watch it.

Number Four

Liverpool Street Station. Not the present station, the old one – before they tarted it up and added the glitzy shops and the arcades full of designer sunglasses. It was smoke encrusted. It was dingy. It was dirty. It was uncomfortable. In short, it was everything that represented the best of old England. Now it's gone – sold out to the bean counters and the advertisers. Shame.

Number Five

Stratford-on-Avon. I know it' daft, but I get a thrill visiting Stratford. It's almost all modern stores and houses by the bits that are “preserved” make it worthwhile. If you can't get excited visiting Holy Trinity and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust – then you are probably immune to nostalgia and reverence for the Bard. More fool you.

Number Six

Trent Bridge. There must be nothing like a Test Match at Lords – though I have never been and I like the Oval – especially on a really hot day when you can drink a hogshead of beer and sweat it out so fast that you don't get drunk, but Trent Bridge is my “home” ground (that is to say the nearest one to Norwich with good rail communications). It really is a great place to watch cricket. The crowd are rowdy but very good natured and they don't take the cricket too seriously. Sitting in the New Stand and gazing at the old pavilion is a joy. Visiting the Trent Bridge Inn is a glory. And, you can get the train home. Magic.

Sea Change

American elections

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange. - Shakespeare

Shakespeare usually said it best – and said if first. Barack Obama's nomination as the Democratic candidate for President fits Ol Will's description of a sea-change exactly.

The papers are full of the historic nature of his victory and it's hard to improve on their analysis. How he galvanised a legion of new supporters to the Democratic party and overcame the Clinton's political muscle will be etched deeply in the “Practical Guide to Becoming President”.

The sea change is something different. It is something most Americans of my generation never thought to see -a black candidate for President. We are the generation that saw Mississippi burning, saw Martin Luther Kind gunned down, saw black men destroying Watts, saw racial prejudice as an enduring legacy and an immutable constant.

We marvelled at the talent that brought Jackie Robinson to the Dodgers; we applauded (sometimes secretly) the explosion of talent that is Motown music, we all knew a “token” black, but we didn't want to live with them or invite them to our bbq.

In 1951 I stated school in Chicago. Blacks were beginning to move into the neighbourhood and whites didn't like it. Therefore, we all went to the local Catholic school. All white kids that is – all the blacks went to the local public school. Everyone knew this and accepted it. We had more Jewish white kids at St Ambrose than any other demographic group. The nuns would go mad on Yom Kippur – none of the Jew came to school.

I was into the eighth grade before a black was in my school. At High School we had a grand total of eight black kids out of three thousand students. Everyone was their friend. No-one invited them to their parties. The idea of inter-racial dating was so shocking that it was impossible to contemplate.

Then cam e Viet Nam. I trained with 200 men – 75% black. Blacks accounted for casualties about in the same proportion as their percentage of the population – 12.5 %. White casualties were significantly lower. Fact replaces legend. The white man's war was fought by blacks, and they knew it.

So, is it any wonder that the era of Black Power followed? Fed up with the war; fed up with inequality; fed up with Mississippi; black people looked to the government to change things and they got Lyndon Johnson.

Poor old LBJ gets a bad press and he deserves it. The war was his, but the Civil Rights Bill was also his. LBJ was obsessed with carrying on Kennedy's legislative program and to his credit he did. So, a hundred years after the Constitution guaranteed fundamental rights to those who had been in “ a previous condition of servitude”, LBJ made sure that the words were matched with action to eliminate the cosy political relationships in the South (and in the North as well) which ensured that blacks were effectively excluded from the political process.

LBJ is directly responsible for Barack. Or, Barack is directly indebted to LBJ. Either way old LBJ should get some of the credit.

It took thirty years, but it happened. Black men and women are seen in new roles. In the media, in sports, in politics, blacks are empowered by the successes and trials of a generation and can now even hope for a black man to be President.

Truly a sea-change.

Miracles do happen.

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