British values? Name one

From Beer, Devon

WE watched the sun go down over Beer beach as we have done from time to time since 1972. Why do folk go back to the same familiar places, year after year? In one of her short stories Margaret Atwood says it is "to steady myself against the current of time that is flowing past and over me, faster and faster." Anyone over 50 knows exactly what she means.

THE current of time brought me a mackerel. Just the one, taken on a lure cast from the beach on a whippy new rod, and not to be confused with the dozens of poor, suffocated mackerel hauled up by folk on fishing trips. We had ours for tea. I wonder how many trippers even know how to gut and clean a mackerel, and how many of the beautiful, nourishing fish they catch end up dumped in the wheelie bin.

MEANWHILE, out in the real world, David Cameron wants us all to embrace what he calls British values. So would those be last year's British values, this year's or next year's? Isn't it funny how the word "tolerance" keeps cropping up, as though it has been woven into the fabric of our nation for centuries? There was a time when Britain was quite an intolerant place, and rather proud of it. We didn't tolerate idleness, homelessness or drunkenness. We didn't tolerate Mods or Rockers. We were a bit sniffy about single mums, latchkey kids and scruffy teachers. We did not tolerate the F-word in public. In fact the Britain that attracted so many immigrants in the 1950s and 1960s was a land based on law, order, family and self-discipline, with a high regard for good education. It was a place where Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and Caribbean Christians felt at home. Since then, tolerance has become another word for "anything goes." We have moved the goalposts and changed the rules. "British values" shift like quicksand to suit current fads and political advantage. If some communities find it unsettling, who can blame them?

A READER takes me to task for criticising Prince Charles, on the grounds that the Royal Family cannot defend itself. Oh, yes, it can. The Windsors can do as they wish. The fact that they choose not to respond to the media is purely a convention which happens to suit them, especially when they look south and see the alternative. Spanish law expressly forbids insulting the monarchy yet the Spanish monarchy is mired in scandal and may be on the way out. Our monarchy, on the other hand, is the butt of endless jokes and barbs, yet has never been more popular.

THE bank rate may be raised by October. About time, too. One rarely mentioned fact about Britain's financial crisis is that the black hole was plugged by taking billions of pounds from innocent old people. Pensioners who had been getting £5,000 a year on their investments were suddenly told that their income was being cut to £700. If any other section of the public had been treated like this, there would have been blood in the streets. Having robbed the old 'uns for the past seven years, the banks are preparing to give them a little bit more. Sweet.

ANDERS Fogh Rasmussen, secretary-general of Nato, says the alliance is "considering" ways of helping Ukraine defend itself from Russia. The centenary of the First World War falls on August 4 this year. What are the odds on the Third World War breaking out on exactly the same date?