Carrying the Fire

GEMINI and Apollo astronaut Michael Collins died on 28 April 2021 at the age of 90 after a valiant battle with cancer. This day also marked the 64th wedding anniversary between Mike and his late wife, Patricia Finnegan Collins.

Mike Collins possessed a sharp wit, a quiet sense of purpose and a wise perspective, gained both from looking back at Earth from the vantage of space and gazing across calm waters from the deck of his fishing boat.

As the command module pilot on NASA's Apollo 11 mission, he circled the Moon while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down at Tranquility Base on 20 July 1969. When his two crew mates returned from the surface, he was in the unique position to capture a photo of all of humanity - his fellow astronauts on board the lunar module and everyone else on Earth off in the distance.

“Today the nation lost a true pioneer and lifelong advocate for exploration in astronaut Michael Collins,” acting NASA administrator Steve Jurczyk said in a statement. “As pilot of the Apollo 11 command module – some called him ‘the loneliest man in history’ – while his colleagues walked on the Moon for the first time, he helped our nation achieve a defining milestone.”

A member of NASA's third group of astronauts selected in 1963, Mike’s path to joining the first Moon landing began with a three-day flight in Earth orbit. Assigned as the pilot aboard Gemini 10, he launched with John Young in July 1966 on a mission that demonstrated rendezvous and docking with two rocket stages.

Mike performed two spacewalks on Gemini 10, becoming only the fourth person to exit a spacecraft to work in the vacuum of space and the first to conduct two on the same mission. On his second extravehicular activity (EVA), he became the first astronaut to transfer to another vehicle, retrieving a cosmic dust collector from the exterior of an earlier launched Agena target stage.

After Gemini 10, Mike was assigned to what was slated to be a test of the complete Apollo spacecraft in Earth orbit (that flight, Apollo 8, later was changed to be the first mission to send humans into orbit around the Moon). In the course of his training, though, he developed problems with his legs and ultimately required surgery to correct for a cervical disc herniation.

Given the time needed for his recovery, he was removed from the crew and reassigned to Apollo 11. He was very happy to be part of the Apollo 11 crew - even if he was not one of the moonwalkers.

"It's one of the questions I get asked a million times, 'God, you got so close to the Moon and you didn't land. Doesn't that really bug you?' It really does not," he said.

"I honestly felt really privileged to be on Apollo 11, to have one of those three seats. I mean, there were guys in the astronaut office who would have cut my throat ear to ear to have one of those three seats. I was very pleased to have one," he said. "Did I have the best of the three? No. But was I pleased with the one I had? Yes! And I have no feelings of frustration or rancor or whatever. I'm very, very happy about the whole thing."

Having decided before Apollo 11 lifted off that it would be his last mission, Mike splashed down from the Moon having accumulated a total of 11 days, two hours and four minutes in space over the course of his two flights.

Mike Collins was born on 30 October 1930, in Rome, Italy, where his father, a career US Army officer,was stationed. After moves from Oklahoma to New York to Maryland to Ohio to Puerto Rico to Texas to Virginia, he attended St Albans preparatory school in Washington, DC. He then received an appointment to the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, where Mike earned his Bachelor of Science in 1952.

Enlisting in the Air Force, Mike was trained on and flew F-86 fighter jets out of Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and George Air Force Base in California, before being assigned overseas to the Chambley-Bussières Air Base in France and to West Germany during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. He returned to the U.S. the following year, where he attended an aircraft maintenance officer course and then commanded a mobile training detachment, traveling to air bases around the world.

In 1960, Mike reported to the Air Force Experimental Flight Test Pilot School (later Aerospace Research Pilot School) at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He applied for NASA's second class of astronauts but was not selected.

Instead, in 1962, he took a postgraduate course on the basics of spaceflight, which included flying F-104 supersonic jets to 90,000 feet (27,000 m) and training in weightlessness on parabolic flights. He graduated and returned to fighter operations at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas when he was accepted with the third group of NASA astronauts.

Prior to flying on Gemini 10, Mike's first assignment was to specialise in the development of the programme's spacesuits. He then served as backup pilot for the Gemini 7 mission. Prior to the 1967 Apollo 1 fire, which claimed three astronauts' lives, he was training for the then-planned second crewed flight of the Apollo program. In the wake of the tragedy, the mission was cancelled.

Although he did not fly on Apollo 8 due to needing surgery, Mike still played an important role on the 1968 mission, serving as CapCom, or capsule communicator, from inside Mission Control in Houston. It was Mike who informed the crew that they were good to break the bonds of Earth’s gravity and set course for the moon with the words “Apollo 8, you are go for TLI!” (TLI stood for trans-lunar injection).

After Apollo 11 and spending 21 days in quarantine to protect against any possible "Moon germs," riding in ticker tape parades in New York and Chicago, attending a state dinner, addressing a joint meeting of Congress and touring 22 countries in 38 days, Mike resigned from NASA in January 1970.

Recruited by the Nixon Administration, Mike accepted a position as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, but found he did not enjoy the job and left after a year to become thefirst director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.

Mike advocated for its funding and oversaw the museum being built once its budget was approved by Congress. He presided over the museum's opening on July 1, 1976, when his Apollo 11 command module, Columbia, and many of his own personal effects flown on the mission went on public display.

In addition to Carrying the Fire, he authored Flying to the Moon and Other Strange Places, Liftoff! The Story of America's Adventure in Space and Mission To Mars: An Astronaut's Vision Of Our Future.

Of all the honours he received, Mike was most proud to be named a Fellow in the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, the prestigious international society founded in 1955 that represents the men and women who advance aerospace vehicles through flight test programme.

Outside of his professional career, Mike enjoyed physical challenges, including running in marathons and competing in triathlons. On his 50th birthday, he ran 50 miles as a personal celebration. In his retirement, he took up watercolour painting and attended art classes to improve his skill. His chosen subjects were the aircraft that he flew and natural surroundings of the Florida Everglades.

Above all else, he relished the time he spent with his family. It was for that reason that chose to leave NASA when he did, possibly missing a chance to walk on the Mon in favour of spending more time with his children and grandchildren.

He was predeceased by his wife, Patricia Finnegan Collins. He is survived by his sister, Virginia  (Nuchi) Collins Weart and by his two beloved daughters, Kate Collins (and husband Charlie Newell) and Ann Collins Starr (and husband Chris Starr) and he had seven grandchildren.

Hidden in plain sight

“I have been a political reporter for almost three decades,” writes Peter Oborne in his new book, “and I have never encountered a senior British politician who lies and fabricates so regularly, so shamelessly and so systematically as Boris Johnson.”

The Assault on Truth - more like a slim dossier with full supporting evidence - attempts to explain the current apparently shambolic state of UK politics, and how Johnson has turned it against itself as he seeks to divide and rule.

In the first part, Oborne uses a mass of irrefutable evidence to prove that Johnson (and most of his senior advisors and ministers) habitually lie, fabricate and misrepresent the facts.

Having built the case, seemingly rather easily it turns out, he examines Johnson’s methodology of deception by selecting some of the most powerful and shocking examples.

Oborne then attempts to answer the question, what led the Conservative party to install such a person as leader and the British people to put an already proven liar in Downing Street?

He suggests that morality in public life (an by inference perhaps society at large too) has changed in recent years, over-turning the protections against deceit and corruption instilled by our Victorian ancestors, many inspired by evangelical Christianity.

“It may be fashionable to mock them today, but the Victorians brought high ideals into government which changed the way that Britain was ruled,” he writes.

Oborne also claims - and he should know, having worked on both the Telegraph and Spectator (the latter under Johnson as editor) - that “a great deal of political journalism has become the putrid face of a corrupt government” flying in the face of the only valid reason to become a journalist, which is “to tell the truth”.

He writes: “Too much of the political class have merged. And this unnatural amalgamation has converted truth into falsehood, while lies have become truth.”

Much of the documented evidence in The Assault on Truth is both difficult to deny (although it has become the duty of Johnson’s ministers daily to defend the indefensible) and shocking at the same time.

With forensic dissection, Oborne notes the small and large steps along the twisting path of 21st century politics to the place we have sadly arrived at today, where lies and trite, three-word slogans rule over difficult or politically complex areas.

Johnson is presented as an ambitious, self-seeking politician whose campaigning exuberance and populist comic polemic character is gradually being undermined by “incompetence and dishonesty in high office”.

But while there is little doubt that Johnson is both deceitful and amoral, Oborne says the prime minister’s war on truth is also part of a wider, largely right-wing, attack on the pillars of democracy, which includes Parliament, the rule of law and the civil service.

Oborne is honest enough to admit that he has changed his own mind on Brexit since voting for it in the 2016 referendum. Given his calibre as a journalist and his lifelong pursuit of the truth the only surprise in this is that he did not see through the blatant lies of the Vote Leave campaign at the time.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing in this book is not that Johnson is a habitual liar (though that is bad enough) but that, as a society, the UK has been prepared to protect (via the media) and support (by the public) him and his government in it.

Ultimately, the consequences of allowing such political trickery and wickedness to go unchallenged and unchecked for so long are grave indeed.

 

 

 

 

 

The Assault on Truth - Peter Oborne (2021)

Best purchased from your local, independent bookshop.

Democratic betrayal

TO coin a phrase, the British government seems to be at “sixes and sevens”, an English idiom used to describe a condition of confusion or disarray. In one way this is probably a fair description but look deeper and many of the government’s actions under the leadership of Boris Johnson on both Covid and Brexit have distinctly worrying undertones.

Let’s clear up one thing first. To date the UK’s vaccine roll out, albeit so far mostly single doses, under the auspices of the NHS has been a very welcome success story.

And this is not, as Johnson and members of his cabinet have repeatedly and disingenuously claimed, been made possible because of Brexit, a narrative designed to polarise further division between the UK and EU.

If vaccines are a success story and offer a ray of hope in these troubled times, the same cannot be said for the government’s abject and, at times corrupt, handling of the Covid pandemic crisis over its first year.

Johnson’s “policies” and decisions have lead to one of the worst per capita death rates of any country in the world and the worst performing economy during the pandemic of any G7 country.

The Resolution Foundation think tank reported this week that delaying the winter lockdown caused up to 27,000 extra deaths in England, and it accused the government of a “huge mistake” which should be central to any public inquiry into the UK’s handling of the pandemic.

In its assessment of the past year, the Foundation says delaying the start of the latest lockdown until January - despite hard evidence of fast-rising cases before Christmas - led to around a fifth of all fatalities caused by the virus. It believes these could have been avoided if restrictions had been put in place in early December, as had been recommended

While it praised the vaccination programme and financial support for firms and workers, the Foundation said the same mistakes on lockdowns were repeated “three tragic times” - in March, September and December 2020 - precipitating longer and more onerous lockdowns.

In the spring of 2021, as we look back on a year of turmoil and sadness, one could be forgiven for thinking that memories are short and we have not only forgotten that we have been in this before but forgotten too how we got here. This is the UK’s third national lockdown and both of its forerunners were promised to be the last.

One also can’t help thinking that the Government is somewhat over-reliant on vaccines solving the crisis, with Johnson offering no insight, for example, into how he plans to make vitally needed improvements to his national Test & Trace system, which we learnt last week is now costing a staggering £37 billion.

This is Monopoly money on a mega scale and is a sum that seems almost impossible to justify whichever way you look at it, particularly when other countries have developed efficient and successful Test & Trace systems for a fraction of the cost.

And despite the government insisting on calling it “NHS Track & Trace” - another less than casual piece of deliberate mis-speak - the system is not led by healthcare staff but is run by Dido Harding, friend of health secretary Matt Hancock and wife of Tory MP John Penrose, through the private firm Serco which, according to its recent financial results, is doing very nicely thank you.

If Johnson’s roadmap out of lockdown for this spring feels a little too premature and date-driven then perhaps it is. Based on 2020 we should remain wary. After all, he has already proved to be the popularist master of raising expectations unrealistically and over-promising.

Of course, in such tumultuous times, people do need something to look forward to. But it should not be at the mercy of a government which never learns from its mistakes, either deliberately or through serial incompetence.

Ultimately, the un-vaccinated should not be going to nightclubs in June, only for us all to return to national lockdown at the end of carefree summer. In the end, the only thing worse than hope is raising false hope.
       
Against this backdrop are on-going and increasingly transparent and dishonest attempts to bury the corpse of a failing Brexit in the cemetery of Covid.               

During his tenure the prime minister has repeatedly lied to Parliament, to the Queen and her citizens, bent the rules, broken international law and broken the ministerial code on multiple occasions. The British government is overtly corrupt and it goes back on its word. Can it be trusted on anything it says, does or signs?

So far it has seemed that when Johnson and his government break the law at home they largely get away with it. But when international law is broken (especially when it reneges on an agreement like the Northern Ireland Protocol which was only recently negotiated, signed and hailed as a great triumph), we should not be surprised when the EU and countries like the US react adversely.

And all this after a month in which the government was keen to cover its dirty Brexit tricks by almost any means possible, not the least of which was buying editorial space in mainstream newspapers to run a number of disingenuous pro-Brexit news stories.

These actions do mean, however, that the government is becoming sensitive to the growing realisation that in reality Brexit is proving as damaging to the economy, if not more so, that the much derided “Project Fear” tried to warn back in 2016.

Such developments may only elicit a resigned shrug from the general population, especially given the more immediate impacts of Covid, but it is suggestive that Brexiters are aware their propaganda battle is being quickly eroded.

It is perhaps in this context that the government’s astonishingly dishonest Brexit ‘advertising’ campaign of recent weeks can be better understood.

On many levels it was designed to hoodwink the unsuspecting public because the campaign primarily consisted of placing paid-for stories in newspapers, including the Independent, the Daily Mail, The Sun, the Evening Standard and the Metro, along with hundreds of local newspapers.

To all intents and purposes they appeared to be legitimate news stories and it was necessary to look very carefully to see that these were billed as written ‘in association with the UK government’ or as ‘sponsored articles’.

At one level it is almost laughable but on another it does suggest a certain amount of desperation on the part of the government to create and promote dubious ‘good news’ narratives about Brexit.

The ground is clearly being prepared for a trade war with the EU, which shows that many in governance are ideologically determined to permanently toxify UK-EU relations, however badly that affects the country and its international reputation.

In some ways, the entire Brexit and Covid stories both come down to a gluttonous insatiability - a type of privileged greed, gestated by the right-wing and aligned with the inability of the British political class to impose any dietary restrictions on itself, and thus making way for an increasingly regime-like governance.

Caption: The Downing Street "briefing room" commissioned by Boris Johnson at a price tag to the taxpayer of £2.6 million. It looks like a standard hotel conference room along with cheap chairs, so one wonders why it cost so much? Note the 'Henry' vacuum cleaner on the right-hand side.

Space Oddity

 

 

THE fact that the European Union (EU) is consolidating its space programmes under a new agency that is being given an expanded mandate is not particularly good news for the UK space industry - at least as long as the current Johnson government remains in power.

As has already been proven with the Brexit end-of-transition negotiations, anything with EU in the title has been like a red rag to the Tory right, which has used its disproportionate influence to persuade the prime minister cut off as many ties with Europe as possible, beneficial or not.

There are many examples, including the ERASMUS student scheme and perhaps even Galileo itself, the European satellite navigation system in which the UK has played such a significant role.

The politically skewered view that the UK could just go ahead and build its own multi-billion pound replacement to Galileo was, in reality, just more jingoistic hot air to serve the “sovereignty above all else” headlines.

Like so many post-Brexit negotiating decisions, the loss of high-level access to the navigation satellite  system was a politically driven position - a government, huffing and puffing to leave and failing to consider rationally what was the country’s best interest.

The UK's final big industrial contribution to the EU's Galileo sat-nav system was delivered before Christmas after Guildford-based Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) shipped the last of the navigation payloads, which are described as  the "brains" of the spacecraft generating the signals the Galileo network sends down to Earth.

Britain’s "third country" status now means UK companies can no longer be involved in the hi-tech end as they once were because Galileo is regarded by the EU as a security programme and only firms in its 27 member states or those with separate agreements can take on sensitive work.

Of course, like many things with Brexit, it didn’t have to be like this. Norway, for example, which is not an EU member, negotiated itself an agreement giving access to Galileo’s high-level signals and the ability to supply sensitive hi-tech instruments.

A savvy UK government, not driven by political ideologies, could easily have achieved the same had it wanted to rather than erect another trade barrier, this time in “space”, of its own choosing.

So, given the UK’s somewhat intransigent and often seemingly ill-thought out positions of late, the EU’s consolidation of its space programmes may not be to Britain’s long term advantage.
                        
The European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency (GSA), which  acts as the technical and procurement agent for the EU's space projects, will be renamed the EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUASP).

As such, it will also take on managing the use of the Copernicus Earth observation satellite system and oversee new initiatives in satellite communications named GOVSATCOM and space situational awareness (SSA).

The Prague-based agency will continue to manage use of the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Systems (EGNOS) and Galileo satellite navigation programmes.

According to a European Commission (EC) press release last week, EUASP “will increasingly support the exploitation and market uptake of EU space activities, and play a bigger role in ensuring the security of all the components of the programme.”

EU Internal Market Commissioner, Thierry Breton, praised the reorganisation of the union’s space programmes. “Europe is the second space power in the world. But the global race is on,” he said. 

“With this agreement, we now have the means to develop our leadership in space by consolidating our flagships – Galileo and Copernicus – and exploring new initiatives that will enhance Europe’s resilience, notably in secure connectivity.”

The EU has a seven-year space budget of €13.2 billion ($16 billion) up to 2027 and most of these funds will be focused on operating and expanding the Copernicus and Galileo satellite systems. The European Space Agency (ESA), of which the UK remains a part, oversees technical aspects and development of the spacecraft.

EUASP will also oversee the new European GOVSATCOM that is designed to provide reliable, secure and cost-effective satellite communications for the EU and its member state governments.

In addition, the agency will be instructed to manage a new Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme designed to help prevent collisions of objects in Earth orbit and uncontrolled reentries from this increasingly over-crowded environment. The programme will also focus on monitoring space weather and near Earth objects.

So, despite remaining part of ESA, which at least for the time being will give the UK an on-going role in the Copernicus programme, it remains to be seen what effect the EU’s increasing involvement in the organisation of European space programmes will have.

Allied with the UK’s irrational desire to cut off as many ties with the EU as possible, will it ultimately be to the detriment of UK involvement and leadership of this hi-tech and lucrative industry?

Over the coming months, and years, such matters will go much deeper than the “temporary” disruptions and difficulties that are now becoming more and more evident by the day for firms and traders at UK borders.

The term 'Long Covid' has become increasingly familiar as the Covid-19 pandemic has progressed. Sadly, if previously vibrant and successful UK industries suffer the very practical fallout of misplaced political ideology and British exceptionalism, it may not be long before 'Long Brexit' becomes a thing too. 

*          *          *

Editor's note: thanks to Prof Chris Grey for the acknowledgement and mention in his Brexit & Beyond blog on 22 January 2021, and the suggestion that the term Long Brexit has better parity with Long Covid by dropping the hyphen.

Space Station ambitions

A PROPOSAL by Asgardia, the space nation, to build and supply a new node module for the International Space Station (ISS) is revealed in an exclusive article in the winter issue of the global space industry publication ROOM Space Journal.

Asgardia - represented by three Austrian-based legal entities, Asgardia Terra Ark (ATA) NGO, Asgardia Financial Ark (AFA) AG and Asgardia Independent Research Centre (AIRC) GmbH - has modelled the node on the proven design of existing European-built modules.

Expanding on the idea in his ROOM article, Dr Igor Ashurbeyli, founder of Asgardia and the general designer of the Asgardia node module and the lead of the project, said the module would help extend the capacity and commercial value of the Space Station.

Asgardia has created a consortium of established industry players, including Nanoracks Europe, Thales Alenia Space (Italy), OHB System (Germany) and QinetiQ (Belgium), to develop, build and deliver the module

As well as supporting commercial development and expanding scientific research opportunities, the state-of-art module would ultimately have the capacity to eventually form the core node of an autonomous space station operated by Asgardia.

In his article, Dr Ashurbeyli notes that the limited number of available docking ports and related infrastructure constitutes a major obstacle to the future expansion of commercial capabilities on the ISS.

“To directly address this, Asgardia has proposed the provision of an Asgardia node module that would be integrated into the European part of the ISS,” he says.

Asgardia’s proposal for a new ISS module was submitted in 2020 in response to a European Space Agency (ESA) Call for Ideas entitled, ‘Space Exploration as a Driver for Growth and Competitiveness: Opportunities for the Private Sector’.

Dr Ashurbeyli describes the project as being “very much in line with the goals of ESA’s space exploration strategy”, adopted in 2014 with the strategic goals of scientific advancement; innovation and economic growth; global cooperation; and inspiration.

“It addresses the current limitations in habitable volume and research capabilities, incorporating the much-needed additional docking ports, which would be made available to both agency and commercial customers.”

He says the project is designed to capture investment from around the world, while providing jobs for European industry and offering a path to take European independence in space to a new level.

Asgardia would own the new infrastructure - comprising a node module based on ISS existing orbital infrastructure developed by the European space industry.

It would commercially fund the project via external investment as part of a public-private partnership (PPP) between commercial organisations and ESA.

An initial technical feasibility study would focus on the insertion of the Asgardia node module between Node 2 starboard and ESA’s Columbus, a configuration that best enables the expansion of docking facilities for third party customers.

Development, manufacturing and deployment is planned to take about five years leading to a possible launch in 2026.

The Asgardia node module would also provide functions for autonomous flight, including rendezvous and docking, a capability crucial for the time when, following the ISS end of life, the Asgardia module could be re-deployed as a core element of Asgardia’s proposed Earth Ark, an autonomous space infrastructure that will enable continuous development and research beyond the operational lifetime of the Space Station.

Despite recognising its “technical validity and potential promise”, ESA has for now declined the consortium’s proposal due to what it described as “political and technological risks”, both of which are refuted by Dr Ashurbeyli in his article.

Addressing the widely noted aspect of Asgardia's positioning as a digital space nation, he writes: “As a digital space nation Asgardia is not yet formally recognised by earthly states and so political risks are zero.”

“Technological risks are also minimal given that the consortium members are space industry world leaders and are committed to the project to design, build and delivery. “Asgardia also remains confident that the financial resources for the project can be found in the marketplace.”

The ambitious proposal was first revealed to space industry leaders by Dr Ashurbeyli during the Asgardia Space Science & Investment Conference (ASIC) in Darmstadt, Germany, in 2019.

Dr Ashurbeyli, a Russian scientist, businessman and philanthropist, is the Founder of Asgardia, which is also currently working to launch the world's first national digital economy.

Asgardia's core technical scientific vision is the birth of the first human child in space - a first   step towards the ultimate survival of the humankind as a species in the universe.

To achieve this Asgardia is examining solutions for protecting people from space radiation, creating artificial gravity for fully-fledged life in space, and is drafting laws to create a fair and equitable society beyond planet Earth.

The full article published in ROOM is available to read by clicking here.

Selling England by the Pound

Pictures paint a thousand words - coincidence or a divine warning?

WHILE the appalling Covid-19 figures in the UK, the latest nationwide lock down and vaccine rollout dominate mainstream news, the tragedy of post-Brexit Britain unfolds like some secondary subplot in a long drawn out dystopian soap opera.

Ironically, the intense media focus on the handling of Covid-19 in the UK is proving useful ‘cover’ for the damage being inflicted day-by-day to the economic fabric of the country now it is fully out of the EU. But that may only last for so long now.

Post-Brexit Britain's early days of going solo have already been characterised by lost business, extra costs, delays, unexpected tariffs and additional paperwork for many. So, far at least, no one seems to be trumpeting any tangible new freedoms or benefits.

Add the latest events in Washington, however, into the mix and we suddenly throw a more intense and critical spotlight on the UK's doomsday scenario of Covid-19 and Brexit under the leadership of an increasingly corrupt government.

President-elect Joe Biden has described Boris Johnson as "a physical & emotional clone of Donald Trump" whilst Trump himself described Johnson as “Britain’s Trump”. In return Johnson, a fine judge of character, suggested that Trump was a suitable candidate for a Nobel Peace Prize.

It has to be said, however, that Johnson and co are by no means as open or obvious about their self-serving motives as Trump has been. Instead they work insidiously in the background, stealing the UK’s democracy bit by bit.

For example, lying and glossing over truths by government ministers is now pretty much a normal thing. Johnson prorogued Parliament illegally and is in the process of changing electoral boundaries to give themselves more seats.

And the list goes on. They are reducing the power of judicial review to prevent challenge to their power. They selected candidates to Parliament who swore ‘loyalty’. They are packing the Lords. And they have taken enormous executive powers to themselves in recent bills that bypass Parliament entirely.

Make no mistake, the Johnson government is authoritarian to the core and its members want ever more of that authority. Whatever it may say in public, underneath this ruling class does not appear to believe in or respect parliamentary democracy.

Yet, we are constantly informed via trite PR statements about Johnson 'levelling up', trying his hardest or caring for the poorest, or whatever the latest propaganda phrase might be - all parroted by favourable media which normalise the corruption by failing to call out the lies.

It's all much more insidious than Trump ever was because at least everyone knew more or less what Trump was about. In contrast Johnson is still largely portrayed as a sort of posh but innocent buffoon who is really quite harmless. This is definitely not the case.

And the difference now between the US and UK? The US withstood attempts to close it's parliament down and will now curtail Trump's powers. But in September 2019, when Boris Johnson closed the British parliament down illegally, the right-wing mainstream press supported him to the extent that he eventually got re-elected.
                                       
So, what happened in the United States is a reminder of the risks we all face when the norms of liberal democracy are eroded.

It is interesting, for example, to note that in 2016 Vote Leave in the UK and Trump in the US had in common some of the same financial backers and media supporters.

And, only quite recently, Tory councillors and politicians were instructed to use “Trumpian methods” to promote their politics, further undermining an already subverted democracy and defining an allegiance to the Trump way of doing things.

In the UK, we have also ignored at our peril the irrefutable proof that Vote Leave broke the law during the referendum. Our political system and mainstream media were just too broken to hold them to account. Instead, we gave them more power.

It all kind of makes that much hailed Brexit slogan of “taking back control” a bit trite and disingenuous, doesn’t it? Unless, of course, you are the one in control.

A year of reading dangerously

BOOKS it seems have been more popular than ever during 2020 as many people re-discovered reading during the lockdown and restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic of the year. And so here is my own top ten of the year just past.

I haven’t rated them in any order, other than alphabetically by author surname, as that would seem a bit unfair because they are quite a disparate collection and I have enjoyed them all equally but for different reasons.

It is, however, appropriate that Sir David Attenborough’s A Life on Our Planet heads the list as this is probably the most important statement about our future if we are to do anything to avoid a catastrophic future.

I’d also like to point out that, part from those I received direct from publishers for review purposes as part of my work, the others were purchased from  local independent bookstores.

For each of the books listed below I’ve given a brief summary taken from a longer review and, if there is one, a link to the online review.

A Life on Our Planet - David Attenborough
The fascinating life- journey of  Sir David Attenborough unfolds chapter by chapter in ‘A Life on Our Planet'. It's an accessible, timely nicely written book, full of the wisdom and optimism for both now and the future against the backdrop of his own life adventures.

Dark Skies  -Tiffany Francis
Francis explores nocturnal landscapes and investigates how our experiences of the night-time world have permeated our history, folklore, science, geography, art and literature. I love the fact too that she brings to life many familiar and beautiful parts of the UK, not least when she writes about Buster Hill in Hampshire, still one of my favourite walking locations.   

The Mission of a Lifetime - Basil Hero
A thought-provoking book chronicling the lives and lessons of the 12 Apollo astronauts whom Hero calls ‘The Eagles’. In sharing their wisdom he urges us to reframe our view of Earth: no identifiable nations, borders or races. Each chapter begins with key life lessons that readers can gain from the moon walkers, from overcoming fear to finding gratitude and practising humility in all that you do.“What all Eagles agree on is that, when viewed from the deadness of the Moon, life on Earth is a miracle, a living paradise that much of humanity has failed to respect and care for.”

The Wall - John Lancaster
A middle England dystopia for our fractured and uncertain times, and the only novel in my top ten. A thrillingly apposite allegory of broken Britain that asks key questions about the choice between personal freedom and national interest. A hypnotic work about a broken world you might recognise and about what might be found when all is lost. 

Incandescent - Anne Levin
The thrust of Levin’s book is that natural light (and dark) is fundamental to almost every aspect of life on Earth, interacting with humans and animals in profound yet subtle ways. “We mess with the eternal rhythm of dawn-day-dusk-night at our peril,” she writes. “But mess with it we have, and we still don't truly understand the consequences.” Click here for my longer review.

Our Final Warning - Mark Lynas
Along with Attenborough and Wallis-Wells, this was my third book of the year looking at different aspects of climate change and how we might deal with it if not already too late. In essence, it is a digest version of enormous amounts of climate science papers published in the world’s best journals over recent years. Lynas tries to be hopeful at the end, arguing that everyone should now be fighting against climate change, much like we have done for Covid-19.
    
Limitless - Tim Peake
As a journalist writing about space, I've been fortunate enough to have followed closely his rise into the world of astronauts and space stations, so I was unsure what I might make of this latest astronaut tome. But I need not have worried. A captivating read and eloquently told. It also turned out that for six months or so in the late 1990s I actually worked alongside Tim Peake’s Dad, Nigel, who was Features Editor at the Portsmouth Evening News. Such a small world, isn't it?

The Fens - Francis Pryor
A fascinating account of a complex landscape by archaeologist Francis Pryor who has dug and worked its soil for almost 40 years. Weaving together strands of archaeology, history and personal experience, he paints an intimate portrait of the East of England's marshy and mysterious Fenland. Particularly interesting for someone who grew up in The Fens and now lives along the western edge close to Roman King Street.   

The Uninhabitable Earth - David Wallis-Wells  
A grim book which expands on a viral article of the same name, published in New York in the summer of 2017 and which frightened the life out of everyone who read it. It’s essentially about the harsh realities and impacts of climate change and, as Wallace-Wells points out, the bigger problem is the vast number of people (and governments) who acknowledge the true scale of the problem but continue to act as if it’s not happening.

The Salt Path - Raynor Winn
An honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways. I enjoyed every page of this remarkable and very human journey around the coast of Cornwall. 

Happy reading!

PS - by late 2023, the Lighthouse Keeper plans to have completed and published his own first novel - for a sneak preview see the webpage Flood Waters Down