Offline

I used to commute into London by train.  I could have driven but it would have involved getting up more than an hour earlier and parking in London was expensive (and that was in the days before congestion charging added to the bill).  So every morning I arrived at Harpenden station in time for the 07:22 train to London.

Most mornings the train was late – I could probably count on the fingers of one finger the times it was on time – but usually only by a few minutes.  Allowing for further delays along the way I usually got to work sometime between 08:30 and 08:45.

Except that some mornings it was much more seriously delayed.  “Leaves on the line”, “the wrong kind of snow”, “points failure in outer Mongolia”, “train driver abducted by aliens”, the excuses were repeated continuously over the barely-intelligible announcements system.  We got as bored listening to them as doubtless did the poor guy who was paid to keep repeating them.  Nobody, it seems, knew when the problem would be fixed.  There was no estimate available for when our train would arrive and depart.

And to this day I remember that horrendous, deep-gut feeling of utter powerless.  There was no action I could take.  By that time in the morning if I were to give up, get into my car and attempt to drive in I would be unlikely to arrive at my desk before lunchtime.  I had meetings to attend, emails to receive and respond to, papers to read and write, but I could do none of these because of a fire in Basingstoke, or some such, and – most frustrating of all – nobody could tell me how long I would be waiting there.

So the only thing I could do was to stand there and wait, trying to resist the temptation to scream in frustration and kick the timetable board, hoping that somebody would fix whatever problem it was that was delaying our train.  Even if it wasn’t raining (100 commuters – 5mx4m waiting room) I remember those times as some of the most miserable of my life.

I was reminded of them this morning by today’s island-wide Internet failure.

I have, on my PC, 10 emails waiting to be sent, some urgent.  I have things I want – need - to do online.  I can do none of this.  I can’t even check Facebook to see what my friends had for breakfast and who has praised Trump for his masterly handling of the Covid-19 crisis.  I am sat here waiting for somebody to identify and fix the problem and reconnect St Helena to the outside world and I can do absolutely nothing to help make that happen.

On the bright side, I can at least make myself a cup of tea while I’m waiting, and I’m not getting wet or snowed-on, but the frustration at my powerless to improve my situation remains.

If St Helena does have to go on Lockdown due to Covid-19 I fear that our Internet system will not be able to provide the lifeline that has helped every other country to survive.  How will we cope?

Coronavirus measures

In order to prevent infection by the Coronavirus, St Helena is now closed until July. No flights. No cruise ships. No supply ships. No yachts. No air-drops (which might contain infected air). We have teams deployed on the shore to push any floating rubbish that may contain infected air back out to sea and we're also building a big fan to blow the wind back out to sea in case it carries the virus from South Africa. Were building a big tent over the island to deflect potentially-infected rain.

Sadly, no ships means no fuel, of course, so no power - we'll have to shut down all the electronics - hence this will be my last posting.

Goodbye cruel world!

(Is that a suitable non-panicky response?)

Andrew, on BREXIT

My eldest son, Andrew, posted the following this morning on Facebook™.  It so eloquently says what I could not have expressed better myself.

Growing up in many ways I was proud to be British. I looked at my nation as being progressive and, although far from perfect, a generally sensible nation with gun control, healthcare and many things other countries haven’t got right yet.

I looked at Britain as one of the great unifiers; a founder of Europe, the commonwealth and other groups that were going to bring the world together.

That Britain died yesterday. It had been sick for a long time, but is now truly dead.

From today onwards, Britain is no longer a part of building a better world; it has become isolationist, caught up in its own ridiculous feeling of self importance and backward.

Britain now reminds me, not of a proud nation, but of the stereotypical town drunk who sits in the corner of the bar trying to tell stories of his glory days to anyone who might listen.

I know Brexit was “the will of the people” but frankly the people were wrong, the people were lied to and in the end, sadly it is the people, both those who wanted Brexit and those who didn’t, who will now have to suffer the long hard days ahead.

To the old Britain: may she rest in peace. To the new Britain and all of us in the OTs who are dragged along this path, I wish us all good luck – the real work begins now

Be careful what you wish for ....

A lot of nations have experienced the same thing.  In the midst of all the celebrations of their newly-gained Independence someone suddenly realises that they have also lost something – a very important something: someone to blame.

When you leave home you can no longer blame your parents for holding you back.  It’s now all down to you.  The successes are your successes but the failures are also unequivocally yours.  And when a country becomes independent it can no longer blame “the colonial masters” for all the country’s ills.  It has to take responsibility for its own failures.

For many years the BREXITeers have been delighting in blaming the EU for everything that is wrong in Britain and convincing a gullible public that once Britain leaves the EU all the problems will go away and Britain will become a land flowing with milk and honey.

Now they have to deliver on that vision.

“Be careful what you wish for .... you may get it!”

I call "bullshit"

In yesterday’s newspaper SURE paid for a two-page advertisement which basically told the people how wonderful SURE is and how committed it is to serving the people of St Helena.

As the phrase goes, “I call bullshit”.

Imagine a visitor who arrives at the Airport on a Saturday. His friend is not there to pick him up and he doesn’t have his friend’s number, so he calls Directory Enquiries and hears a recorded message saying that the service is only available from 8am to 4pm, Mondays to Fridays (excepting public holidays).

This being St Helena, of course, he does not have to wait for his friend to remember him, or the 43 hours until SURE next operates, he just asks somebody for help and probably ends up getting a free lift to his friend’s place – but that is not the point.  Our visitor’s first impression of St Helena is that it makes a 3^rd world country look sophisticated.

If your Internet fails or your telephone goes crackly at 2pm on a Saturday you cannot even report the fault until 8am on Monday (or Tuesday of Monday is a public holiday).  In the “real world” two days without Internet access would be considered a crime – here it is a fact of life, often experienced.

I could site many other examples.

If SURE wants the people of St Helena to believe it is committed to improving their lives it should start by providing a reasonable standard of service at the times when it is required (which is, by the way, 24/7).

(PS I am well aware that, as a result of my posting this, my telephone/Internet will mysteriously develop a fault at about 2pm tomorrow.  That’s the price I must pay for telling the truth.)

United Nations & St Helena

Our Equality & Human Rights Commission ("SHEHRC") has made its first submission to the United Nations regarding Human Rights on St Helena, which makes interesting reading!

The submission is part of an update on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the document can be read at https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CCPR/Shared%20Documents/GBR/INT_CCPR_IFS_GBR_41059_E.pdf (other submissions are indexed here: https://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/15/treatybodyexternal/SessionDetails1.aspx?SessionID=1371&Lang=en).

The SHEHRC's submission concludes .....

Two issues stand head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to addressing human rights issues within St Helena and affect the SHEHRC’s ability to achieve real progress. They are:

1. The Territory’s restricted ability to exercise its right to self-determination including to report directly to the UN, vote on significant matters like “Brexit” or indeed take part in the elections for the Government that decides its future.

2. The very unclear relationship between the UK Government (UKG) and SHG with regard to responsibility for protecting human rights. Although UKG has supported the development of human rights laws and policies in its St Helena, including the addition of a Bill of Rights section in our Constitution, it has not codified its own responsibility for human rights on the island.

If transparency on these issues can be achieved the path for reporting and resolving the SHEHRC’s concerns will be clearer and it will be more likely that the human rights concerns on the island will be understood and resolved.

It's a great shame that Sir Simon McDonald did not take the time to meet with the SHEHRC during his recent visit. He and they could have had an interesting discussion about this!

It will be interesting to see what the UN thinks about the UK Governments treatment of its ‘colonies’.

No democracy here

On Thursday the people of the mainland UK get to decide who runs the country.  They also get to decide who runs the overseas territories (of which there are many - http://sainthelenaisland.info/government.htm#britishoverseas).  But the people who live in these “OTs” do not get a say in their own future.  The OT citizens are not allowed to vote in UK parliamentary elections, even though the decisions taken by the UK parliament directly affect them in many ways, such as their overarching laws, their local governance and especially funding.  In France the OTs take part in national elections.  Also in Holland.  But not Britain.  Britain, it seems, leads the world in denying democracy to its citizens.

This needs to change.