Rural Estates Newsletter February 2023 - Flipbook - Page 3
James Maxwell
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I have been pondering the term “Blighty” to refer to England. According to
Wikipedia, it comes from the Urdu Vileti, meaning “foreign”, and was first
used by the British during the Raj as a term for Home. In the trenches of
World War I, to “cop a Blighty” was to receive a wound (often gratefully) that
was sufficiently serious to send you home to convalesce. For me, it conjures
a particular vision of a blighted island: postal strikes, queues and railways that
don’t work; low skies and rain-lashed streets where it is forever February. And
yet it is a term of light affection: it holds in ironic balance a recognition of the
weaknesses of home and its virtues in comparison to elsewhere - it contains
a mixed perspective.
I’d like to think such a perspective informs the articles of this newsletter. In “Three
to watch in 2023” we look forward to three legislative plans the government has
that will affect rural estates in the coming years (and consider possible unintended
consequences). In “ELMs: what we know now” Elizabeth Earle casts a sceptical eye over
our progress in replacing the CAP with our own scheme of subsidy. From conservation
covenants, to MEES, to Welsh occupancies, we contemplate the best laid plans of mice
and men...
Perhaps the failure of our own age is our tendency to tunnel vision. In the Twittersphere
we rarely pause to consider the value of different opinions before we shout them down.
In lobbying for change (or against it), we seldom take time to ponder the merits of
an opposing perspective, to doubt the completeness of our own and to temper our
convictions accordingly. So my New Year’s resolution is to doubt myself more, to read
books at variance with my own views and to try and cultivate a wider, more
generous perspective.
Rural Estates Newsletter
February 2023
3