Friday 9 November 2012

Very Well, Alone

Great Britain has led four other European Union countries in refusing to make available some £600 million from the European Solidarity Fund  that had been allocated to making good the earthquake damage to Modena, Ferrara, Mantova, and the iconic landscapes of the north of Italy and its smaller settlements by the  earthquakes earlier this year.

It seems that the demographic shift so eagerly rewarded in the United States has also taken place in the United Kingdom  and we no longer even recognise, let alone treasure, our European cultural heritage.  Finland, Sweden have always been icy northern wastes; the Netherlands below sea level on any measure; Germany capable of anything.  But England?  To be so eaten with loathing of Brussels it refuses help to Mantova? Out of spite?

Every flake of paint, every gilded ceiling, every column, every glorious instrument, library, place of Christian worship, court of princes, and cultural cradle  will be restored; but England slips ever further away from being part of that European heritage.  Burning down Croydon and Tottenham is the level of cultural achievement now.



3 comments:

dearieme said...

When Italy was boasting of having overtaken Britain economically, did it volunteer to let Britain become a drawer-out from the EU while itself becoming a payer-in? Thought not.

Add to that the conviction, surely not fantastical, that anything handed to Italy will be stolen, then there's a better case for the decision than you allow.

Weekend Yachtsman said...

If the money were seen as going to Italy directly, rather then being passed through the corrupt, hated, and known-to-be-leaky EU, things might be different.

hatfield girl said...

Italy is a 'payer-in' Dearieme, together with: Germany, France, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, and the UK.

The 'stolen' conviction is fantastical, though. All public monies leak into the wrong hands and purposes in all member states, but northern Italy is rather more well-administered than most.

Yacht, you are allowing your political hatreds, which should properly encompass the UK elites in their determination to impose membership of the EU on the English and Welsh, to overshadow your cultural identity. You have much more in common with Mantova and its history and treasure than you have with dictatorial English governance.