Reflections 11th June

Power and distance; we're a long way from home.

On the wall of the kitchen garden at Chatsworth 10 June 23

This week has been one of those where I’ve found myself looking at things we have started to accept as normal and wondering quite how we got here.

A time when we watch celebrities argue over rights, measure offence in “victim units” facilitated by expensive lawyers and compensated by the dispensation of the universal, soulless medium of money, as though egregious acts can be post-sanctified in a financial confessional.

At the same time as we have created this highly lucrative “victim industry”, we observe all manner of rank social injustice sidelined because, well, there’s no money in it. We watch water companies, privatised monopolies, pollute our environment and respond by promising retribution measured in money applied to a legal entity.

No people who permit these breaches are harmed in this form of justice. It feels like letting Hannibal Lecter out on bail because he’s promised to go vegetarian. We have privatised the mai…