ONE, TWO, TREE

At the end of our crescent in Brighton war has broken out.  Meanwhile ten minutes away by the sea the suicide bombers of politics (aka the Liberal Democrats) are holding their conference and discussing  knee-stroking and the only solution being a divine one.

Back to the real war-zone.

“Nightmare on Elm Street” says a placard on a condemned elm tree.

The elm in question is 130 years old and its prospective demise has provoked a bit of a furore. It’s going as part of a plan designed to turn a seven exit roundabout into less of a death trap – it’s recorded over 40 accidents in the past three years. 

The plan created by a Green Council – the only Green Council in Britain – has been subject to consultation, votes by residents, computer modelling  and several angry meetings. These angry meetings have been angry because a small but vocal niche of people hate the Greens and any plans they might have – as one said under his breath “a Green Plan is a bloody oxymoron anyway.”

At the last such meeting loud and intemperate imprecations filled the air not least about this elm tree.

As part of this take-to-the-streets-protest objectors are saying this poor tree has suddenly come into the equation….not so …been discussed…but never mind.

As the executioner sharpened his axe the guerrillas struck. The elm, now festooned with paper “RIP little tree” “I’m a lean green oxygen making machine” and dozens more was precariously occupied up in its branches by two men (one, irritatingly, a protest-pro. shipped in from the Bexhill road-extension protest – a kind of mercenary Swampy figure.) On the ground dozens of mothers and bearded men, who looked as though they’d escaped from the conference down the road, stood wearily dripping with water.

A local magazine wryly noted this elm destruction was an insane piece of PR for the Greens.

But whilst true more true is the sheer difficulty of democratic government or concepts by collective cabinet responsibility applying anymore. However hard you try to manage stakeholders the opponents of a plan will literally or metaphorically take to the streets or the trees even when they’ve lost the vote.

In my taxi last night as we approached the elm my driver waved angrily up at the tree squatters and said “In my county we shoot such people down”.

In my country we allow such things and just get very vexed with each other. It takes an elm in the wrong place at the wrong time to prove we are actually quite nice if not quite sane.