Letters to a great-granddaughter (1)

One of my family returned from a visit to the Spanish branch of the family with a lovely photo of my great-granddaughter looking a little pensively over the sea wall at the beach at Calp, some 45 minutes away from where she lives with her family in the hills.

Her life will be very different from mine.   She is having to cope with three languages: English at home most of the time; Spanish and Valencian (Catalan) in her nursery - which costs about one tenth of the price of an equivalent in the UK.

I grew up in analogue world and have had to try and adapt to a digital world: the world she has encountered is fully digital, although her home is off grid and produces its own electricity and has deep wells.

It is very easy in one's later years to become unduly pessimistic, but I do worry about the state of the world I have bequeathed her. Populism is making gains in most countries: the US; France; Germany; Italy; Austria; most recently, Romania.   It is far from absent in Spain.

There is a big debate about what we mean by populism, but its essence is simple solutions to complex problems.  'Elites' ate blamed for the state of the world and the fact that the growth in personal income and well-being seems to have slowed, stopped or even reversed.

At one time the purveyors of conspiracy theories were regarded as marginal individuals, but social media has given them a platform and echo chamber.   Of course, there are real drivers of concern, not least the global challenges presented by mass migration.

While the Falklands War was on, I was invited to address an afternoon colloquium organised by a think tank affiliated to the Italian Communist Party.   The other speaker was a hard line Marxist, so goodness knows why a sloppy centrist like me was invited.

Just before I was about to speak, the organisers informed me that the followers of Lyndon La Rouche intended to invade the event with smoke bombs, but I was not to worry as the riot police had been mobilised and were round the corner.   Nothing actually happened

La Rouche believed that there was a global conspiracy involving the Queen and the Rockefellers.  Pretty tame stuff compared with some of the beliefs circulating today, and some of their believers will soon be in office in the United States.  Needless to say, my great-granddaughter has been vaccinated.

Next time: nuclear proliferation.