David's Digest

My friend, Charles Clover, he of the Daily Telegraph, reported last weekend how DEFRA Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, is busy promoting public access for all, while denying it to a length of foreshore in front of his ancestral home. Moreover, the Ramblers claim there are signs outside the imposing house on the Blackwater estuary in Essex saying "no public footpath", private garden, and "please do not trespass".

Its not the first time I've heard the story. I remember hearing many years ago when Hilary's father, Tony, or Anthony as he was called then, that he insisted on maintaining his privacy along that piece of beach. As I remember it, when Hilary's grandfather, William Wedgewood Benn, bought the property in the mid 1930's, it came with rights to the shore and out to sea "as far as a man could throw a spear". Clearly, Tony, the high profile, equality loving left winger, who renounced his rights to inherit his fathers peerage (he should have been called Viscount Stansgate) does not believe totally in equal rights for all.

Now, because of his DEFRA job it falls to Hilary to sort it out. There can be little doubt that he will be forced to comply with the legislation his own department is writing and before long the Ramblers will be able to ramble past Stansgate Abbey just as they will the rest of the British coastline. But isn't it interesting that the high principled Wedgewood Benn's have felt justified in keeping their ancient rights for seventy years while the privacy of the rest of us has been constantly eroded.

As George Orwell said in Animal Farm "Some pigs are more equal than others".