November 1-3, 1999 – In Which I Attend Training at the Former Cadbury Estate and Opine About the Fox Hunt

I spend a quiet few days in the office.

In a small-world coincidence, Jane Lutz gives me some materials on performance contracting from a presentation she went to here at INLOGOV. The presenter was Bruce Clary of the University of Southern Maine, whom I know. I email him and he replies sending me the web address of a Maine Policy Review journal that contained the article I wrote on performance budgeting.

Dave Lachance from Maine’s budget office emailed me to say the first performance budgeting commission meeting went well. Happily, they seemed to like the new budget model.

On Wednesday, I attend a training seminar sponsored by INLOGOV. It is held in the Wast Hill House just off campus. Caroline markets this house for conferences and seminars as part of her job at the university. The Cadbury family owned the house—which explains the doorknobs throughout shaped like cocoa beans.

The training seminar is quite good. But I am beginning to realize there are no promising conclusions. The British government is doing the same things we are doing in Maine, and struggling with the same issues. But I meet some interesting people in the field. One woman works on best value in Cheltenham, a borough in the Cotswolds, where Prince Charles’ country estate, Highgrove, is located.

With the time change, it is dark when I walk home now, It is a gloomy reminder that winter is coming and my time here is going by fast. I am at the half-way point and feel like I am just starting to know what I am doing—almost. Plus, it is raining so it is a messy walk home. But it will be warm and dry when I get there with Lutchford to greet me.

• In today’s news: Prince Charles stepped into the political limelight again and is reportedly annoying the Blair government. The monarchy is prohibited from criticizing or supporting one government’s programs or policies, according to Britain’s unwritten constitution. Recently, Prince Charles has expressed his concern about government approvals of genetically modified foods, boycotted the government-sponsored banquet for the Chinese president, and, this weekend, took his sons on a fox hunt, which the Labor government is trying to ban. A furor ensued. Analysts say his behavior is beginning to indicate a pattern that undermines the government.

The fox hunt is an interesting issue; one that pits urban against rural Englanders, much the way deer or bear hunting does in Maine. Tony Blair has vowed to ban the fox hunt; a practice that reeks of upper-class privilege, which he is bent on dismantling, only in this case, cloaked in objections about animal cruelty. Rural England sees this as a slap in the face to their traditional way of life. Prince Charles has always hunted and attends the elite Beaufort Hunt every year. This year, because of legislation to ban the hunt, one would think he would see the political landmine and avoid stepping right into the blast. But maybe that is his intent. I see Camilla Parker-Bowles’ hand in this this; an avid hunter herself, she also rode in this year’s hunt.

At the same time, Prince Charles is working with the Government to champion British beef abroad; to become an ambassador of sorts to help bolster British beef exports, which have suffered following the Mad Cow outbreak.