Prune the wokery and make the Chelsea Flower Show great again
Chelsea Flower Show opened on Monday, with the usual mix of incongruous celebrities (I saw Jason Statham admiring some succulents), horrific statuary and women in floral dresses rummaging in their handbags for the Clarityn.
The veneer of glamour, if that's the right word for Alan Titchmarsh urging vigilance about Colorado Beetle, masks the fact that Chelsea is in the throes of an identity crisis: Gertrude Jekyll and Hyde.
It is possible that no event, other than perhaps the Opec summit, has been more scrutinised about its environmental impact. On the one hand, Chelsea ought to be an ideal forum for concerns about sustainability, ecology and the environment. Who understands the climate better than gardeners? But the show is also a circus of plants, soil, concrete and semi-permanent structures rolling into SW3 for a week, never to be seen again.
The result has been years of teeth-gnashing. The most visible protest was in 2023, when the show was crashed by Just Stop Oil. They threw orange dust around and shouted 'what is the point in a garden if you can't eat?. (Speaking for many of the attendees, a woman grabbed a nearby hose and diligently watered the protestors while the sun shined, which they must have hated.)
Really the trouble for Chelsea had set in long before. Corporate sponsors had pulled out, wary of the cost and worried about the optics of being involved in such a jamboree of unsustainability. A signal year was 2017, when M&G, an asset manager, announced they would not be renewing their headline deal. It's not only the money-men. Last year Crocus, the Surrey-based nursery who built almost all the show gardens, announced they would not be returning. As their business has moved online, they no longer need Chelsea as a shop window.
The RHS is in a bind. Only this week, its ambassador for communities quit claiming he was made to feel like a 'nuisance' and that the show prioritised 'spectacle over sustainability.' But what spectacle? The show gardens are all sponsored by an anonymous collective, Project Giving Back, and they all come with a worthy message. This garden helps with prison rehabilitation; that one offers succour to the dying; another is here representing British rainforests. Artistry for its own sake has all but vanished.
Visitors are voting with their feet. There are still tickets available this week, unthinkable in previous years. But it is understandable they are staying away. Even the greenest of thumbs balks at paying £137.75 to see the kind of garden they have at home, and be lectured to boot.
The worm may be turning, which is something all gardeners love to see. All the main political parties have become more circumspect about net zero. Just Stop Oil has disbanded and put their orange dust back in the cupboard. There is a general recognition that living harmoniously with nature requires a complicated cost-benefit analysis. Is it greener to have an AI-powered heat pump or maintain your hedgerow correctly?
I have no idea what the answer is, but you can object to fast fashion while admiring a Paris couture show. Chelsea ought to be one of Britain's leading events but it needs a strong dose of something. Maybe it could learn from the Premier League, which has created a world-beating spectacle by welcoming cash regardless of provenance. Where better to green-wash than a garden show? Bring back the deranged follies, the orchids tortured into blooming for three minutes in front of a judge, Diarmuid Gavin's flights of phallic fantasy. Make Chelsea great again.
The BFCs
Keir Starmer has swapped our fish for e-Gate access. Shrewd move, just in time for summer. At the very least it will spare us the tedious phenomenon of holidaymakers taking pictures of immigration queues and posting them online with a snarky comment about #Brexit. Coming back through Heathrow last week, I was struck by countries we admit through our e-Gates. The EU, Australia, Canada, Japan, Iceland, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland and the US. This is not a measure of economic or diplomatic heft, but reliability: how much trouble the staff anticipate.
There ought to be a name for this group. The BFC's, or 'basically fine countries'. A dependable friend is better than a rich one.
Papal pumping
Valerio Masella, a 26-year-old personal trainer from Rome, had the shock of his life when he saw his client, whom he had known as a mild-mannered American called 'Robert', emerge from St Peter's as the new Pope Leo XIV. Robert was in 'exceptional' shape for his age, Masella told journalists, and would come in several times a week, starting with aerobics and cardio before moving on to weights. Even His Holiness is pumping iron. You have no excuse.
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