This is a low.

This news story appeared in the Guardian on Saturday, about the end of British shipping tax subsidies for Irish lighthouses. Lighthouses are especially beautiful but this is sad for other emotive reasons.

Firstly, one of the lighthouses protected by the Commissioners of Irish Lights is one near Malin Head, featured in the shipping forecast. Also, in Blur's This is a Low:

On the Malin Head
Blackpool looks blue and red
And the Queen, she's gone round the bend
Jumped off Land's End

Secondly, according to the Guardian article, it's one of the last organisations to work on an all-Irish basis. Now the CIL will only be responsible for lighthouses in Northern Ireland. Rather than withdrawing a colonial hangover from the 18th century, the government has reaffirmed our 20th century colonial meddlings by maintaining the divide between the six counties and the republic. By absolving the UK of responsibility towards Eire, but maintaining responsibility in Northern Ireland, we are further encroaching on the rights of Irish people to self-determination. I say: all or nothing. I imagine that Irish lighthouses are important for ships docking in the British Isles as well as Ireland (just as the Spanish Armada) and an obsessive realist attitude neglects the intergovernmental and transnational trade, movement, education, culture that is a benefit of globalisation. Irish lighthouses are as important to UK docked ships - perhaps even to English, Welsh and Scottish citizens - as they are to Dubliners.

Sadly, the saving of £12million seems to be the overriding factor. So will the Irish government pick up the bill? It's saving UK docked ships' lighting dues, but somewhere across the ocean the tab will need to be picked up. Savings are nothing more than a shift of responsibility, in this case from a struggling economy to a completely bust economy. The genius behind this move is Mike Penning, Hemel Hempstead MP and Transport Minister. Needless to say, as a Tory minister, Mike Penning doesn't understand that 'efficiency', 'savings', 'cuts' are simply shifts in responsibility that have to be picked up elsewhere, often by those less able to take on high costs.