Notwithstanding the Subject matter we are now in fact in Mohammedia in Morocco where at long last we have some wifi for the laptop. As a result I can look at this piece with the benefit of hindsight so it may be toned down slightly from the intended offering.

In some of the marinas we have visited there have been tv’s showing the news on a local station or maybe CNN.  It has been fun trying to guess what the topics are from the pictures and the few recognisable words in Spanish or Portuguese. There seems to have been a heatwave in Spain with associated fires which was intriguing given the cold and wet weather we experienced as far south as Lisbon. However there has been one unmistakeable topic that always features and that is the movement of people as refugees largely from the Middle East but also Africa across the Mediterranean Sea and into Europe. There have always been economic migrants of course, largely men, in search of work and/or a better life. But when you see whole families arriving in unseaworthy boats you know that something pretty awful is driving them to it - and on such a scale.

This was brought home to us on the sail down from Cadiz to Gibralta. Throughout the day the shipping radio station repeatedly broadcast a Pan Pan message (Pan Pan is a message seeking assistance but not as urgently as a Mayday) asking shipping to look out for a boat carrying 21 people from Morocco towards the coast of Spain. This was news that could affect us directly as well as being a surprise - Morocco? This is our next destination. More to the point what would we do if we came across these 21 people and their boat was sinking? Try and get them on board of course (despite my tasteless jibe about inflating the dingy for them) and radio the authorities. There is clearly something very major in the way of population displacement going on and the ramifications could be significant.

I have been thinking about this in Gibraltar while admiring the size of some of the private yachts coming in here - most flying the Red Ensign or some variation of it (tax havens such as Jersey, Isle of Man and the Bahamas). I have attached some photos to give you a flavour. The largest of the boats photographed is so big at 72 metres in length I thought at first it must be a small cruise liner but no, it is private and according to the guys at the marina is small compared with others that come in here. Just before it left yesterday morning a private jet flew out of the airport. There may well be no connection of course but I think it a valid speculation that the two events may be linked. Any of these boats will have cost considerably more than Annie and I have earned in our whole working lives and the larger ones many, many times over. When David Cameron says "we are all in this together” I think he appreciates not quite all.

Now, I and many of the people reading this post are likely to be counted among the most wealthy 1% of the world’s population. I will rephrase that - the very few people reading this post could well to be counted among the most wealthy 1% of the world’s population. The threshold is surprisingly low and the details are easily checked on line. If I feel uncomfortable trying to imagine just quite how much wealth some people are accumulating to enable them to spend it on toys like these, in relative terms what impression are Annie and I going to be creating in places like Morocco?

It seems to me that If we want to stop millions of people from being displaced from one place to another (e.g. into Europe) then at the level of nations we have to help create the global conditions under which wealth distribution is more even, and a relatively few number of people cannot exploit economic systems, politics and religion for their own gain at the expense of many.

I feel more Jeremy Corbyn than David Cameron on this one (but equally doomed). 

 Apologies for the digression - I’ll try and stick to sailing.