I would introduce another voice, but will stay quiet on that one. Just write whatever comes into my head maybe. John Harris of Guardian fame makes videos of what it is like to live in this country at the present moment. He interviews people on the street, this time in Grimsby. Grimsby is or was a fishing town, but now slumps so low in the job situation that the streets of shops are shuttered and empty - bleak. He talks to a black ex soldier, who because he has no phone (sold it to get food) cannot get in touch with Social Security, and cooks his food on a barbecue out in the garden. He eats one day and starves two days. Food is also getting limited at the food banks, as inflation strikes.
The other voice is James O'Brian of LBC radio fame, in fact I might even switch to LBC one day. Last night I watched him try to skewer a person that had called in on why he had voted 'leave'. Of course the poor chap could not give one good reason in why he had taken this backward decision. O'Brian, like someone shucking an oyster with a pin, tried to get just one answer, but there was none.
That is how we made the dreadful mistake of Brexit. This man along with countless others had ridden on an emotional wave of 'Britishness' - as if it ever existed! Now leavers are puzzled, ask the fishermen of Grimsby how they feel when all those 'foreigners' were not expelled out of our waters. They are lost, great mistake to vote in Tories they say. But sadly it is done and dusted, we are now experiencing the effects of a bad decision. Well the man says, yes we should have kept the market, was he not taught at school about the Silk Road and the way things travelled?
Canada and Australia is really far, far away, why not trade with the people next door, all that silly nonsense of racial prejudice against the French, buried long ago. Our young don't want it, they want freedom of movement and friendship, job opportunities abroad. They definitely want something different to what we have today.
We have unwittingly gone into crisis not just because of Brexit, the Ukraine war suddenly brings to our attention that in actual fact we rely on Russia for gas, Germany much more. Pandemic did not help, but now we have our feet in deep, deep mud, trying to drag ourselves away to the dryer ground. It is not a question of looking backward but looking forward.
Black humour is something I appreciate Eleanor Morton. See Gavin Williamson has resigned with dignity. Can't saying anything nowadays without some one complaining - chuckle.
The problem with the EU is summed up in the name - union. Had it remained the free market/free trade area that the UK joined in the 1970s I doubt that there would have been a successful movement to leave. Failure on the part of the EU to recognise that many of the current members, like the UK, value elements of their independence I think is going to be an ongoing source of internal tension, and may ultimately trigger other leave movements. I think that once the "ever closer union" movement took on from Maastricht onwards, Brexit was ultimately inevitable.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, my in-laws' family come from the Grimsby/Cleethorpes area, and acts of economic vandalism like the Common Fisheries Policy have a lot to answer for in relation to the decline of many formerly successful fishing communities.
ReplyDeleteI wish I understood this well enough to follow along, Thelma, but alas...I do like Eleanor Morton.
ReplyDeleteShe is funny Joanne, very dry as she recounts her tales.
DeleteI don't think that it is "mud" we are standing in Thelma. My wife's Uncle Chubby voted "Leave". I asked him why. He said that our great country overcame Hitler. Uncle Chubby died in 2018. Since then many thousands of younger people have become eighteen. And what about the millions of people who did not vote in the Brexit referendum? Should we have just ignored them? Didn't those people mean anything?
ReplyDeleteArguably, in any election/vote, the non-voters have made a conscious decision that they are insufficiently motivated by the issues at stake to be bothered to participate, and therefore have no reason to complain if subsequently they disagree with the outcome.
DeleteAt any vote there will always be people too young to participate but who will have to live with the consequences - I was too young to vote when Wilson first came to power but had to live with the consequences of his devaluation and other decisions. Likewise, there will have been some who voted for Blair but did not live to see the disasters that he and Bush were responsible for in the Middle East.
To both Will and Yorkshire Pudding. When I was a child I was taken to task by my grandfather for always arguing the opposite. His words still ring today, 'if someone tells you something is black you will always argue it is white, knowing damn well that it is black'. I still see the two sides of the argument, it is intriguing that there was an almost level vote on leave/remain and as YP says there was the third element of those who did not vote. Will, you always pick up on bad Labour decisions, waving Blair as a major culprit, whereas I would rather see us sitting within Europe arguing the toss. I cannot think that anyone can defend the Conservatives now, there are plenty of good politicians of any side, unfortunately they are swamped by idiots at the moment. And yes YP I do believe we are stuck in the mud, unable to move for a couple of more years yet.
ReplyDeleteAnd, personal opinion, as someone who saw the large manufacturing factories of the 50/60s before they all closed down, balancing an economy on service and holiday homes is stupid.
Well said Thelma, love Janx
DeleteThank you Jan. x
DeleteThere are plenty of things done by Conservative governments that I could also have chosen, from Eden's disaster in Suez onwards. Like the Heath/Barber boom and bust, which, along with the oil price shocks was a major factor leading to the winter of discontent and rampant inflation in the late 1970s, Major's flirtation with the ERM followed by Black Wednesday and the early 1990s recession and housing crisis, Major again with signing the Maastricht treaty and failing to tell voters what it actually meant, Cameron's chillaxing and failure to take the job of PM seriously, May's fiasco of multiple attempts to get her Brexit bill through parliament, and where does one start with Johnson?
DeleteWell Will you are a very well read person, and also have a very good memory. and we are all better informed by what you say. Did you teach politics?
DeleteNo political involvement, just careers in pharmaceutical manufacture and latterly NHS IT, my interest in politics stems from its direct impact on someone trying to buy a house in the mid 1970s onwards, and subsequently trying to save for retirement.
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