Far Right and Left

Subject: Far Right and Left



Tolstoys soulful description of life and death in his novel War and Peace rings true. His observation that events are not brought about by the interposition of leaders but rather of the intricate deposit of the smallest mindset as an aggregate of the whole.

The political upheaval in France where Centrist  Macron has been unseated by a coterie of the ‘Far Left’ in the lefts temporary unification to defeat the so called ‘Far Right’ of Marine Le Pen, is democracy at play. The terms ‘Far Right’ and ‘Far Left’ are more ideological than specific, they are a catch all media phrase since there are things which the far left promote that a far right person would approve of and visa versa

Socialism in France is its religious base, it’s cry of “liberate, egalite, fraternity could be the foundation of a religious order and since the days of the French Revolution it’s been the glue which held the left together. The left of many countries has flirted with communism, the ideology that ‘labour’ (people) were equal to ‘capital’ in the wealth of a nation and runs deep in the mind of the egalitarian. For a man like Melenchon (France’s Jeremy Corbyn), the seam which runs through him is ‘inequality’ and in this poorly adjusted country towards its immigrant past where disadvantaged, largely black people hold sway in certain cities in the south of the country. The French meet this threat with pepper spray and water cannon and heavily public disorder kitted police who are known for their no nonsense approach when dealing with protesters.

Boris Johnson was ridiculed when, as mayor of London he bought some second hand water cannon and our police are often criticised for being too collaborative in their dealings with street protest.

The spirit of rebellion lives on in sections of the Republic and Melenchon is remembered for leading from the barricades when taking on the French Establishment, a singular figure he has had a life of combinative politics which makes him feared by the centerist’s.

Le Pen is anti immigration and pro nationalist, supporting economic nationalism and an interventionist role of government, whilst opposed to globalisation and multiculturalism.

This tag of far right is only seen as dangerous when seen as ideologically opposed to consistency of the far left and is another example of the ‘4th estates’ (media/press) alternative to parliamentary democracy. The power of which has grown disproportionately with the internet, in many instances being well off-piste to rational debate. The demonising of parts of the electorate for wishing to bring back the national element in any discussion has in itself a diversionary effect whilst the established fears of cultural change are not met by describing the supporters of the right as racist.

Our recent General Election in this country saw ‘block voting’ on a largely ethnic matter with Arabic supporters taking their political seat on one issue, the dreadful genocideal  ethnic cleansing in Gaza. This is not a UK issue other than a moral one and whilst we may hold strong views on the matter it is not the bread and butter politics on which the General Election is fought.

If we become affected on a local scale with quasi national politics this will only lead to the further fragmentation of society and the country.

Left or right.

 Subject: Left or right.

Has representative government had its day. As I watch the UK parliaments procedural voting divisions, from the Scottish Parliament's electronic count, to Westminster’s antiquated methodology with the sight of MPs trooping out to the voting lobby, one is left with a strong sense that our representatives, the MPs, are playing a game which shuffles the act of voting into the long grass by the procedural obscurity of a yes no answer.

Few questions, especially the ones which affect millions of constituents are a question of a“yes or no”answer. Of course ‘debate’ is supposed to whittle away contentious issues if not resolve them. Everyone has an opinion based on their own personal experience, collectively under political ideology these views are codified as party ideology and the ‘personal’ is lost amongst the need for collectivism. And here the distortions appear, the centrist's, the socialists, far right, far left and this within one party, is it any wonder that consensus is almost impossible. Deeply held views about matters close to one’s heart have to be jettisoned in favour of the ruling cabal and in the case of Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott, and Russell Moyles, all labour politicians who fell foul of Kier Starmer for their left wing views and who for me represented the socialism I want for the county.

For too long the market has ridden rough-shod over the needs of people. It could be argued that the people don’t have needs, if the benefit system takes care of their needs and aspirations and only the middle to upper middle class aspire to needing anything better. We obsess over the “lumpen proletariat” the lads and lasses out over the weekend intent on becoming drunk one tends to forget the privately educated cocaine snorting set who carry their prop into the office meeting in an effort to strike the right pose.

I’m not a fan of televised head to head broadcasts, there’s too much focus on the participants and therefore their need to perform which means the broadcast descends into a ideological shouting match from which nothing is gleaned other than who is the smoothest operator. Rishi Sunak’s polished Goldman Sachs tutoring comes through, the flashing smile the sharp punctuated sentences, never mind if they are lies he wins the debate not on factual’s but on debating polish. It’s become a modern trend this media training, part of subliminal techniques we have become accustomed to accepting the words without looking for meaning.

Starmer in contrast often looks like an animal caught in the cross lights of the event, his words carried meaning and reality but without the panache it was buried by the showman’s spiel.

This is what politics has come to, an echo chamber, hearing what we want to hear whole television channels, (funded by Murdock) and opened to transmit mendacity and swamp what’s left of our minds with untruths dressed as potentially possible.

It’s become the Etonian debating skill against the well meaning protester who carries their heart on there sleeve. Rhetorical tools are in use which were designed from the days of Socrates deflecting a question by asking another which philosophically is attuned to a parlour game only for those who can afford it.

Tenant of faith

 Subject: Tenant of faith

The organic nature of Russia, that intertwining of people into a nation is missing in the multicultural multi ethnic nature of England. It’s been bred out of us by the need of the dominant upper class to exploit the lower class by seeing everything in terms of a financial transaction.

The implicit trust of a nation for its ruling fathers to do the right thing for the “Nation” has never been a part of the English qualification. The Feudal landscape with its structure of anticipated entitlement through class was eventually subverted by Capitalism where the Barron became the CEO. The top down notion that decisions can only be hatched on the executive floor makes the ascendency to that floor so important that a schooling system was evolved that codified the accession process to mean ‘the old school tie’ was the badge of entry much like the handshake is to the Masons.

In non totalitarian countries the free market was supposed to propagate a free market in skills and managerial opportunity but the interceding nature of class marked out who was to be considered and who not. The need to be recognised as one of us rather than one of them made for a tight recognisable corset which included the way you handled your knife and fork.

The Russian, up until the Revolution were also Feudal with Serfs( peasant) controlled by the Boyers  and the nobility. The revolution re constructed society dramatically importing the idea of a totalitarian style equality with ‘The Party’ in charge. This sense of unity through simply being ‘Russian’ stays with the Russian to this day, whilst we try to wash away nationalism by importing the ideology of multiculturalism. It’s a Christian ideology based on the need to ‘assimilate’ which in many ways is altruistic but assumes the assimilation is seen by all as the way to proceed but with historic values based on religious Indoctrination there can only be a paper thin sense of understanding since the tenant of faith has to be maintained. The clash of culture even within a geographically assimilated religion brings internecine war and it’s from these regions that the immigrant fleeing persecution is encouraged to come. In the days before the trickle became a flood the assimilation of disparate ideologically opposed people was fairly dissipated amongst the local people (other than in the cities) but as generations build a recognisable strata in our cities, todays immigrant finds a home in their expat  community, not the the host nation but of one of these culturally isolated groups such as Syria,Iran and Pakistan, where religion sets the patten for any sense of indulgence. Like a ticking time bomb the ethnic equation, ignored, or feared, will not go away and the strength of a combative  socially absorbing faith led group will eventually convert us all by logic, faith or legal cohesion.

Just as we can’t comprehend the dismmemberment  of social services which used to be our trademark so, because we are too lazy to do the maths the context of our nation will change for ever.

The next question to ask is will this be to our betterment and if I cast my gaze over the hot spots in the world today, with the exclusion of Russia the Islamic world remains bedded in a 15th century practice of intolerance.

The shriek of the loudest voice

 Subject: The shriek of the loudest voice

One of the phenomena of modern politics is its reliance on the internet media to sustain its position on virtually any subject. From the ‘hissy fit’ to the fake remonstration of remorse when tragedy occurs. Everything is tailor made to exact the maximum-response with genuine feelings way down the list when it comes to honesty.

Nigel Farage is in trouble because last night he said that the expansion of NATO had been the cause of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. Of course Putin’s invasion was a mixture of things, the Wests lack of response to Russia’s invasion of the Crimea, the historical claim Russia has towards the Ukraine, the European  reliance on the Ukraine on for grain. The diminishment of the USSR back into the territorial confines of mother Russia and the encroachment of Russia by NATO was seen as a threat but only as a counter balance to the historical expansionist policy Russia has through the ages pursued.  

Farage was voicing a commonly held opinion, nothing more nothing less but the response has been one of political unanimity with leaders thankful to be let off the hook of realpolitik, of housing and health of social care and food prices, the things they are supposed to be in charge of and instead flood the airways this morning with condemnation for what Farage was implying.

The modern media peopled by the commentariat such as Nick Robinson who’s hectoring tone does nothing to illicit ate information, media icons who’s nightly appearances on the television give them the opinion they represent ‘us’ in their damning condemnation.

We are in a time of a media opiate where vitriol excuses debate and all we hear is the shriek of the loudest voice.

Given that from the time of Brutus the people have been rather persuaded by the glib tongue of the orator rather than rational argument we are left in a theatre with the lights out trying to remember how we got in. They are all at it from the flashing smile of our Prime Minister, to the podgy faced, dough like performance of the Labour Party leader, to the Lib Dem’s Gladiator's representative, alway vying for a photo opportunity. It’s the modern equivalent of the “ peep show”, it contends with entertainment to catch and keep our attention since politics has fallen so low in our trust.

A trip to Europe without a visa.

 Subject: A trip to Europe without a visa.

One of the issues I have with today's football is the need to convert the game into words and intentions. There are few sides who are good enough to convert team talk into action, to translate the schemes into goals. Football is one of those games which in so many instances the lucky rebound, the deflection results in goals, often against the run of the game. Today's game, Slovenia v Serbia was a great game but a nightmare for the commentator with all the Serbia names ending in "vic". It was an end to end, open game which I appreciate rather than the delicate tip tap, often towards ones own goal in an effort to capture and keep the ball no matter what. Teams and their managers are coached themselves by pundit and popular opinion, the need to play the game which is in front of them rather than that in a team talk which often stultifies the game.

England are under the cosh in so far as the team of 'stars' are concerned, over paid young men who, if they were to believe the hype they are the equivalent of the "second-coming". The old professionals, the pundits who "know, you know" translate the game 'we' watch into something else, sometimes unrecognisable from our own experience which has become board by its negativity. Bellowing their superior knowledge in a plethora of accents, they, like the political class live in a different world. They drip hyperbole and feed us crumbs of comfort when there should be none.

The England team players play as of they have just banked their club cheque £60,000 a week (£2,800,000 pa) and hardly need the chicken feed of an international appearance.

Their loyalty is towards their club not towards the millions of supporters who sit ashen faced as the hype is shown to be just that. The England players stand around the centre of the field, seemingly lost, asking, "why are we here". No longer are they put under the pressure by the 'foreign players' in their clubs which they get when playing for club football. No fear of loosing your club place and the money you get for playing it, is it just a part of the multinational nature of our country. Watching Serbia play Slovenia one is struck by the energy and the willingness to die for the game by these unknown players on £600 a week.

As the pundits burst their vocal cords in frustration and we sit back with yet another evening of lost belief, much as in our politics, we are a nation of over-belief, always looking over our shoulder for the other guy to find the solution.

The Flying Scotsman on a leisurely stroll through the countryside.

 Subject: The Flying Scotsman on a leisurely stroll through the countryside.

Nostalgia is double edged, it takes one back down memory lane to a time when our place in society was more secure, we were younger, and our perspective clearer. One of those nostalgic things in my life was standing on the railway station platform with my Dad after a train journey somewhere in the gritty and grey 1950s, looking up with awe at a  mechanical monster, hissing and belching steam whilst, on the engine platform the driver and fireman with customary cap and rag, nonchalantly  surveying the scene as the engine, metaphorically speaking, seemed to paw the ground eager to be off to the next destination. Looking at the driver, amid the steam and smell of hot oil, he seemed to command so much of a boys dreams, the power to control one of these  stand alone power plants, with connecting rods and pistons, the oiler boxes to keep things lubricated, the coal fired boiler and the sooty fireman who, with the driver were part of the human orchestra needed to keep the beast in check.

I have told the story before of being at the London Southbank Festival of Britain Exhibition in 1950 to see the latest train engine on display as part of what we as a country manufactured.  And there I was in 1964 watching the same engine pull into Melbourne Station on its last commercial journey. There were dozens of train spotting enthusiasts in Melbourne to watch and yesterday I enjoyed a smashing film of the Flying Scotsman (60103) refurbished and running at greatly reduced speed, 28mph along the single track running through the beautiful countryside of rural England. All along the way clusters of enthusiasts occupied vantage points, at road crossing and bridges, on station platforms and even out in the fields they stood and waved doffing their caps as it were to a different era. The complexity of the signalling was explained as the train was brought to a halt and the fireman jumped off his engine platform to walk up ahead to ring the signal box to find out the cause of the delay and because it was a single line each section had to acknowledge who was on the line and a large ring shaped token passed to the driver as the train passed through that section of track.

It was all so "old worldly", a period when we were changing from the horse drawn era to steam, when people could still conjecture what was going on before their very eyes and not hidden in some Taiwanese synthetic chip.

The country roads having crossed the track drifted off from the line to some village, isolated somewhere in its own identity the road ducking and diving through the hedgerows, the cows munching away as the farmer in his field plans his crop planting with ever one eye cocked at the weather.

These are elements what makes living here in the UK plausible. It contrast the self imposed stress of continually watching the tittle-tattle from our smart phones, with an ever present to the threat of war and famine and the nostalgia for me is perhaps knowing less and living in my own world which is relevant to me and my needs and interests.

What’s the fuss about.

 Subject: What’s the fuss about.



What is all the fuss about a ‘Right Wing agenda as if it were poised to infect the already infected body politic.

Much of the rise of the right wing ideology is a backlash to what is seen as a libertarian  culture which has garnered, on its side the legal framework of dismissive sentencing for those who disagree with its overarching conclusions. As a philosophy, libertarianism has many attractive aspects when compared to the straight jacket of totalitarianism but the truth is in the name, both are ‘ism’s’ they represent part truth and part fiction, a philosophical agenda which has a whole load of pros and cons elements which have both good outcomes and poor outcomes.

The question whether to stop using petrocarbons, gas and oil for instance in an attempt to slow down global warming is critical to our continued existence on this planet but unless there are alternatives in place life will be so radically altered that it will be significantly different and the question is perhaps is this cost is too great.

On reflection we now consider our reaction to Covid 19, the cure out weighed the cost the  economic cost that is, it was not throughly evaluated and we are left economically crippled. Life then has an intrinsic value as well as a moral value and the ‘right and left’ come up with a different number when crunching he process to pin their colours to.

Isreal’s survival is posited on being able to reject Arab attempts to exterminate it as a State and correctly,  irrespective of the means or the cost in human suffering it can be argued they have every right to pursue survival but of course, what’s gong on in Gaza is more akin to punishment of the weak by the strong.  Who would deny them the right of existence but the workings of the human politic is not a matter for them to interpret in isolation.

The right wing tend to see things in black and white whilst the left look for compromise even when poor outcomes stare them in the face. The optimist, the glass half full guy often has in place, a lifestyle which allows him to make decisions which effects others more than him/herself. The Palestinian marching on our street or the Iraqi fleeing another war zone  have a valid points to make but the middle class intellectual possessed of moral certitude without a full grasp of all the facts which those, in a more precarious position in our society see staring them in the face.

Immigration which used to be a treasured thing has now become a human right and is thrust upon a sitting society by statute and tenants of human dignity, many created after the cataclysmic Second World War and led to the formation of the United Nations.

Many of the dignitaries who represent nations belonging to that august body the UN would find it hard, back in their homeland to translate the ideals spoken of in the General Assembly.

When Russia’s representative, China’s, even the USA speak they often speak with forked tongues, blinded to their own actions and simply voice platitudes.

Does the rich tapestry of human conduct reflect well in the General Assembly, sadly not since actions and words are rarely akin and much we hear is rhetoric.  The Right are closer to the actuality of real life whilst the Left have a wish list as long as your arm.

Should we indulge in the rhetoric of wishing just because it’s moral or should we face up to realpolitik and indulge in a bit of self serving behaviour.

Political expediency rather than goal led expediency.

 Subject: Political expediency rather than goal led expediency.



It seems to me that politics has descended to handing out sweets rather than presenting a comprehensive plan for future prosperity. Growth which seems the economic dream to reestablished the financial books after Covid can only be attained by investment and reassembling our aging infrastructure and yet we hear little about long term borrowing for investment or the sort of restructuring which went on in Europe after the war which helped America to become the power it is.

Where are the nuclear power plants, where are the AI assisted production plans to remove our reliance of the totalitarian state of China. Where are the rehousing plans to bring back the imbalance of relying on market forces to build the affordable houses we need and the reintroduce the small house builder to build the manciple  housing we need. Where is the investment in modernising our schools by radically bringing down class sizes and centralising white board  technology with a work around teaching system that is based on class teachers reaffirming the core subjects which arrive packaged via the internet. Modern classrooms, modern innovative teaching systems will provide the stimulus the children need from a disillusioned teaching staff under the cosh. Each child can be monitored by the work they do each day and assistance fed in as to a specific need they might have.

We have made such progress in medicine and particularly in genetics by using Artificial Intelligence, let’s not fear it but embrace it to overcome our ill trained workforce and it’s specific needs to produce for our local market.

Let’s have the vision we used to have in Brunei's time or the chutzpah which led us to invest and build Concord.

Feed back is the mantra we use for success and we encourage staff to provide feedback on the tasks they perform why not across the whole spectrum of human endeavour is it thought to be dehumanising that we don’t have ID cards to monitor who is here and where they are, why are we happy to have cameras on street corners and yet not in our back pockets.

Is the ridiculous ends society goes to to protect privacy part of our disdain on accepting we all play a part in the cohesion within society and the really bad-uns need the village green stocks to take aim at.

If we had presented to us a proper objective goal in all facets of society with a cost and revenue collection method plus an accounting system as the money comes in and is spent but we haven’t moved on much from Cromwell time when money is a privet matter even if it is the public purse. We have the tools for meticulous book keeping but it’s against the interests of power to disclose them.

Don’t pin your hopes on the lottery.

 Subject: Don’t pin your hopes on the lottery.

Reading historical facts to gain perspective I was immeasurably struck by the war time famine's in India, the most recent, during the second world war when 3,000,000 people starved to death and even worse, at the end of the the 19th century beginning of the 20th century when 19,000,000 people died through hunger. It makes the Holocaust (6 million), Hiroshima (104,000) the Irish potato famine (1 million) and Gaza pail into a sort of second tier insignificance. Only the losses of life on the Second World Wars eastern front (20 million) can match the sheer enormity of the size of these losses but in the west we know little or nothing of these catastrophes inflicted as they were on the local population.

Our mind set has been changed radically by the Web and its ability to communicate facts on the ground almost instantly ( abet misaligned by deliberate false information) so we can’t claim to ignore the theme and one wonders how we will manage the stories as they roll in from the famine due to global warming. Images of Gaza but multiplied {(X) 10,000/100,000 times}, bodies and scavengers combing the rubble of humane habitation which the influx of immigrant people will not be denied by the Rwandan make believe, ‘Mad Max’ at our very door.

Read your history as the ‘Far Right’ gain significant strength in Europe which became the tinderbox for fascism 100 years ago as people desperate to have enough to pay the food bills were willing to pay another cost to deny the financiers. History repeats itself.

Of course I will be long gone and it will be the reality of our grandchildren to sort out, as I’m sure they will. I was born at an inappropriate time just as Hitlers war machine was rolling out across Europe and as I got into my stride the greatest reforming government was unveiling  the concept of social cohesion through more equitable government.

My mom and dad weren’t daunted by ration books or austerity or even the thought of invasion they did, as we all do in moments of adversity, they got on with what they had and didn’t build castles in the sky.

Consumerism for its own sake is a dreadful philosophy we have so much more than ‘things’. We are born with sensitivities that can unlock a heaven here on earth, not in a parable fuelled religious hinterland. Our ability to foster in our minds the practicality of life, not its day out to Disney Land. A walk across the moor whilst you can, or down on the beach, helping someone across the road, a pleasant interaction in the supermarket leaves a consolation mark which the isolation in an exclusive resort can rarely attain.

Look and you shall find is as good a piece of advice as I can give. Always be realistic and don’t pin your hopes on the lottery.

Luck is all we have.

 Subject: Luck is all we have.

Most of what matters in our lives happens in our absence. The sickness of a son or daughter or their decision to move away and live elsewhere. The decision to fire or demote you in business or a customer who suddenly takes their business away and financially destabilises you. Friends die or betray your trust, established habits and beliefs become unacceptable and debt is never far away regardless of the care we put into avoiding it.

Our lives are often built on shifting sands without foundation and yet we thrive on assumptions which sometimes have as little worth as a lottery ticket. The glass half full, half empty syndrome is happiness for some depression for others and yet we tinker around in a world where luck is all we have. This is true in terms of health and the disregard we gave our bodies in our mid twenties/mid thirties. The parties, the drinking, all contributed to our maladies in our 70/80s when suddenly like a series of tsunamis we are bowled over by one thing after another. The disrespect for a healthy life style is played out as the ambulance crew plug you into their monitor, “vital signs all good” says the print out but hang on I have just collapsed on the bathroom floor incapable of even rising to my knees as the nervous system shuts down due to infection. I have to applaud the ambulance staff as they strapped this jelly like creature into the equivalent of a vertical trolley to negotiate the stairs. They were superb, as were A&E in Harlow.  I wrote to my GP wishing there were some way to thank them and offset the terrible publicity they get week in week out in our sensation seeking press and media. We have become a nation of ghouls seeking out the outlandish and suggesting it’s the norm.

Anyway all's well and good after a course of strong antibiotics but it reinforces the case of not taking anything for granted.

Thinking far ahead.

 Subject: Thinking far ahead.





One of the ‘problems’, some would say, ‘it’s saving grace’,is the apparent inflexibility of our justice system. Arrests of known criminals are littered with twists and turns in the judicial process with the weight on the long held principle that a man or woman are innocent until proven guilty. Criminal law requires a much higher degree of proof than a civil case where a balance of probabilities is sufficient to find a guilty verdict.

The higher the the propensity of a person to be guilty of and fit the evidence exposes the system to procedural loop holes which a police-officer might then  make a procedural mistake over which a highly paid defence lawyer extract a technical acquittal.

The balance a nation needs to assure itself that ‘justice is done’ is based on the need not to be seen to punish the innocent. Unfortunately the innocent also include the victims of a crime. Including those who suffer the euphemistically named, collateral damage, as well as the fact that success in the acqital or prosecution of those’d accused is big bis The sentences ranges from “throw away the key” to primeval execution where once it is carried out there are no further arguments on the likelihood of conflict at parole time. There are time limits for murder, at least for all but premeditated murder, crimes of passion can call on the fact that in some cases, at the moment of the act, the balance of mind was disturbed and the guilt assuaged by claiming not to be yourself.

The history books are full of high profile cases where prisons have been forced to release people who the general public feel were guilty but new forensic evidence casts doubt and in the criminal court, doubt is the last thing you need to secure the conviction. And of course we see the ridiculous situation that sentencing doesn’t mean what it says since with overcrowded jails the urge is to push them out onto the public as soon as they can. So a twenty year sentence really means 10 and the criminal knows and expects this.

How then are we “smash the gangs” of people smugglers especially if they live in a foreign country with a different interpretation of the law than our own. Given the boss’s of these organisations are many layers away from loading the boats, chasing the boat is not going to stop people being risked on the passage for the glint of gold is un diminished. The risk of the boat crossing, sinking and drowning its cargo and the often optimal destabilisation of an often delicate society feeding social un cohesion (my argument) where, over time a two, maybe three tier society emerges, as in the Balkans or the impasse between Pakistan and India through religious doctrine.

‘People’, as I keep saying, are not the same and the physicality only hides the actual makeup of the individual. In the Middle East the redrawing bounties in 1916 by Francois Picot and Mark Sykes according to European convenience is the continuing curse of dynastic instability with national and tribal demarcation lines redrawn which are part of the discontent we see today. Even the Israeli/Palestinian conflict could and should have been for-seen but the politics emerging out of the First World War was too tired to think.

Defining what and who we stand for.

 Subject: Defining what and who we stand for.

Why are we failing on so many fronts in the UK. Do we ask permission too often of interested parties including the general population when we see the need staring us in our face.  Housing, class sizes, waiting lists, old age care are but a few which 80 years ago had answers in terms of need and a start was made to build, improve the quality of our schools including curriculum. Successive labour governments tackled each problem as an ideological imperative and slowly we became a better country for it. Thatchers sale of housing stock without any attempt to replenish what had been sold, the closing of municipal Old Age homes, the running down of police, nurses and doctors was part of a wholesale plan to minimise social Amenities open to the general public. The class divide saw the diminishment of not only services but a way of life, a sort of guard rail running through our years on earth with age and a start in life seen as priorities.

Nothing more exemplifies the divide in our country than the Prime minister's exit from the D Day celebration before the day was over to attend a press gathering in London to explain his deceit about labours spending plans. Surrounded by the veterans, many on their last legs, a press corps eager to see the leaders of the free world and he scurries off to catch the last train home. What an embarrassment he is. I said in a previous blog that he looks the part but is somehow hollow, removed from the country he represents by money instinct, maybe even ethnicity.

For many this mishandling of the ‘contract’ Prime Ministers have with us is symptomatic since along with Cameron, Osborne, Johnson, now Sunak it shows how out of tune they are, representing a party which only represents its members and defiles all other members of the community.

Inexhaustible assiduity.

 Subject: Inexhaustible assiduity.







Inexhaustible assiduity, what a compact with the devil, a doggedness of being right (in one’s own terms of that word) and an undeniable willingness to pursue a cause irrespective of its permissibility..

Isn’t that the definition of many of todays political imperatives, some goal which benefits a few stakeholders and leaves most of us imprisoned within the straitjacket of a minority expediency without any recourse for redress.

There are many examples in today’s Parliament where policy becomes a ‘wonk tank‘ exercise with little call by the general public in the first place. We ‘the public’ want affordable housing, a reduction in waiting times when visiting the NHS, more teachers in better equipped schools, a modernised infrastructure in our utilities, a joined up cradle til grave social responsibility and affordable care for our elderly, more prisons to hold our burgeoning criminal population along with police whose job it is to uphold the law not act as an arm of social services. They seem to want to lay low tinkering whilst the ship sinks.

At every general election these and other similar manifesto promises raise their weary heads only to sink down again when the election razzmatazz moves on and its a crime that so much is promised without any accountability for the manifesto promises. Perhaps if we reversed the scales and we the public offered our list of demands which could then be addressed by our political masters as to timescale and taxation demands on us. Instead we are assailed with sweets from smooth talking snake oil salesmen, out bidding each other and non of them responsible for the dentistry afterwards.

These perennial needs which any general population demands are, election after election, pushed away into the long grass when the votes are counted. It’s a symbolic deceit which goes on at each election, the politicians treating us as children, fearing, if we knew the truth we would gag with fear.

The economic shenanigans of the Osborn years is over although all the effects remain, the nil sometimes minus interest deals are over, the cheap money borrowed to roll over an economy which wasn’t squaring the books because the god of consumerism. That party is well and truly buried but with careful borrowing for essentials we can still improve the stock of the country and the wellbeing of its people but we mustn’t allow the cash in the bank to be squandered on vanity products or the inheritance of the past and its legacy on the present day. The past is past and it’s difficult living in the present unless you live on an enormous pot of oil or have a population cowed by a military style police force a population who’s willingness to accept their harsh history as some sort of ideological goal for the future.

The crime of running the country down, its services, its infrastructure its people can only come from a class who hardly felt the pain and in many instances benefited from the short term contractual nature of business, a labour force on short term contracts, projects which were also short term and didn’t meet the needs of the countries future.

The educational objectives of Blair made pointless by the privatisation of everything regardless of the lack of market forces to provide competition.  The insistence on the jingoism of Brexit regardless of the economic consequences were examples of in-house Toryism where the equations were too much trouble and the flag and Agincourt were too attractive, regardless of their irrelevance.

We have to start again with an assessment of our strengths and weaknesses, we have to choose our battles and not be swayed by emotion and the need to be seen. The Scandinavian countries, are an example of finding a balance between the needs of the people and the need to be heard on the wider stage. Their creation of a wealth fund when gas’s was found exemplifies them and us. The proceeds of our oilfields were spent bolstering the exchequers current account whilst Norway sits on a savings/current account which will filter into the countries economy over many years.

When Osborne said austerity he didn’t envisage his own class of Etonians having to suffer and so it turned out with the only indicator of financial improvement coming from that cohort and as their train rapidly draws away into the distance and we are left in the sidings.

Donald Trump - Guilty.

 Subject: Donald Trump - Guilty.

So where do we go from here as 12 good men and women found the ex president guilty on 34 counts of falsifying financial records. Trump is totally un-repentant blaming everyone, including the judge and the legal administration in New York but falling  short of castigating the jury. 

Of course it will not effect the Trump supporters, they will wade through blood for him and the issue of storming the Capital Building and might be repeated in some way in the lead up to the election in 6 months. Will the legal system hold up in the ideological ferment which the trial result might bring since the Trump supporters have little truck with legal etiquette.

It’s frightening that the world’s most powerful nation is to be run by an octogenarian,  one who looses his place on the page and the other never bothers to follow the script anyway. We know the Republican reasoning, it’s out of their hands but for the Democrats not to put in place someone younger is unfathomable. We can expect more bombshells but to entrust the nation in the hands of either man, especially Trump puts into question the whole edifice of democratic reasoning. Fitness for the job especially mental acuity is the basic litmus test  and whilst government is meant to be in the hands of a wider set of players only one person has the key to the button.

Biden has been the consummate politician stretching back over a number of presidencies and in part he can run on muscle memory where as Trump it’s  an example of muscle alone.  

The newish phenomena of our age is the drift of people across the world threatening to swamp the existing infrastructure and a movement supported by ‘humanitarian‘ considerations which pre the collective influence of the World Wide Web and the unprecedented access to smart phone ha kept the flow of people inter connected. The genii is out of the bottle and without boarder discipline we must expect ongoing radical transformation of cultural norms. Perhaps hegemony of Caucasian society is coming to an end and a South American style  flamboyance or a religiously determined Asian discipline is edging forward in the face of uncertainty by the present white nationalists who have ruled the roost for centuries but who prefer to battle amongst themselves.  

It’s not an encouraging thought if you have been brought up in the moderation of “live and let live” but the forces beating at our gate are the same as those who beat at the gate of Rome which led to the medieval Middle Ages also known as the Dark Ages.

Will the Dark Ages return with the Ayatollah and Sharia Law, will the tight lipped ideological doctrine of totalitarianism take over as our Woodstock, Glastonbury phase fizzles out and free love becomes chargeable.

Trump would have us believe the free handout is over and rightly so. We’ve been living in his house too long without paying rent and unless we rapidly developed some backbone the plates will have moved and geologically we will have moved on.

Where did political unity go and why.

 Subject: Where did political unity go and why.





The fluidity of political thought and it’s divergence is seen nowhere more predominantly  than in the jockeying for political influence in the European Parliament.

The upsurge of the far right parties over fears on immigration to the pressure of the Greens over climate warming are examples of a political divide rather than what should be a collaboration for an overall better balanced Europe. It seems over in Europe, as in this country, that the means to an end is mired in ideology which unfailingly suggests different ways of doing things rather than finding solutions to a range of problems.

Do we have too much ‘unaccounted’ and ‘unmanaged’  immigration. Have we allowed market forces to overtake and destabilise the balance in localised food production. Are we not properly evaluating the range of need in house building against the free market solution which determines what is profitable for the builder to build. Have we not undervalued our doctors and teachers in the obsession with centralised control and the reduction of the cost of the public sector and its place in government spending.

The list goes on and, particularly in this country which has seen the pressure build as public sector pay deals were kept deliberately below cost of living as if it were the solution to balancing the books.

The productive element in both public and private sectors of the economy has declined through lack of long term investment, it was too easy to buy at the bargain basement bazaar in China, whilst transferring our industrial capacity wholesale to the Chinese.

Politics used to be viewed as having a set of ‘commitments’ which the voter could recognise and which affected them. Todays soundbite politics has little commitment and instead has fostered a whole lot of mendacious lies which, straight faced, the modern politician is willing to stare down from the television screen on virtually any subject and lie through their back teeth. He/she seems unbothered by the lies, satisfying themselves instead that it’s in the parties interest if not the countries. This supplanting the country to the needs of the Party, playing with the needs of the people in a sort of rhetorical game in which outcomes become irrelevant because they are ideological rather than beneficial.

As we enter the high season of general election politicking we are made aware of the implausibility of the whole democratic process since other than the moment when the voter drops their vote into the box, the ultimate example of some sort of equality, the elected uniquely are not tested on their suitability to govern, still less their ability to make decisions other than those of a pack animal, they simply chose a pack leader and hope they can make the decisions for them. Accountability goes out of the window as everyone in the pack devote themselves to doing what’s best for them and we, the uninitiated are soon forgotten as is the manifesto, on which we placed our hopes is thrown in the rubbish bin.

Vladimir Putins Russia or Xi Jinping China, Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran or North Korea’s Kim Jong Un have no such worries and so is democracy fundamentally flawed.  Can we ever find agreement and be encouraged to give up some of our hard won gain in balancing the books. It’s hard to do as we notice the yearly increase in stratospherically rich people who earn far more than they can spend. It used to be the argument in the 1950s regarding high taxation was that above a certain amount income couldn’t be sensibly spent, your needs and consumption argued that for 19shillings and sixpence tax in every pound you earned above £100,000 pa you only received 6 pence. Of course £100,000 was out of sight for all but a few and riches were progressively taxed to pay for general expenditure and long term investment plans. The executive and powers that be who hold the levers of power were greedy needing to feed their ego with yachts and high valued motor cars and real estates. The divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have not’, which the 1947 labour government had begun to close has steadily reopened and has since become a preposterous scar in our social attainment.

Send in Xi to lay the ground rules on what is needed to invest and where plus the remuneration package which is handed over according to skill and societal need.

Acknowledging and respecting them.

 Subject: Acknowledging and respecting them.



It was nostalgic and for some tearful but beautifully poignant in its simplicity a memorial celebration which we are best at. Only 80 years ago men crossed the channel after enduring years of bad news to move the battle onto the other foot and this was probably the last meaningful occasion when men who were there were here.

I was sweeping the channels when I came across the smart rat  a tat of the snare drum played by the band of the Royal Marines. It brought me out of my political sloth into a world of the achievable with fond letters written to wives on the eve of battle, the longing to be together again, but of course many never were

I like Charles although I didn’t as a young man, he seems to have matured I his old age. Not so his bride who I thinks flawed. Todays narration was beautifully tender without becoming mawkish, letters written on the eve of battle men who never returned, memories of men who went off to do their duty never weighing the odds only the common zeal to defeat fascism.

As we shrink today at the call to enlist our young people to seek skill and the meaning of esprit de corps, piling on a list of human right assurances such that you can never know your enemy. Everything is argued away on the presumption that equal rights have levelled the playing field and defined humanity to be better than it is.

The bugle call at the end of day speaks handsomely for the ‘ill men do to men’ but war is a messy business and the sooner we accept responsibility for the things which those men laid down their lives for the better we acknowledge them and respect them.

Diane Abbott et al.

 Subject: Diane Abbott et al.

When we vote do we invest in our local politician or the party they represent. Do we support the parliamentary manifesto, in other words what the party says it will do irrespective of the fact that many of these objectives will be ditched once in power and the problems arise.

Most parties have their stars or at least the people who seem more charismatic in terms of personality. Boris was such an example, Jeremy Hunt isn’t, yet you wouldn’t trust Boris with your shopping but you might expect to get change from Mr Hunt.

Why do we expect politicians to be entertainers, shouldn’t we be more sure about Rishi Sunak who has held top jobs in banking and sleeps next to one of the richest women in the UK where perhaps even some ‘pillow talk’ might be useful.

On the labour side I’m quite disappointed in Kier Starmer’s intransigence over Diane Abbott and his unwillingness to reinstall the whip and now, the confusion over whether she can stand in a seat for the party. Factionalism is a major problem in today’s Labour Party as the leadership seems fixated on ridding the party of its socialist roots.

Attlee’s labour group in 1947 were a very mixed lot, as was Harold Wilson in 1964. There were many internal ideological differences from the right and the left and it was the strength of the leader which guided the factions to get things done. Tony Blair was perhaps the first to realign the party towards the centre with his famous repudiation of Clause 4 which related to securing for the workers the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. This brought him into direct competition with the unions and has led to the insecurity of ordinary workers ever since. He was described as ‘Tory Light’ and perfectly fitted the David Cameron street of minimising services and the privatisation of what’s left.

In the centrist guise of political direction, Kier Starmer’s placation to certain ideological and racial cohorts has made him hostage to powerful influences within the party. The car crash of Diana Abbott chastising for her comments regarding juxtaposition her experience as a Black Woman with a Jewish person or an Irish person or the Traveller class was to my mind a perfectly understandable everyday reminder, on the one hand of carrying your ethnicity as your skin colour and apart from the ‘ultras’ is invisible if you are, Jewish, Irish or a Gypsy.

Somehow what seems obvious has become an incontrovertible sin, for which she has paid dearly but I believe was stoked up by the anti socialist faction which has the  print of the Jewish lobby all over it.

Because she was a confidant of Jeremy Corbyn, she fell foul of Starmer and, if this type of ideological assassination is what he stands for then I don’t want any part of it.

Sharing

 Subject: Sharing.

I have never known, nor will I know the deep instinctual love of a sibling relationship which lives on long after the parents have passed away, or the fights for territorial  supremacy which give way to protective love if the bond is threatened by anyone else. The intimate knowledge between brothers and sisters, secrets which lie at the base of their relationship and the secrets shared throughout their own lifetime is an enigma to me who’s secrets are mine alone.

As an only child one prides oneself on one’s individuality and stoicism, an island set in a stormy sea. Independent to a fault concerned for one’s own self opinionated bond with yourself which you have manufactured in response to being alone.

“No man is an island” so the saying goes but the advantages of being emotionally self sufficient, or as near as one can be is in the genes of the only child, sharing even chromosomes is not required as you build social barriers through the need for self discipline. Some might call it shyness, some obtuse behaviour but the reserve you carry is strangely characterised by a strong willingness to let people in but only on your own terms.

Much is made of the need to share, to acknowledge the role others play in your life, both in its development and any successful attainment but the clutter of often noisy emotional conflict close to home makes for bewilderment unless you are prepared to be supine. Even long held points of view become  impediments to any sort of understanding, cherished ideals can be trashed in the maelstrom of a family argument and the only winner is the person not actually there.

It might be argued that because of the complexity of our intellect we should never embark on a relationship unless we are prepared to be mildly schizophrenic, offering only what others want to hear and certainly leaving aside any controversy but seems to me that without controversy you lose much of the thrust and value of free speech or even ‘free will’ which is hedged around by a need to constantly accommodate others. We have become, in our desire to share the planet, determined to close our eyes to what seems obvious, and then, adding insult to injury, we must apologise for our condition.

There are two a topics often banned in a pub, religion and politics because there is no firm way to judge right from wrong and because right and wrong only exist, objectively  in an ideological vacuum. We can have opinions but little else since too so much time has been invested growing that hot house plant, the family.

Only love and the devotion to the ‘ideal of family’, which hopefully we grew up with in our childhood  can carry the relationship through troubled waters and only then with a modicum of burning one’s principles can we hope to protect the one valued thing we have achieved, to leave behind, when we have passed away, a set of sensitive memories to be remembered by.

Be careful to check your source’s.

 Subject: Fwd: Be careful to check your source’s.



The fertility of a nimble mind is catered for by the inputs we give it. A book lays open where you left off reading, a television channel churns out its messages as Spotify soothes us in the background and all these stimulations crowd the brain with often unrelated thoughts. Does this fragmentation of our attention span help or hinder since we are soaking up information at a prodigious rate far greater than when your attention was fixed on an encyclopaedia, with all its fact checked information. Today we don’t need facts and rather settle for an ‘outline’ which we fill in along the way.

Of course knowing things by accident rather than by intention has many short comings since the information is gathered from quite spurious sources. The rumour mill, fake news, propaganda are all sources of information we should steer clear of, the more salacious the story the more we should question it and sadly many media channels have been monitoriesed to appeal to the baser parts of our interest span. It’s easier to take the word of the influencer than to dig deeper and spend time researching a little more thoroughly but if our lives feel the world is full of inconsequential stories and only that which touches us directly is important then ‘You Tube, X, Tick Tock’ and the like are the neighbourhoods to get lost in.

“Don’t believe all you see and hear on the BBC” is the claim taken up by the influencer, and of course every story has more than one side to it but at least the output of the established media reporter has much more substance than the hysterical rant projected as political bile from the more recently formed media companies who’s prime aim is to do what the Murdoch Press did to news print back in the 80s and who incidentally owns the same organisations now established as outlets both here and America.

It’s one thing to have poorly resourced news and information but when it’s deliberately misreported with the intention of misleading and fostering harm then we are in danger of misunderstanding important aspects of what we need to understand to make sense of what is happening. Of course there are many who simply don’t care as long as they can banter in the ‘Dog and Whistle’ but a society is only whole and healthy if it is confident in knowing its position on certain important things. Its position might vary from your own but at least the language and the concepts give us room to communicate. Shrill, bear pit bating is not communication and whilst for some it may be entertaining it’s certainly not educating.

I remember the days of black and white TV and debates between AJ Ayre, the philosopher and the Archbishop of London on the existence of god. Each word, each sentence was evaluated (as best we could) as my dad and I sat mesmerised, listening to academically trained minds who had spent their individual lives following a different track on this most fundamental question, “is there a god”. Of course it’s a subject without a definitive answer as only the call on faith guides the answer one way, alternatively a deep scepticism which pertains to all religious faith, defines the other. A good media in those times allowed the space and time to develop one’s own view, today views are manufactured for you and simply fed as fact.

Paula Vennells.

 Subject: Paula Vennells.

We rarely run our lives with the forensic intensity of an AI algorithm. We have off the cuff conversations, we have emotional and analytical changes of mind as we continually take in new information and start to reason differently as matters change.

Perhaps Chief Executives are paid so much money because they can form a line of reasoning and hold that line over decades as part of the boardroom stance.  If most of your utterance over decades had been recorded in minutes and in correspondence, including the more informal email then to pick a trail through these thousands of incidental conversations and executive directions is mind blowing especially if, as Chief you wear your personal hat as well as that of the company.

Listening to another day from Paula Vennels answering the drum beat of questions from Jason Beer KC as he pursues her memory of events one must remember he has had a team of legal beavers scoping word by word, line by line documents unearthed not only from the Post Office but also from emails written by interested parties concerning the postmaster/postmistress scandal. The callousness of the Postoffice legal team in pursuing individual postmasters we are asked to accept as, that’s what legal eagles do, they tear apart the words and the characters of those they are ‘employed’ to oppose and those at the top of the tree get very well paid for this service although there often seems very little recognition of the circumstances of the twisting of truth required at the time.

As CEO Paula Vennells’s  job was to run the PO, an ailing organisation, (jettisoned for that reason from the Royal Mail itself) back to health and report her activities to the Board. The specialities departments, Legal, Finance, Public Relations, Human Resources and most importantly in the issues surrounding the Horizon Computer system used to keep track of the Daily Cash transactions carried out by the staff within the Branch, the Dats Processing experts who monitor the computer system.

Her reliance on these departments for feedback is normal procedure in a large organisation and the harrying of Ms Vennells by barristers who if they cast their minds back to previous cases they have contended must blush to think of their involvement in skipping over an over the involvement when perusing a line of questioning of someone who had had hands on involvement of a crime.

And so the slight of this diminutively dressed woman has appeared each day in the bear pit of a televised kicking, for which no doubt she is responsible by having to wear two caps, one with responsibility for the success of the company to its shareholders and the other, as the most senior day to day executive who responsibility was also to the employees of the company. Of course she might argue that the postmasters/ postmistresses were in part independently self employed in the role they performed but in effect they were employees. Her testimony has been littered with claims “that I didn’t know “, “I should have asked”, or “I don’t recall” and it is for this obfuscation that she is challenged now. How could she say she didn’t know that uniquely, the PO were the prosecutor and judge and that the fault in the computer program was perhaps not a fault but the direct interference from an outside terminal which altered the balances and presented the postoffice staff with a fait accompli, that they balance the books with their own savings or face imprisonment.

She stands indicted at least with been incompetent but perhaps in turning the PO around from a large loss making organisation to one which was making reasonable profits is what her employers employed her for, including incidentally  the only shareholder, the government, that of healing a sick organisation.

The prosecutions of post office staff  were in clear view as was their inability to question the veracity of the evidence in court. Where are the executives of Fijusi the company who owned and designed the computer to have a back door by which financial transactions could be altered. Where are the judges and the barristers who proclaimed a crime had been committed when all paths led to the malfunctioning of the Horizon program.

Instead we haven’t thrown off our penchant for the stocks in the market square where innocents and those guilty could be used for the public indulgence in bashing the weak.

Of course the enquiry only highlights the divisions in our society.

I well remember my shock in having the scales removed from my eyes on returning to this country, of the indifference given towards sectors within our society, between the bosses and the workers, between those who feel they are in control and those who are controlled. There’s a schism running through our society, ‘a them and us’ mentality and nothing more illustrates this than the Post Office expose.

Thump, the news paper drops in through the letterbox.

 Subject: Thump, the news paper drops in through the letterbox.



I have always, from being a young man thrived on the discourse of news in the newspapers. My dad was an avid quality newspaper reader abet he prejudiced this with his political leaning as a socialist. He was also somewhat prudish in that the more solicitous papers were never taken and I wonder what he would have made of the free- for-all market place we see today, never mind the strange turn of events on Eurovision. In those days your home was truly your castle, what came in was what you wanted to come in, in other words you didn’t have much but you had the choice to say no.

The political flavour of a paper was what many people chose as they settled back to have their views reinforced by the columnist and above all by the editor. These editors and owners of print were often the movers and shakers of political thought as they sort to persuade you of the rightness and wrongness of political debate. Parliament was the arbiter but the dissemination was the job of the newspaper.

As with so many things in those days class determined your interest and finance and the spoils of taxation determined the way you thought. On the one hand if you were a Tory you had sufficient disposable income to decide where and on what you spent your money if you were a socialist you simply leant your ear to hopes and promises.

There was always a sense of the irreconcilable difference but at least ‘hypocrisy’ was treated with disdain. That is until Rupert Murdock came on the scene and started the mass manipulation of minds and where truth and falsehood became blended into a saleable commodity and eventually we, the public, ended up where we are today in a totally confused world of media confliction. People are confused with the brash denial by government ministers of what we believe is the truth and then, reinforced with a ministerial round of contradiction in the full glare of the headlights, black becomes white.

Our minds are not built to cope with this dystopian nightmare, the Orwellian concept of sowing fear by misrepresenting reality is not only by the Chinese or the Russian but by our own people, each morning as we eat our Kellogg’s.

The faces which make a crowd.

 Subject: The faces which make a crowd.



I wonder if there has ever been a more downcast mood in that Mother of Parliaments, Westminster as the Prime Minister , grim-faced  related the findings and the indictment of the medical establishment. His inclusion of members of both sides of the House in their tardiness to until now redress the crimes but for decades, even admit they took place.

The revelation of Josef Mengele style experimentation on young kids is almost beyond belief but we are being encouraged to believe any type of unthinkable these days.

Human life has a wide range of values and receives most support from the save life at all costs brigade of kind hearted Samaritan, to the almost callous ‘collateral damage’ appeaser. From the ultra liberal to the ultra religious, the anarchic social movers and shakers, to the pessimists who would bring Sodom and  Gomorrah down on the heads of almost everyone.

For once the gravitas of Parliament was captured by fine words but only after decades of turning their back and refuting the obvious, “there never are those so blind as those who fail to see”, but as the moment passed and the bickering resumed and the mental impasse of years of unresolved argument reasserted itself into tribal lines drawn to supplant where once there was a semblance of some sort of ‘conviction’ to politics.

On another tack the investigation into the Post Office’s treatment of its postmasters and mistresses drags on. Witnesses are placed on the stand and poked and queried by the KC into the why and wherefore their actions, so many decades ago, were cruel and uncomprehending. Some are light footed and, as Oscar Wilde observed, some do it with a smile and some with a withering look” but whilst some are righteously sure of their actions, some are just plain dim,( or feign stupidity) as was today’s  witness. She took the stand and proceeded to deny that she understood the questioning, a sort of “not me Gov” act ensued as the rapidly frustrated KC posed his opening question only to be faced by an equally trenchant “ I don’t remember”, or “I don’t recognise the document, what does it say, what does it mean”. She was not a high flyer, her job it seems was to have been a liaison between a number of post offices seeing they followed procedure and so her testimony whist not so important,  back in the day it was used to falsely imprison one of the postmistresses.

The evils we place on the shoulders of our forebears

 Subject: The evils we place on the shoulders of our forebears

The prefabricated scandals continued to churn off the UK production line.  This morning it was the blood contamination scandal, a week or so back it was the sub-postmasters scandal, amongst a long litany of other misdemeanours such as the wholesale phone tapping to elicit stories for the press.

It seems there are no depths that highly placed people won’t stoop to avoid being caught out and, with the weight of the legal brief behind them, they often win their day in court. The Hillsborough disaster was another dark day for officialdom and the thread which runs through them is the contempt those in power have for the common man.

I suppose that I as an individual can make these claims openly in our society is at least some sort of testimony to the freedoms we have unlike China or Russia but the report out today regarding the known contamination of blood products we bought from America to treat haemophilia patients in the 1970s  and the follow up amongst HIV patients in the 1980s where that cohort of homosexual men amongst who HIV was spreading, were looked on in askance  as hardly worthy of treatment and who could be used as guinea pigs for treatment. I remember the fear of HIV being transmitted, toilet seats, hand shaking, the HIV patient became the equivalent of Hindu untouchables and were feared and detested in equal measure. Princess Diana  did a great deal to break the taboo on her trip to Africa seen cuddling a young HIG infected child in front of the cameras.

Our ignorance might be forgiven but the doctors and health officials never, nor the politicians who were briefed by the medical profession and so their refusal to take action on the importation of contaminated blood must have been, in no small part due to prejudice. The phenomena of gay people went against the values of common decency at that time particularly, when portrayed in the clubs and pubs of Soho where the extravagant flaunting of male upon male sex made many ‘straight sex people’ bork at the sight and there was deep prejudice in much of society.

Rightly / wrongly a great wrong has been done and today we are left wondering at the inhumanity of that time  . But of course in todays world, ‘children sent up chimneys’, the ‘death penalty, the malingering effect of slums and the ‘work house’ are now behind us, although no doubt’, were in their time simply features of the social landscape which bewilderingly is ever evolving

Retirement, time on our hands and the consequences.

 Subject: Retirement, time on our hands and the consequences.



Why do the minutes, hours, days, months and years seem to go by faster after you retire. When you’re working there never seems enough time to do the things that need doing and one of the pleasures in retirement is that possibly, for the first time you yourself prioritise what you feel is important.

There are those retirees lucky enough to visit countries across the world for which they have an interest, there are hobbies to take up and there are commitments to both family and also to people less well off or in poor health who benefit from the time you invest in their needs rather than solely your own.

Time takes on a different meaning when you retire. The impetus to be somewhere at someone else’s beck and call is missing but so is the commitment to be part of a team achieving a wider aim. The sense of belonging is emulsified by this lack of a common agenda, your four walls at home become increasingly your boundary of experience and you are in danger of being minimised by this lack of a alternative perspective. Health is the final abettor of how well your retirement pans out, all the riches in the world can’t compensate for disability issues, even those tours become a chore if your mind is taken over by your painful knees rather than the view.

The substance of most lives has been, up to retirement the type of work we do and those fortunate enough to have the skill to intuitively work from home they can still thrive with the achievement and the money a successful occupation brings but for most of us it’s a matter of keeping the garden ship-shape and negotiating the supermarket isles with the stability a trolley brings.

We do of course have a great deal of time to reflect and judge and in this confusing world where so many of our values and beliefs have been highjacked and the supplanting of concepts which border on being influential as to who we are, seem an infringement to that person. If all we believed in previously, be it gender recognition, personal discipline, the very actuality questioned of what we see with our own eyes, as Artificial Intelligence re-scopes our conception of reality. How will future generations live in a world which, like Schrödinger's cat is both alive and dead at the same time. When faced with large-scale unreality we become mentally unwieldy and fair game to unscrupulous gamesters like Donald Trump. At least in Russia and China we are told what to think which removes the psychological turmoil of believing we have choice.

Identity and how it defines us.

 Subject: Identity and how it defines us.



Who are the people willing to die for their identity whilst we manoeuvre ours away in a market free for all.

 Are we proud to be British or would we rather bequeath that title to who ever turns up and claims it. 

Does the sense of many generational links within the community not out-claim someone who has only just arrived, sometimes without any papers or proof of lineage somewhere else. Is the land we occupy and have done so for a number of Millenia not worth fighting for and if needs be, dying for, especially since the carefully contrived British culture is ever more at risk from pressure groups who belong to much more authoritarian cultures than our own.

We seem to be intent in throwing the British baby out with the bath water, unheard of in Chinese, Russian and Islamic cultures where nationhood is valued above all else.

One of the characteristics of recent British culture is to continually look elsewhere for our lead and following, to preempt and mollify conflict by continually playing the good cop irrespective of what it does to our standing in the world, we have become appeasers rather than being prepared to hold our feet to the fire when principles are demanded.

Of course there are many parts of our inner cities which bear no resemblance to the 40s/50s and 60s, having taken on a hybrid culture which varies even from street to street. These areas are as racially divided but without any governing ethos other than the violence of the gang and the weapons which defines them.

Cultural precedence is the balance between each citizen in a defined group and their standing amongst other cultural groups. When in a significant minority their place and aims should be that of the minority not that of a challenger and certainly not demanding rights over and above the indignant population. As visitors into our culture they should not seek to trash our way of life or significantly change the norms of our culture by imposing theirs.

Of course this poses the question, “have we not trashed our own culture in our craving the god of Mammon”.