How the mighty have fallen

Subject: How the mighty have fallen.

Oh how the mighty are fallen. Mrs May when she turns out the light tonight as she slips into sleep must wonder at how she buggered it up. 

Yesterday she had a government with a majority, she was about to engage the Europeans in Brexit and no one had the courage to get in her way. No one knew or seemed to hold the brief she had for dealing with those pesky Europeans with their dodgy Commission and even dodgier President.
No one had looked into the pot she was stirring or saw the ingredients, she was the chef extraordinaire and as witches go, she began to resemble the Shakespearian tragedy in Macbeth stirring her own prophetic pot.
He grip on Parliament and especially on her own party is irrevocably weakened. The stirrings of discontent are already present and it is unsure if she will be allowed to continue for long. All this at a time when the Brexit negotiations needed a steady hand. Unfortunately her hand was seen by many as being too ideological, too stiff, too unbending.
Our position vis a vis Europe is changed and yet we still wish to trade with them. The election of Macron to be president of France has steadied the European ship and strengthened the tie with Germany. The need to make concessions to Britain was already weakened by his election and now with the vote of yesterday the negotiators in Europe see a weak Britain.
A hard Brexit, where we pulled out regardless of the negotiations which she had promised now seems less likely to be agreed by parliament over here and so we could be in for a stalemate and our exit becomes very messy.
To pull out of the free trade agreement with such a large trading body would do harm to business and therefore the standard of living over here. To loosen the strings of the European court and regulatory statutes would also be difficult if we wanted to trade with them since these regulations, tied to the legal statutes enforced by the Court, are fundamental to the commonality of reciprocal trade.
Free movement of labour which has so incensed people over here with, the strain it imposes on our health service, schools and jobs is the corner stone of membership and one wonders is it too high a price to pay for trade.
For too long there has been political smoke and mirrors. No one has been straight with the population over here. Our schools and hospital services are not in the state they are in solely because of immigration. We as a country have shrugged off the need to invest. Our creaking industries and industrial relations are the result of the deficit between a society which is split at birth and segregated through its archaic schooling system. People in power pay lip service to the needs of the country because they do not belong socially or emotionally to the same country. We talk the talk but don't walk the walk.
Could we get some sort of bolt on arrangement such as Norway has. The imposition of the free movement of labour would still be there, along with the monetary contribution we would have to make. All this without a seat at the table or a voice in future decision making.
I voted to leave on the basis that I hated the idea of becoming a subsidiary of the Reichstag. We had fought two world wars to prevent that and it seemed to me, especially after the disgraceful way the Bundesbank and the German Finance Minister Wolfgang  Schauble treated Greece and also the financial slight of hand, used by the ECB president Mario Draghi, which treated the people of the euro zone as unknowing collaborators to pay back the loans the "German Banks" had made to Greece. All this seemed to smell of power, too much power, un-

elected power, unimpeachable power and I wanted none of it.   

And then the fun and games starts

Subject: Fw: And then the fun and games starts.

 

 

"The moving finger having writ moves on, nor all they piety or whit shall lure it back to cancel half a line nor all they tears wash out a word of it".
And so today the nation decides.

Elections are funny things. They encapsulate so much on the simplicity of a cross on a ballot paper. How can such a mark enclose your understanding of the mission to run a country this way or that. How can your conflicting feeling be resolved in such a way when debate left you even more confused.

A democratic putsch would be more like it. 

A single moment in the ballot box and all is decided but of course it is not, as the  promises unwind and excuses are made as to why. 

The system itself broken as, year in, year out, the populous is left feeling cheated by the result with millions of people unrepresented even though collectively they voted in sufficient number to count, their voice is unrepresented.

First past the post is a stitch up. It's like a boxer who wins every round but is caught in the final round with a punch from nowhere. His previous rounds count for nothing the records only show he lost. UKIP with 4 million voters and not one seat. Labour winning the popular vote but losing the election because the Shires with their rural population hold as much power as a seat in Toxteth. 

Mechanics apart, this election has been fought on personality and since when did personality equip a Prime Minister with the craft and guile to do the job. 

We are duped by commentary and not fact. Highly paid commentators, analysts, pundits take the place of reasoned thought and keep in mind, they are paid by organs who have a self interest in the result. 

Dissembling :- To deceive, to pretend, to masquerade, to counterfeit to fake and bluff.

These are the black arts of the commentator/pundit. Sometimes it only takes a headline with half a dozen words below to drive the voter to vote in a certain way. He/she never pauses to think, is this true, where are the facts, what is the substance behind the story.

The more money spent on the charade the more success. The wilder the stories the more they are believed, the more I despair of my fellow men and women.

It's not that I am right or wrong it's just the sheer paucity of reflective thought which goes into some people's reasoning on such an important decision.

Tonight we will know where we are headed and then the fun and games starts !!

What has become of them

Subject: What has become of them ?

And so they inch forward with 'market solutions' to cover the withdrawal of the national conscience  regarding how we fund the care of old people. 

The system used to share the costs, much as an insurance companies do with their insurance policy's by spreading their expenditure over a large number of policy holders. Now with taxation being a sacred cow, the Tory's have decided to fund old age health care by the individual pensioner paying for their care by taking equity in the house they live in.  If all goes to plan, your house rather than a hospital or an old people's home will become your caring centre until you die and then, on your death  it will be sold to pay for the care workers who visited  your home in the latter days of your life.
I have commented before about the closure of affordable old people's accommodation. This used to be the responsibility of the municipality, paid for through the rates. It was our western solution to caring for the elderly who, in Eastern cultures are cared for by sons and daughters in their own homes.

The 'Old Aged Home' which catered for many ordinary old people, some of which I had worked in, have disappeared. Now as I drive along the street the buildings are gone, sold off to property developers. "Where", one asks "are the old dears now, who is caring for them" ?

The council members in the Borough I speak of, pride themselves in being Labour and one have thought representative of the old. Under their watch these 'community homes' have been demolished. The people in them were people who were clearly not wealthy. They wouldn't have the resources to move into a private home so where did they go ?
As a society we seem to have been conditioned not to care. We have been encouraged to turn a blind eye to the financial demise of people who have not been able to set aside the cash to fund their own care. 

A situation which would have been politically unacceptable 30/40 years ago. It was traditional with municipality help that the rate payers, you and me, acknowledge that we were all destined to get old and frail and therefore we all collectively accepted the cost of maintaining these homes
And then came the tantra, "markets knew best" when it comes to finance and the efficiency required to run these organisations. And so began the slippery slide to where we are today.
Step 1. Enlist shareholders.
Sep 2. The shareholders first action is to sack the existing municipal workers since these often long standing employees were expensive with their own well funded pension pot. Sacking them relieved the municipality not only of its substantial monthly contribution but also its eventual responsibility to meet an onerous pension payment.
Step 3. To recruit, in their place, those  jewels of the east (cheap labour), mostly from the Philippians on short or no term contracts.
Step 4. Finally the realisation that the real estate, land right in amongst the community  became the focus of attention (as it had been from the moment the shareholders were brought in) and a sale price put around its neck which was impossible to resist.
Capitalism at its most productive and notice, no mention of the "inmates" no mention of the vulnerable old people bewildered by what was going on with no representation and certainly no consultation.
What has become of them. I have asked many municipal employees but no one seems to care. It's hard enough keeping your job as the Council continue to down size and wage rises are a thing of the past. There are no claims from Society as a whole to know since old age and the claims it makes, with longevity and dementia merging into a terrible dilemma, not only for the afflicted but also for accountants balancing the books.
What has become of them. 

Like a poem describing the Somme or the magnificent poem by Thomas Gray,  "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" they are the forgotten people.

Please click and read this 

http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=

Tomorrow we shall see

Subject: Tomorrow we shall see.

"That's my life in living colour". A phrase I picked up in another  book I'm reading.
I liked the image, our lives in colour, smudged by memory, once so relevant.
The scenes in snapshot depict moments when we were some place, doing something. Life is like that if you let it. Chance occurrences, chance meetings, chance relationships all as flighty as chance. What if this or that had happened. What if there had been a delay in the connection, or if you hadn't read a signal that wasn't there or misconstrued. What if you had had the courage or if, having the courage, not got carried away.
And so we sit painting our memorial canvas, bits and pieces, scenes unconnected a dab of colour here a space there. Undistinguished yet distinguishable from every one else. It's our uniqueness, no two memorials are the same and whilst it might take an expert to decipher the difference, the differences are there.
The childhood with its reliance on two others, those others so different in their childhoods, different again in their priorities, making it up as they go along, getting some thing's right, some thing's wrong each turning their influence onto another person, you, another snapshot. This kaleidoscope of images and influence mixed with the subtle variations of political importance which form our world view.
Tomorrow is Election Day. Will it be 'Blue' or 'Red' two colours definitely at opposite ends of the political colour spectrum.

The national canvas will forever be changed. It's not a normal election, we are too far down the road from Clement Attlee's world of social equity after years of Tory/Liberal indifference. Mrs Thatches social garden in which only the 'specialities' would be allowed to grow and Tony Blair (son of) who guided everyone on the left into the centre with a world of promises and credit manipulation. We remained, right of centre as the Tory/Lib Dem pact saw the inherent power and crass political cynicism on behalf of the Tories in their dealings with the Lib Democrats, followed by the full assault on the social fabric of the working class by George Osborn. The people will not survive another 5 or 10 years of Tory indifference to their plight. The country and its institutions will not survive Mrs May, iconoclastic extreme. She is of a mindset seen in women where the truth has no value, only a blind determination to prove to everyone that they are right, at any cost.

From day one it's only been about her, not her policies. She casts herself as the hard negotiator of Brexit whilst painting Jeremy Corbyn as a crippled political pygmy. Her bully boy supporters, the main news papers and the news channel Sky have rained down on Corbyn from day one. Slanderous stories and innuendo, non stop character assignation, a cesspool of lies and deceit, it's been an almost continuous bombardment to which Corbyn to his credit has remained aloof, dealing instead with the political matters which should concern us all.
I have often wondered at the gullibility of the English voter, the insensitivity of so many Englishmen to their fellow countrymen. The blind assumption that the ruling class will see them right !!!

We continue to party

 

Subject: We continue to party.

Fact an figures, statistics have been hurled at us by politicians of all persuasions and will continue to do so until tomorrow, polling day.
Take the Heath care we receive. As a percentage of National income the "increase" in money spent on Heath under the last labour government was 5.9% whilst under the Tories this annual increase has dropped to 1.4%. We spend less than comparable European countries such as the Netherlands and Germany by a significant amount.
Of course it's catch up. Drugs cost more, we treat things that we never treated before, the old are getting older and we find ever new ways to prolong life, immigration has swollen our population way beyond its natural replacement and people have learnt to use the healthcare service as a crutch to support their lifestyle, be it obesity, drug taking or promiscuity with the expensive treatment of AIDS as an example.
The assumption that our lifestyle choices or that immigration, where families who for cultural reasons, have large families, way beyond the statistic of 1.9 children born to a women,  the minimum replacement needed to fulfil our reproductive responsibilities, are largely ignored because they are too sensitive.
So much of life these days is too sensitive to mention and discuss. The norms are set by interested parties who wish to protect their position but without a discussion as to why the health bill is going through the roof and our ability to pay diminishes, things will get worse or as the Tory policy outlines ordinary people will be excluded from care.
We are like ostriches with our heads in the sand as special interest groups shut down our capacity to think and comment. Government is accused of failing communities, not if it warns them of living a profligate lifestyle but it fails if it does so  by reason of an individual's rights to do what they want.
Responsibility for ones actions is old hat it has been replaced by "rights" and so as we see societal  distortions all around us, as Rome burns, we continue to party !!

Not a win but not a defeat

Subject: Not a win but not a defeat.

It's hubris what done it !!!
The vicars daughter, as with most of her species was an isolated person who growing up in sight of the vestry believed her own sermons.
As Home Secretary and then as a surprise choice for Prime Minister she wasn't collegiate, preferring to resemble Margaret Thatcher in dealing with those around her with an iron fist. Her attitude to European leadership, like her attitude to Jeremy Corbyn  was combative and in Corbyn's case, disgraceful. Her approach to this election like her approach to the Brexit negotiations was that of an egotist who believes her own pronouncements like the Seventh Day Adventists. Her script was all about "Me" and with her scrawny figure and fashion conscience outfit she seemed totemistic, a clan leader who had not yet looked behind her to see if the clan was still there.
This was a night when the ordinary men and women of Britain dealt a number of blows.
Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland has been reined in and hopefully her desire to seek another Scottish Referendum with it. The defeat of Alex Salmon and Angus Roberson, both leading members of the SNP should have been a wake up call to her.

The defeat of Nic Clegg the likeable, erudite ex leader of the Lib Dems exacerbates the demise of the party after its dreadful cooperative experience with David Cameron's Conservative Party.
The winner, no doubt about it, has been Jeremy Corbyn. 20 points behind Mrs May when she called the election, an election she didn't need to call but which her hubris led her to think that Corbyn's dreadful position in his own party and her scurrilous personal attacks on him from the moment the election campaign started would be enough.
Corbyn is made of sterner stuff he faced the criticism with polite rebuttals not character assassination but with policy arguments that made sense to the electorate already beginning to wake up to the revealed face of the resurgent "Nasty Party".
Of course this is not a victory given that the Tories have won the election but it is not the defeat which was projected. There is the nascent sign of a real opposition to conservative ideology, a buffer beginning to emerge to the right wing solutions which so damage the social fabric.
Not a win but not a defeat !!!

Duopoly

Subject: A duopoly.

Following my last blog on the difficult issues of identification amongst the Muslim population  living in this country and their dilemma and psychological schizophrenia  forcing many peace loving Muslims into having to analyse the political issues effecting their Muslim communities in countries across the globe, and end up treating it as a personal affront.

'Any congregation' will see itself as unified and the troubles inflicted on any congregation particularly a Muslim one becomes shared.  A Religious congregation  is a tight congregation, its affinity is based  on religious text. The Koran belief that Gods word  comes direct to them through the words of their Prophet Mohammed means that what the Koran states, much as the Bible to a Catholic, is  an incorruptible truth

This 'exclusivity' allows them to use scripture to take the place of 'national identity' and since it becomes, a state within a state any action taken for what ever reason against a Muslim country is "my 'bothers'  problem" and by religious osmosis, "my problem also". 

British foreign policy has much to answer for but it is unique that, whilst non Muslims would protest at the ballot box, there are significant numbers of Islamic believers who would go further and use force to make their dissatisfaction known. Added to this is the fact that the non Muslim is outside the proverbial tent, and his or her value, as a person is different and categorised as kafir, an unbeliever, a second class human.

Given that the latest atrocity  in Manchester perpetrated against such young innocent people, it has to be this "disconnect" which gives the bomber an excuse to pull the trigger.

This type of religious terrorism can have no end since the history of Mohamed is seeped in conflict and violent acts of survival. There is no equivalent of a pacifist Jesus dying on the cross to save mankind. There is no doctrine of turn the other cheek when your oppressors seek to harm you. There is certainly no equivalence of the violence if a religious image is importuned !!

Religions were fostered to meet the needs of the community.  

From the settled, centuries old, Hindu religion, idealised to meet the needs of India, to Judaism which grew out of tribal displacement and reunion. The Muslim faith, born amidst conflict, the conflict was very much part of its armoury for survival.

Mohamed was first a leader of a persecuted tribe before he received the dreams on which the teachings of Islam is based. He never claimed to be the 'son of god', simply a Prophet and as such his attitude towards the protection of his followers was pragmatic. He would fight his ground where ever and whenever required.

In today's Jihad the fight for survival is no less relevant and it emphasises the intrinsic difference between the three monotheistic faiths. 

Abraham is the common patriarch between Judaism, Christianity and the Muslim faith but each, although monotheistic, has its own way of interpretation.

To the Jews, Abraham is the founding father of the special relationship between them and god. To the Christian he is a prototype believer for both Jewish and Gentile unity.

In the Muslim faith he was a Prophet, a link in the chain between Adam and Mohamed.

The definitions are important since they signify the relationship between God and man. From the special relationship the Jews profess to have through Abraham, to the unifying element between Jew and Gentile in the Christian faith. The importance the Muslim gives Mohamed as one of equal importance to Abraham, he was the final conduit of god's word to his people. Both the Muslim and the Jew are exclusive, their tent is closed whilst the Christian purport to be, "all things, to all people".
A Theocracy has no room for counter claims, it's regime is strict and given the importance of dogma, the penalties are harsh for anyone stepping out of line. This is the implicit danger we all face as Islam secures an ever stronger hold over communities in the West and particularly in this country. 

As Christianity retreats for lack of consistency, the hardliners build their Urban fortress with Sharia Law, already the un-proclaimed legal arbiter in the inner Muslim community in sections of our country.

A society is built on a basis of legal certitude and it had better guard that foundation of consideration and restraint, before we give way to a duopoly under which no society can exist for long.