Boo boo in select company

Boo boo in select company
Something to say?

Saturday 4 April 2020

Thank you Jeremy Corbyn. 'May your tribe increase'.

The conspiracy within the Labour Party to get rid of Corbyn succeeded because the rest of the membership allowed it to happen. Today I remember the hope and confidence within the party when Corbyn became leader. When the young chanted OOooooh Jeremy Corbyn in the most unlikely venues, I thought, at last, there is light to be seen at the end of the tunnel.
   Here is a man who never said anything he didn't believe in, never posed and wooed the Press.  He had principles, recently missing from politics. He was honest, caring and fair. He energized ordinary people like me to step out and canvass for Labour. In parliament, Corbyn didn't slash below the belt like May and Johnson. He was civil and professional. In the wrong place obviously. What is the point of being polite to Boris bloody Johnson?
   The Labour manifestos during the 1917 election and the 2019 debacle were a wonder to read. At last, we were going to attempt to remedy some of the imbalances in our festering society. But it was all too much for the electorate, too long used to accepting whatever excrement was handed out to them by the Government in power, Tory, New Labour, whatever...
   The NHS, of course took a crippling hit, because they said, we had no money. The money tree was barren. Corbyn maintained that money would be found when and if the Tories wanted to find it. Like right now. I rest my case.
   A country has to be pretty diseased to elect a Tory Government, as of ours now, which is not only uncaring right, it is also incompetent, incoherent and incapable of planning. When did they start considering ventilators and masks for the hospitals? Tomorrow?
   What makes an impoverished section of the country vote Tory? And that too under bungling, blustering buffoon, Boris. In my worst moments I thought the red wall in the North, which had turned toxic blue, deserved what they got.
   They took it all out on Labour, on Corbyn, blindly following  the glib 'Get Brexit Done' distraction.     So, I am writing to thank Jeremy, who tried so hard to educate the party, the public, the people, and failed because he never learned to do the suit-and-tie act. Any time you care to come back, Jeremy, I am right behind you. I think  the country lost the one opportunity they had in decades to try to have a level society. The Press, of course, were complicit.
   I think Starmer will do great. I hope he succeeds in booting the Goves and the Borises out.
   I love you, Jeremy. And thank you. You restored my faith in politics. 

Tuesday 31 March 2020

Isolation 31.3


ISOLATION 31.3

The milk is gone -- all four pints of it. Not satisfied with that, the selfish so-and-so has also taken our
milk- bottle basket, fruit juices and bread, all of which came with our delivery early
morning yesterday. Corona brings out the worst in some people, fortunately a tiny deluded minority We have occasionally had one pint stolen, (I thought I should put some sugar out to go with it) but the whole delivery? Jesus wept!
  I normally wake up to the sounds of the workmen tinkering with metal and stone from the building
site across the road from us. This whole road is gradually being re-constructed by greedy developers.
Old England is disappearing fast. (Some of it like, houses without central heating or indoor toilets
for instance, we are glad to forget) Alan Bennet, where are you, who moaned so powerfully about
that lost landscape?
  Our road was the epitome’ of grace and privilege. Houses set back from the road, lovely green
lawns and trees, three-car families flaunting their wealth… I often felt out of place here, like a bag
lady at the Savoy grille) Now, we have these monstrosities, three and four storey flats with mean
little windows and no parking spaces. Maybe the new residents who will move into the flats in front
will be a little more friendly (I hope) than the stuck-up doctors and such-like, with their heads up
their fundamentals, who took the developer’s generous cash and disappeared
   Today, finally, the workmen are staying at home. So, I have unobstructed view of the three mobile
toilets, one cobalt blue, one leaf green and the other sky-blue, which served the builders. As I write,
the only distraction is the 24-hour news-feed about COVID 19.