There is Something Rotten in the State of ...

There is Something Rotten in the State of… --- and the stink is pervasive – on the obsequious media that will turn on Truss when they are sure she is history, (quite soon now from the noises coming from our toe-licking BBC,) and on the Conservative MPs who are like rodents caught in the headlights. Now, a wordy member of my household says, they want to shuffle the deckchairs about and put Ben Wallace and some such layabout at the head of this country. Anyone will do so long as the Tories can stay in power for another year-and-a-half. Jesus Wept! The Mother of Parliaments was thrust into my receptive twelve-year-old Indian head, by the Sacred Heart nuns in my Convent school in Thalasseri, in the mid - forties. A model not only of functioning democracy, but also of elegant government and political rectitude. In 1981, when my father visited, I took him to see the Houses of Parliament, the Palace and the door of Number 10 from a respectful distance on the sidewalk. When he returned to India, he did a brief talk on All India Radio, Kozhikode, about his trip. Full of eulogies for the wonderful buildings, the tidy (!!!) streets, the punctual trains… Late last night all hell broke in the revered Westminster Hall. Tory M Ps were being manhandled into the lobby if they were not quick enough to go in to vote against a labour motion. All decorum had disappeared through the august portals. The Kerala Marxists could not have put up a better example of rowdy behaviour. So much for decorum and elegance ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1.32p.m - The P M walked out of number 10 and to her podium as I was writing and announced her resignation. Now the horse-trading will begin. The Tories do not have the talent or rectitude in them right now to find acceptable replacements. So, we will end up with another set of nether orifices. No escape. I watch with some discomfort – who next? However, much better than the soaps on T V.

Our Winter of Destruction

Our Winter of Destruction I look at our PM, Liz Truss, and I think, how did this come about? What were the Tories thinking? They are self-destructing, I tell myself. I am happy to think that, but meanwhile, we have 18 months of this government. Liz Truss, bouncing on her high heels, travelling in search of a brain transplant. Before that, we had bungling Boris, empty as a finished beer-can. Now crunched up and binned, thank God. About him, the less said/ thought, the better. She took the cap off bankers’ bonuses (and because of that, the bottom off workers’ wages). She gave the green light to greedy fracking, never mind the creaking, tumbling local landscapes. What next? Jeremy -unt is back at the helm, more or less, and he is cruel as well as cunning. Put your crown jewels away and get ready for a harsh winter. The Tories are muttering and murmuring, but no one takes Liz on. What is her power-base? I wonder, what keeps her at No 10. ‘Who will rid us of this…?’ I think, as Liz minces in and minces out. We are in dire need of a government that cares about the people in this country who have to choose between heating and eating. We need a general election, now, not a year later. The advent of -unt does nothing to allay my fears of a subsistence winter. This man is the austerity chancellor. Any ideas, Keir??