I Despair!

I DESPAIR! Our P M. Liz Truss. How did this come about? What are the Tories thinking about? They are self-destructing, I tell myself. I am happy to think that, but meanwhile, we have two years 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. Our Liz is at the U N this week and I am cringing to imagine her dealing with all those experienced apparatchiks. They’ll have her for porridge if she is not careful; And, not-so-Cleverly holding her hand is not going to cut it. Seventeen days and she has taken the cap off bankers’ bonuses (and because of that, the bottom off workers’ wages). She has given the green light to greedy fracking, never mind the creaking, tumbling local landscapes. What next? Today, I don’t recognise our normal political landscape. The Tories smell defeat in 2024 and they are armed with a wrecking ball. Ed Milliband was at his best at Westminster this week, but I doubt the Tories care. So gear up for a nasty eighteen months. Hopefully the bankers will handover their bonuses to the struggling poor and pay for school uniforms.

The Queen and I As early as age thirteen, I had a thing about the two princesses, Elizabeth, and Margaret. Somebody gave me a coffee table book about the princesses, and I spent hours looking at them. In black and white of course, this was 1950. At College, I read Russell and Joad and Laski and all persons in between, and became staunchly left-wing. And there I have stayed, Left, but peaceable Left, not Kerala communist blood-letting Left. In the fifties there was a lot of murder and mayhem in North Malabar. When, eventually, I ended up in the U K in the seventies, I knew I was anti-monarchy. I had lived through the unedifying reign of George VIth, when many Indians, including my father, had ended up in prison for demanding independence for India. But perversely, I admired and loved Queen Elizabeth, the second. She was only nine years older than me. Her poise, elegance, devotion to duty and wisdom enchanted me. What a woman! Living in Britain has only reinforced my view. The grace with which she has managed the many conundrums in her life – Charles and Diana’s chaotic marriage, the anti-monarchy upsurges now and then, Andrew’s unsavoury shenanigans, to name a few. But there she is, consistently dignified, fair and gracious. This country is impoverished without her; we are, at the moment, lost without her.

Our Aspiring Leaders

I am looking at the two candidates who aspire to be our Prime Minister on the fifth of September, and I think – Is this all the Tory Party has to offer the Country? Two wannabes with nothing to distinguish them from the lumpen masses inside the Party, and the mindless acolytes outside. I am from Kerala, where even the barely literate household staff read the newspapers every day, the-beedi rollers have one employed at full wage just to read the paper to them while they roll the tobacco into the poor man’s smokes, and the far Left is more often in power than not. No Country deserves the entitled apparatchik, or the frozen person. The only bright spot is that the two leaders will both make most people so mad that they will vote for Labour in 2024. Meanwhile, how do we suffer this empty, pompous lot? What we need, of course, is a people’s uprising. This is not going to happen. Our version of this is called a polite No-Confidence vote. Look at the time and effort it took to shed Johnson. The two contenders talk non-stop about tax; I get the impression that this is what exercises their tiny little brains. NHS? Truss wants to sack nurses, I hear. BP raising the prices for the common man on fuel while accumulating vast profits? Sunak is all in favour. No way out for any of us.

When did we become Third World? I am listening to the tales of hardship on Channel 4. A mother who has no money to feed her daughter until the next Universal Credit check arrives. A father who has nothing left after paying the utility bills. What happened to this rich Western Country? Are we third world now? In 1974, I fled from a bad marriage to the United Kingdom. I lived in lodgings on Lower Richmond Road. I was paid 59 p an hour and the rent was nine pounds a week. I had a gas metre in the room and had to feed it to stay warm. I remember the careful shuffling of expenses until, a few months later, I got a job teaching Maths in a Secondary School in Wickford. The Department of Education would not pay for the ten years previous teaching experience, or my Maths degree, until six months later. I had to get verification from the University of Madras direct to the DES. Teachers were not paid very much in the seventies anyway until the Houghton award, and we got a huge pay-rise. Meanwhile, I did dinner duty to get the free meal that went with it. I had no Winter garments, coming as I did from Africa, so I layered. I lived in a high-rise Council flat and took a bus from Basildon to work. I watched the electricity meter frequently and bathed in small amounts of hot water when the meter seemed to be going round too fast. I was glad the children were not with me. The Houghton awards trebled my salary and the accumulated back pay made me feel rich. So, I put down a deposit of eight hundred pounds on a house that was selling for 9350 pounds. I have memories of not buying the Whippy that I was greedy for, getting my first overcoat for nine pounds after six months of saving… The mothers and fathers who struggle to feed their children are in a very bad place now. For this, the Tory government is responsible.

THE FAB FIVE Did you see the soap opera yesterday? The edifying sight of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak tearing into each other, the raking up of mistakes made by the Tories in Government over the last decade, the excavation of ancient biographies – who went to school. Where? Labour’s job is being done for them. When McDonnel makes an ugly swipe at Starmer, I want to send a message to him to shut up. Go and do this in Committee, I think, not on the media outlets. I am on his side; I am left of left. Brought up in Kerala, what do you expect? I want a redistribution of wealth tomorrow, my wealth included… The LEADERS’ DEBATE yesterday was a catfight. How did these guys not know at least after the first debate that they were doing a Labour party political broadcast? How stupid are they? Mind you, I have always believed that anyone who joins the Tory Party is, by definition, stupid. But a lot of morons vote for them, and they are a reality like plant pests. Interestingly, the discussion of policy was minimal – it was all about who is the best top dog. No one will call a general election; they know they will be wiped out. 2024 seems a long way away.

The LEADERS Larry, the No 10 cat, and eleven others are all hoping to be our P M. Couldn’t be more diverse. Men, women, Asian men, cat… All it needs is for Priti Toxic Patel to join the motley bunch of would-be-leaders. The Press don’t know what is really going on, how to separate the aspirants, where to show their power. Boris had been their man until they did a Mark Anthony on him. When you create a Frankenstein, you must expect it to turn on you. All the contestants have talked about tax cuts and not much else. The thought of money reigns supreme. There is no mention about the cost-of-living crisis, the pressure on the NHS or Ruanda. One must assume that all of them favour sending immigrants to Rwanda and keeping quiet about the Brexit disaster. If you don’t mention it, it might go away. Is this pervasive racism in the Country, or the obligatory racism to succeed in the party? True blue as a ‘Cruella’ supporter calls Braverman. And – Boris is hanging on as P M, the characteristic smirk absent. My worry is the appalling lack of talent, principles, or any real political intent beyond the acquisition of power. What’s Rishi Sunak got to offer anyone but himself? And he leads the pack, I understand. Liz Truss’s ignorance, Hunt’s opportunism… Who will rid us of this scurrilous lot?

The LEADERS Larry, the No 10 cat, and eleven others are all hoping to be our P M. Couldn’t be more diverse. Men, women, Asian men, cat… All it needs is for Priti Toxic Patel to join the motley bunch of would-be-leaders. The Press don’t know what is really going on, how to separate the aspirants, where to show their power. Boris had been their man until they did a Mark Anthony on him. When you create a Frankenstein, you must expect it to turn on you. All the contestants have talked about tax cuts and not much else. The thought of money reigns supreme. There is no mention about the cost-of-living crisis, the pressure on the NHS or Ruanda. One must assume that all of them favour sending immigrants to Rwanda and keeping quiet about the Brexit disaster. If you don’t mention it, it might go away. Is this pervasive racism in the Country, or the obligatory racism to succeed in the party? True blue as a ‘Cruella’ supporter calls Braverman. And – Boris is hanging on as P M, the characteristic smirk absent. My worry is the appalling lack of talent, principles, or any real political intent beyond the acquisition of power. What’s Rishi Sunak got to offer anyone but himself? And he leads the pack, I understand. Liz Truss’s ignorance, Hunt’s opportunism… Who will rid us of this scurrilous lot?