Month: May 2022

Millions of Britons struggle to make relatively declining wages cope with rising prices. So the government says it will make laws to stop street names being changed, stop property developers having new housing stoped by locals, make it illegal to protest against the government, scrap the Human Rights Act and replace it with ‘at the discretion of Ministers”, declared war on anyone “Woke’, scrapped legislation to prevent a repetition of the banking crash, etc. Not a positive anywhere. And still people support them?

The government announcement of proposed legislation was short on detail, long on spite and totally lacking positivity.

An English layman’s thoughts. Firstly the election whilst significant, has been over hyped. First preference votes were 29% and the party did not add to its number of seats. The Unionist vote was split. Perhaps the most significant change was the Alliance party getting 17 seats which is 9 more than last time. However the Unionist parties did get more seats than Sinn Fein, but not enough for a majority. Unionists claim this is enough for them to retain First Minister Post, which to my mind shows little faith in the fragile democracy of NI. Whether Sinn Fein could form a minority government and form a coalition with the SDLP and the Alliance Party remains to be seen. So a difficult situation.

Made much worse by the Westminster Government who are supporting abandonment of the NI Protocol they negotiated with the EU. Having already cost the UK economy around $£250 billion since Brexit the government seems to want to further ostracise ourselves from the rest of the world. I am fairly sure the Biden administration would have something to say too. As to what will happen – it is more difficult than predicting a teenagers mood.

Meanwhile the government is still having tantrums about Starmer and curry. It is not like Starmer is important at the moment, leader of an English Political party which did well I London and Wales, OK in Scotland and not particularly well elsewhere. So the governments obsession must be seen as a diversion from Johnson’s failings (his visit to the Ukraine did not sway the voters as hoped.

The UK seems to be at a tipping point. I believe that most people in Scotland, Wales and N.I. do not want independence, but are fed up with Westminster and its arrogance, so a move towards a more federal state seems inevitable?

The government and big business do not get it. The problem is the growth of disparity in wealth. Without a few enjoying excessive wealth we would not have the poverty that is growing across the UK.

What a load of hot air and bullshit is being spouted this morning. Labour claiming they are doing well outside London which is palpably untrue, Tories claiming that doing worse than they did in these seats last time was not a disaster and reflection on Johnson, LibDems claiming great success from a very low base, the same is true for the Greens although they are still just getting established.

We watch Friends and Cheers, Hollywood blockbusters, but America is a foreign land. I have not travelled extensively but felt more comfortable in rural Spain than I did in Chicago. In Spain no one spoke English but we had an unspoken companionship of a common heritage and history – obviously different but similar in patterns. In Chicago everything was similar but somehow distorted – water waiters, only black performers in blues bars with only white customers, the richest country on earth with a subway system seemingly held together with chewing gum.