Well polls are somewhat meaningless when we are, probably, at least three or four years from the next election. Two other points: – many people I talk to have no problem with Cummings’ actions, not least because we believe the whole isolation thing to have been an insane nonsense anyway – Labour will not win the popular vote as long they continue to openly support the interests of criminals over the law abiding, shirkers over workers, the public sector over the private sector, big business over small business, foreigners over the British, more tax over less tax etc. On every issue of policy and morality, Labour has been on the wrong side since 1997, and most people know that (even, I suspect, most people who vote for them).
Last Saturday BBC Parliament showed the 1997 Election program. I was watching the part from the Friday morning when the BBC had Callaghan, Kinnock and a few other figures from Labour’s past on. They where gushing about Blair. The most interesting thing was how badly those gushing words have aged in light of how Blair ruled!
I would agree. His government collapsed after “Black Wednesday”. A stronger PM would have been able to use the economic recovery that created to at lest hold Blair to one term.
That’s before you get into his EU strategy. Which history has shown as untenable. The referendum result had its roots in Maastricht.
A lot of people became Eurosceptical as a result of Maastricht and watched With horror as the EU became ever more remote and intolerant over the years culminating in the rejection by the people of the constitution only to see it forced through as Lisbon Treaty.
and the CP were arrogant and various people out of control, the pre socially re-engineered Portillo to name one. There was a grotty feel to them and Majors incompetence the icing on the cake.
Each to their own of course but, “personally lovely”? Blair was likely, the most devious, narcissistic and entirely self-interested PM the UK has ever experienced. Money, money, money, money – which he managed (somehow) to acquire – self-aggrandising power – and by his own admission Presidency of the EU – for which he crawled to every EU instruction and sold out the UK. Blair the great Quisling!
I think you may have misunderstand me. I was referring to John Major (slightly facetiously) not Tony Blair.
However I fully concur with your trenchant views on the Blair creature. To use the vernacular, a truly revolting piece of work.
.
bob alob
3 years ago
Most of the furore over Cummings seemed like hate to me, hate from the media and those on the left, they hate him for his role in brexit and saw a chance to take revenge, it was a great day when I realised those haters had been thwarted yet again, and the media showed themselves to be the clowns they are.
David Bell
3 years ago
I have seen several articles on the Dominic Cummings 260 mile drive ranging from the supportive through those that attack every aspect of him as a person right through to the downright stupid eg I saw one article comparing it to the Profumo affair! (Driving 260 miles is the same as the Minister of Defence sharing a mistress with a KGB agent!! Some journalists are becoming unhinged in lockdown!).
I suspect the outcome of this will be exactly the same as the outcome of the Andy Coulson affair. Political nerds (like me) are nodding right now but those who don’t remember, Coulson was the editor of the New of the World when that paper was hacking mobile phones and he left the paper under a dark cloud. Cameron took him on as his spin doctor only to have to sack him when it became obvious he knew about the hacking. He later went to jail for his part in the scandal. The Labour Party, the media and the left in general spent years trying to hang the scandal around Cameron’s neck. It had no effect on the 2015 electorate because they didn’t really care about Cameron’s choice of spin doctor.
The political bubble is obsessed with Cummings because they hate him for the 2016 referendum result. A large majority of those who voted Conservative in 2019 voted leave in 2016 and Cummings is a hero to them!
They are also the same culprits who nearly destroyed our democracy last year – the Remainers/Rejoiners i.e. all TV channels, the newspapers, Labour, LibDems etc. It is orchestrated too, given that Saddiq Khan is getting involved and given away by about 10 Labour MPs tweeting exactly the same message! The Cummings Affair was someone they thought they could get rid of to weaken the government enough to push through a law to cancel Brexit in some way. Luckily, it hasn’t worked.
Also to many, many people with whom I have contact. All are social conservatives, who value an independent, critical thinker and most of all, find his patriotism ‘heroic’.
Gonzalez Girl
3 years ago
“So far, Labour has shown zero interest in speaking to them on the culture dimension because in the world of the Labour Party, to do so is tantamount to pandering to racism.” I would add that their LGBT / Transgender ideology…and the disastrous outing of all the female candidates in the leadership election to proclaim ‘transwomen are women’ alienated the working class and biological women in droves. The inquiry into the implosion of the Liberal Democrats at the last General Election, made it absolutely clear that this issue in particular was the undoing of Jo Swinson. The Labour Party, the Lib Dems and the Greens have lost the courage of their convictions to acknowledge the real experiences of ordinary people and to uphold free speech in favour of pandering to the virtual signaling of the woke minority.
chris.cauwood
3 years ago
A Syrian friend living in Dubai asked me what UK was like. How long have you got? I said. There’s the North and South, East and West, London, Scotland England Wales, Conservative Labour and LibDems, Brexiters Remainers, CofE Catholics Muslims Hindus, blacks, asians whites Yorkists Lancashires, Liverpudlians and Norwich, Oxford Cambridge not forgetting Cornwall….but Scotland is North and Wales is west yes? No no no it’s not like that ho ho… We’ve got an Indian Tory Home Secretary Brexiteer from Uganda and a communist white remainer First Minister of Scotland…How do you all get on? he said. We don’t. We hate each other. We’re like the old Bedouin. But it’s a nice place to live and people come and risk their lives in rubber dinghies to get there.
Interesting piece. However, I’ve long thought that elections aren’t decided by broad underlying trends, as this article implies, but by what happens in the few months and weeks leading up to the election (2017 is a case in point). So my real beef with the “Boris Johnson just lost the next election” claim is that nobody knows anything about where we’ll be in 2024, and they should frankly admit as much.
Hopefully, by 2024 ‘our’ Tanks will be parked on Tiananmen Square.
Nicholas Rynn
3 years ago
The Labour Party has ceased to be a party that wants to govern. It is a party of protest and little more. Over the last few weeks they have failed to put together a single coherent policy, let alone offer one to the electorate.
It was the Labour Party under Harold Wilson in 1975 who gave us the Referendum, despite the previous Labour PM Clement Atlee describing Referendums as ” a device of dictators and demagogues “ Wilson is often praised for keeping us out of the Vietnam War (not that the US would have wanted or indeed needed us). However he did idiotically commit us to a thirty year war in Ulster, and give us the wretched idea of a Referendum. At the time most of us were astonished, believing it to be the government’s prerogative to govern and let the rest of us get on with our lives. No wonder Labour is in its death throes.
Gerry Fruin
3 years ago
One reason missed in the article is why Labour will not progress and that is the unions. I suggest many people of all stripes can understand that genuine Socialism has some sensible merits. However, when the leaders of the more excitable unions launch their so, so predictable objections to any change in the status quo only the activists are listening. When the usual diatribe about, workers rights, equality and so on even die hard Union members must roll their eyes. It’s been spouted endlessly for decades and has no meaning to people who actually work. The failure of the Unions is that they are run by people who adopt a faux working class demeanour, quite out keeping with their backgrounds. Worker’s have never been enamoured with the cloth cap Northern ‘Down ‘t’ pit voice. This hard working, tough no nonsense image was never a reality. Only the Union leaders can’t grasp that. The reason for their continued existence is the way members are steered to elect their chosen candidates into positions of power that they believe will give them control. So progressive Socialist ideas that could benefit everyone will never happen until the Unions finally cease to exist.
Good point but it’s not just the leadership of the Unions but their composition as well. The majority of Unioinsed industries are now middle class professionals, mostly in the civil service. They have little, if anything in common with the Unions of old.
Still too few Trades Unions help their members to win the race against automation by facilitating lifelong learning by teaming up with colleges and universities.
No doubt they’ll blame Thatcher when the go extinct.
Spong Burlap
3 years ago
Nippy is Boris’ only real political enemy. In a piece by ‘Sky Views’ today, Ms Sturgeon was asked if she thought Mr Trump was a racist. Sure enough, she squeaked in a ‘Boris hates muslims’ anecdote. The MSM love this woke stuff; but when one expects inherent antagonism and bias from these weirdos, it fades almost immediately in one’s memory. The story is an old one. And a tired one.
As for Der Starmer and Co.., that Canterbury MP playing illlicit Carry-On-Dr Nookie must’ve made them wince a bit but of course no outpouring of outrage in the MSM (DM excepted) (and a clear cut breaking of lockdown -for recreation/pleasure) – but shhhh — no! she’s a good guy! She’s labour and apologised and to be immediately forgiven by “Toenails” Robinson, Dandy Peston, “Breakin'” Beff and the rest of the rotten shower. Actually, to pass out some credit, my only socialist pal was fuming about the Hon. Lady’s behaviour moreso than with DC’s.
This is how it goes. Que sera, sera. Ibid.
Steve Gwynne
3 years ago
“Boris Johnson just lost the next election”
Just Liberal Establishment mind games on the back of a single poll.
These people think that everyone should think as they do and so when they saw the poll that unambiguously portrayed that a significant amount of people thought he should be sacked, then they cried gotcha and thought everyone was finally on their wavelength.
However not to be. We don’t want to be governed/managed by Race Ideologues or Trans Ideologues, EU Ideologues, Socialist Ideologues or any Ideologues at all.
The Labour Party will need to change the ideology of most of its MPs before they will ever be in power again.
Helen Barbara Doyle
3 years ago
Anyone who looks at the Cummings saga with an open mind will agree that he did nothing untoward and has been treated despicably by the left and the MSM.
rod tobin
3 years ago
people of the UK are a conservative (c) group who have seen many changes that we are not comfortable with.
Robert Flack
3 years ago
All governments have ups and downs but the fundamentals remain. There has been much talk of the government’s handling of the COVID emergency and yet when asked if lockdown was correct a majority say yes. That is what will be remembered in 4 years time not rows about PPE. And now we have the riots from BLM activists. Will they hurt Labour? I think yes because the majority want law and order and they blame the left for bringing chaos to our streets. The left think that all of the pictures from the weekend improves their standing. It does not. The crisis that may swing the next election has yet to happen.
Martin Terrell
3 years ago
Excellent analysis. But we’ll only know the answer with hindsight. Looking back at past governments – who all failed at some point, there is a point where the mood turns, their luck runs out and they can get nothing right. The Tories haven’t reached that point yet, but if they lose a reputation for basic competence, the wind turns against them.
Concerned of Tunbridge Wells
3 years ago
Labour haven’t yet properly addressed the public perception that they have been hijacked as a mainstream political party.
Matty D
3 years ago
Jeez, he’s been in charged for 8 weeks. Give the guy a chance. Also, as Matthew knows, leadership ratings are a much better guide to electoral performance. These are very different from the Con vs Lab polls.
Alex Mitchell
3 years ago
As elections become increasingly presidential, it comes down to charisma of the leader. Whatever his policies, Boris is charismatic. Jacinda Ardern achieved a 15 point jump in a few weeks in 2017 just by having a nice smile and being kind. That support has not really dropped despite a failure to deliver on almost every key manifesto promise. Corbyn had it, but only to a narrow group. If Starmer doesn’t, Labour are doomed. Although, do not underestimate the power of a crisis with almost 100% political screen time going to Boris. This should be worth more than he has achieved
LCarey Rowland
3 years ago
When one spends a 69-year lifetime trying to navigate progressively between left and right, as I have, the outcome is (guess what): middle. Middle class, middle of the road political values. This American baccalaureted English major spent 35 adult years as a carpenter. . .to put bread on the table for wife and three smart kids. When kid #3 entered middle school . . . baccalaurated (psych) wife-mother attended nursing school part-time, which enabled 22 years as an ICU nurse, and . . . a ticket for hubby to spend golden years as gentleman scholar who can construct a set of stairs or rebuild a toilet. My voice of experience says: not a bad life at all. Lifetime learning while raising a family to be lifelong learners. It’s the way to go. Mary, thanks for sharing this. Your perspective is uniquely balanced and helpful. Keep up the good work.
Left and Right are 2 over-lapping ideas. We need to get rid of both! Now!
Ann Ceely
3 years ago
Britain is different to the US.
And long may that remain!
Chris Perry
3 years ago
Will the Cummings “event” lose the election? No. Will the fallout from that event cause serious damage to observation of lockdown and subsequent rules? Almost certainly yes. Will that affect the evaluation of government performance (“world beating”, or “world trailing”?) also probably yes. Will that affect the outcome of the election? Yes. And will Johnson’s appalling mismanagement of “the event” affect the outcome of the election? Yes
Moreover, the dividing lines are remarkably consistent. None of us expect perfection in leaders. They are as fallible as the rest of us. What most voted for is general direction of travel, not meaningless spats in social media. In that, not much, other than a rather more Liberal Conservative party than some like, has changed.
Jonathan da Silva
3 years ago
I tend to agree. I don’t see Labour bouncing back unless there is a change in national attitude. Certainly the enthusiasm by politicos of the two main sides seemingly for things that are obviously wrong or unsupported by any evidence shows it’s not possible to move people who can always find succour in newspapers and demagogues.
It’s a lunatic asylum to those of us unaligned. Reading loons call Sturgeon communist and write nonsense about the Cons representing workers over shirkers – when their support is from the biggest welfare recipients and beneficiaries of loose money policies at the expense of workers especially the young. Not to mention their love of monopoly business and using state spending as subsidy. Today the biggest con of the last Labour Govt more new hospitals, needed or not, likely with a nice fat cheque for financiers every year no doubt. It does seem very few people believe in actual Capitalism nowadays for all the donning of the garb by the right and Libertarians whilst simultaneously supporting its opposite.
There is a lot of rational analysis and good academic work left alone as both parties grab at an awkward mixture of nutcasery and flawed visionaries like a Cummings or Socialism or I assume Starmer will go back to the lunacy of neo Liberalism that led us here.
Well polls are somewhat meaningless when we are, probably, at least three or four years from the next election. Two other points:
– many people I talk to have no problem with Cummings’ actions, not least because we believe the whole isolation thing to have been an insane nonsense anyway
– Labour will not win the popular vote as long they continue to openly support the interests of criminals over the law abiding, shirkers over workers, the public sector over the private sector, big business over small business, foreigners over the British, more tax over less tax etc. On every issue of policy and morality, Labour has been on the wrong side since 1997, and most people know that (even, I suspect, most people who vote for them).
Last Saturday BBC Parliament showed the 1997 Election program. I was watching the part from the Friday morning when the BBC had Callaghan, Kinnock and a few other figures from Labour’s past on. They where gushing about Blair. The most interesting thing was how badly those gushing words have aged in light of how Blair ruled!
Unfortunately personally lovely, but utterly useless John Major handed it to him on a plate.
I would agree. His government collapsed after “Black Wednesday”. A stronger PM would have been able to use the economic recovery that created to at lest hold Blair to one term.
That’s before you get into his EU strategy. Which history has shown as untenable. The referendum result had its roots in Maastricht.
Yes it was the Maastricht treaty that did it for me. Unlike the erstwhile ken clarke, I actually read it, with a sense of foreboding…
A lot of people became Eurosceptical as a result of Maastricht and watched With horror as the EU became ever more remote and intolerant over the years culminating in the rejection by the people of the constitution only to see it forced through as Lisbon Treaty.
and the CP were arrogant and various people out of control, the pre socially re-engineered Portillo to name one. There was a grotty feel to them and Majors incompetence the icing on the cake.
Agreed by 1997, the whole CP was, as the late Terry Thomas would have said, “an absolute shower”.
Each to their own of course but, “personally lovely”? Blair was likely, the most devious, narcissistic and entirely self-interested PM the UK has ever experienced. Money, money, money, money – which he managed (somehow) to acquire – self-aggrandising power – and by his own admission Presidency of the EU – for which he crawled to every EU instruction and sold out the UK. Blair the great Quisling!
I think you may have misunderstand me. I was referring to John Major (slightly facetiously) not Tony Blair.
However I fully concur with your trenchant views on the Blair creature.
To use the vernacular, a truly revolting piece of work.
.
Most of the furore over Cummings seemed like hate to me, hate from the media and those on the left, they hate him for his role in brexit and saw a chance to take revenge, it was a great day when I realised those haters had been thwarted yet again, and the media showed themselves to be the clowns they are.
I have seen several articles on the Dominic Cummings 260 mile drive ranging from the supportive through those that attack every aspect of him as a person right through to the downright stupid eg I saw one article comparing it to the Profumo affair! (Driving 260 miles is the same as the Minister of Defence sharing a mistress with a KGB agent!! Some journalists are becoming unhinged in lockdown!).
I suspect the outcome of this will be exactly the same as the outcome of the Andy Coulson affair. Political nerds (like me) are nodding right now but those who don’t remember, Coulson was the editor of the New of the World when that paper was hacking mobile phones and he left the paper under a dark cloud. Cameron took him on as his spin doctor only to have to sack him when it became obvious he knew about the hacking. He later went to jail for his part in the scandal. The Labour Party, the media and the left in general spent years trying to hang the scandal around Cameron’s neck. It had no effect on the 2015 electorate because they didn’t really care about Cameron’s choice of spin doctor.
The political bubble is obsessed with Cummings because they hate him for the 2016 referendum result. A large majority of those who voted Conservative in 2019 voted leave in 2016 and Cummings is a hero to them!
They are also the same culprits who nearly destroyed our democracy last year – the Remainers/Rejoiners i.e. all TV channels, the newspapers, Labour, LibDems etc. It is orchestrated too, given that Saddiq Khan is getting involved and given away by about 10 Labour MPs tweeting exactly the same message! The Cummings Affair was someone they thought they could get rid of to weaken the government enough to push through a law to cancel Brexit in some way. Luckily, it hasn’t worked.
He is a hero to me!
He is very good at what he does and the hatred the left display towards him shows it.
Also to many, many people with whom I have contact. All are social conservatives, who value an independent, critical thinker and most of all, find his patriotism ‘heroic’.
“So far, Labour has shown zero interest in speaking to them on the culture dimension because in the world of the Labour Party, to do so is tantamount to pandering to racism.” I would add that their LGBT / Transgender ideology…and the disastrous outing of all the female candidates in the leadership election to proclaim ‘transwomen are women’ alienated the working class and biological women in droves. The inquiry into the implosion of the Liberal Democrats at the last General Election, made it absolutely clear that this issue in particular was the undoing of Jo Swinson. The Labour Party, the Lib Dems and the Greens have lost the courage of their convictions to acknowledge the real experiences of ordinary people and to uphold free speech in favour of pandering to the virtual signaling of the woke minority.
A Syrian friend living in Dubai asked me what UK was like. How long have you got? I said. There’s the North and South, East and West, London, Scotland England Wales, Conservative Labour and LibDems, Brexiters Remainers, CofE Catholics Muslims Hindus, blacks, asians whites Yorkists Lancashires, Liverpudlians and Norwich, Oxford Cambridge not forgetting Cornwall….but Scotland is North and Wales is west yes? No no no it’s not like that ho ho… We’ve got an Indian Tory Home Secretary Brexiteer from Uganda and a communist white remainer First Minister of Scotland…How do you all get on? he said. We don’t. We hate each other. We’re like the old Bedouin. But it’s a nice place to live and people come and risk their lives in rubber dinghies to get there.
Sturgeon is a communist now?
She always was.
And always will be. Amen.
More National Socialist I suspect; but there is little to choose between the two.
Hahaha 😅
You forgot the Midlands
Interesting piece. However, I’ve long thought that elections aren’t decided by broad underlying trends, as this article implies, but by what happens in the few months and weeks leading up to the election (2017 is a case in point). So my real beef with the “Boris Johnson just lost the next election” claim is that nobody knows anything about where we’ll be in 2024, and they should frankly admit as much.
Hopefully, by 2024 ‘our’ Tanks will be parked on Tiananmen Square.
The Labour Party has ceased to be a party that wants to govern. It is a party of protest and little more. Over the last few weeks they have failed to put together a single coherent policy, let alone offer one to the electorate.
It was the Labour Party under Harold Wilson in 1975 who gave us the Referendum, despite the previous Labour PM Clement Atlee describing Referendums as ” a device of dictators and demagogues “
Wilson is often praised for keeping us out of the Vietnam War (not that the US would have wanted or indeed needed us).
However he did idiotically commit us to a thirty year war in Ulster, and give us the wretched idea of a Referendum. At the time most of us were astonished, believing it to be the government’s prerogative to govern and let the rest of us get on with
our lives.
No wonder Labour is in its death throes.
One reason missed in the article is why Labour will not progress and that is the unions. I suggest many people of all stripes can understand that genuine Socialism has some sensible merits. However, when the leaders of the more excitable unions launch their so, so predictable objections to any change in the status quo only the activists are listening. When the usual diatribe about, workers rights, equality and so on even die hard Union members must roll their eyes. It’s been spouted endlessly for decades and has no meaning to people who actually work.
The failure of the Unions is that they are run by people who adopt a faux working class demeanour, quite out keeping with their backgrounds. Worker’s have never been enamoured with the cloth cap Northern ‘Down ‘t’ pit voice. This hard working, tough no nonsense image was never a reality. Only the Union leaders can’t grasp that.
The reason for their continued existence is the way members are steered to elect their chosen candidates into positions of power that they believe will give them control. So progressive Socialist ideas that could benefit everyone will never happen until the Unions finally cease to exist.
Good point but it’s not just the leadership of the Unions but their composition as well. The majority of Unioinsed industries are now middle class professionals, mostly in the civil service. They have little, if anything in common with the Unions of old.
unions are a Ponzi system now.
Still too few Trades Unions help their members to win the race against automation by facilitating lifelong learning by teaming up with colleges and universities.
No doubt they’ll blame Thatcher when the go extinct.
Nippy is Boris’ only real political enemy. In a piece by ‘Sky Views’ today, Ms Sturgeon was asked if she thought Mr Trump was a racist. Sure enough, she squeaked in a ‘Boris hates muslims’ anecdote. The MSM love this woke stuff; but when one expects inherent antagonism and bias from these weirdos, it fades almost immediately in one’s memory. The story is an old one. And a tired one.
As for Der Starmer and Co.., that Canterbury MP playing illlicit Carry-On-Dr Nookie must’ve made them wince a bit but of course no outpouring of outrage in the MSM (DM excepted) (and a clear cut breaking of lockdown -for recreation/pleasure) – but shhhh — no! she’s a good guy! She’s labour and apologised and to be immediately forgiven by “Toenails” Robinson, Dandy Peston, “Breakin'” Beff and the rest of the rotten shower. Actually, to pass out some credit, my only socialist pal was fuming about the Hon. Lady’s behaviour moreso than with DC’s.
This is how it goes. Que sera, sera. Ibid.
“Boris Johnson just lost the next election”
Just Liberal Establishment mind games on the back of a single poll.
These people think that everyone should think as they do and so when they saw the poll that unambiguously portrayed that a significant amount of people thought he should be sacked, then they cried gotcha and thought everyone was finally on their wavelength.
However not to be. We don’t want to be governed/managed by Race Ideologues or Trans Ideologues, EU Ideologues, Socialist Ideologues or any Ideologues at all.
The Labour Party will need to change the ideology of most of its MPs before they will ever be in power again.
Anyone who looks at the Cummings saga with an open mind will agree that he did nothing untoward and has been treated despicably by the left and the MSM.
people of the UK are a conservative (c) group who have seen many changes that we are not comfortable with.
All governments have ups and downs but the fundamentals remain. There has been much talk of the government’s handling of the COVID emergency and yet when asked if lockdown was correct a majority say yes. That is what will be remembered in 4 years time not rows about PPE. And now we have the riots from BLM activists. Will they hurt Labour? I think yes because the majority want law and order and they blame the left for bringing chaos to our streets. The left think that all of the pictures from the weekend improves their standing. It does not. The crisis that may swing the next election has yet to happen.
Excellent analysis. But we’ll only know the answer with hindsight. Looking back at past governments – who all failed at some point, there is a point where the mood turns, their luck runs out and they can get nothing right. The Tories haven’t reached that point yet, but if they lose a reputation for basic competence, the wind turns against them.
Labour haven’t yet properly addressed the public perception that they have been hijacked as a mainstream political party.
Jeez, he’s been in charged for 8 weeks. Give the guy a chance. Also, as Matthew knows, leadership ratings are a much better guide to electoral performance. These are very different from the Con vs Lab polls.
As elections become increasingly presidential, it comes down to charisma of the leader. Whatever his policies, Boris is charismatic. Jacinda Ardern achieved a 15 point jump in a few weeks in 2017 just by having a nice smile and being kind. That support has not really dropped despite a failure to deliver on almost every key manifesto promise. Corbyn had it, but only to a narrow group. If Starmer doesn’t, Labour are doomed. Although, do not underestimate the power of a crisis with almost 100% political screen time going to Boris. This should be worth more than he has achieved
When one spends a 69-year lifetime trying to navigate progressively between left and right, as I have, the outcome is (guess what): middle.
Middle class, middle of the road political values.
This American baccalaureted English major spent 35 adult years as a carpenter. . .to put bread on the table for wife and three smart kids.
When kid #3 entered middle school . . . baccalaurated (psych) wife-mother attended nursing school part-time, which enabled 22 years as an ICU nurse, and . . . a ticket for hubby to spend golden years as gentleman scholar who can construct a set of stairs or rebuild a toilet.
My voice of experience says: not a bad life at all. Lifetime learning while raising a family to be lifelong learners. It’s the way to go.
Mary, thanks for sharing this. Your perspective is uniquely balanced and helpful. Keep up the good work.
Left and Right are 2 over-lapping ideas.
We need to get rid of both!
Now!
Britain is different to the US.
And long may that remain!
Will the Cummings “event” lose the election? No. Will the fallout from that event cause serious damage to observation of lockdown and subsequent rules? Almost certainly yes. Will that affect the evaluation of government performance (“world beating”, or “world trailing”?) also probably yes. Will that affect the outcome of the election? Yes.
And will Johnson’s appalling mismanagement of “the event” affect the outcome of the election? Yes
I am afraid there are a lot of people who don’t think it has been handled “appallingly”. Not perfect but nothing is.
Moreover, the dividing lines are remarkably consistent. None of us expect perfection in leaders. They are as fallible as the rest of us.
What most voted for is general direction of travel, not meaningless spats in social media. In that, not much, other than a rather more Liberal Conservative party than some like, has changed.
I tend to agree. I don’t see Labour bouncing back unless there is a change in national attitude. Certainly the enthusiasm by politicos of the two main sides seemingly for things that are obviously wrong or unsupported by any evidence shows it’s not possible to move people who can always find succour in newspapers and demagogues.
It’s a lunatic asylum to those of us unaligned. Reading loons call Sturgeon communist and write nonsense about the Cons representing workers over shirkers – when their support is from the biggest welfare recipients and beneficiaries of loose money policies at the expense of workers especially the young. Not to mention their love of monopoly business and using state spending as subsidy. Today the biggest con of the last Labour Govt more new hospitals, needed or not, likely with a nice fat cheque for financiers every year no doubt. It does seem very few people believe in actual Capitalism nowadays for all the donning of the garb by the right and Libertarians whilst simultaneously supporting its opposite.
There is a lot of rational analysis and good academic work left alone as both parties grab at an awkward mixture of nutcasery and flawed visionaries like a Cummings or Socialism or I assume Starmer will go back to the lunacy of neo Liberalism that led us here.