Monday 6 June 2022

WHERE ON EARTH ARE WE GOING?

I’m increasingly confused. We’ve a government with a big majority who said Brexit would benefit us. To be fair we expected neither a pandemic or a war in Europe but I’m sitting here today wondering if anyone has (or had) a clue as to how to manage our affairs. I also wonder if they really care. No strategy. No values. Not a clue. And that is the problem with the insularity of Britain right now.

Sirhan Sirhan killing Robert Kennedy was a crime against America


One of the greatest US Presidents might have been Robert Kennedy – he was assassinated in 1968 so we never found out. He said:

“The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better.”

 

I don’t think  our current Prime Minister capable of such thoughts. 

Carrie Johnson Carries & Other Stories To Trooping The Color Nixolympia News


As I watched the Trooping the Colour spectacle on TV the camera picked out a forlorn couple - Carrie and her husband in the crowd. That was a surprise because the nationalistic oom-pah-pah  - and that sense of “aren’t we in Britain good at this?” should have surely thrilled them. Perhaps they were reflecting that their escapade would soon be over and this soured their day.

 

No one has a clue because there is no plan and never was just a strategy apart from “Get Brexit Done”. I’m beginning to wonder if in the cold light of 2022 the inevitability of this mightn’t be beginning to untangle. In five years’ time the  4 ½ million of 11 – 16 olds will all have the vote added to the 5 ½ million of 17 to 24 year olds and we then have a very different looking electorate. It doesn’t feel like the Conservatives have much chance when that happens.

 

Evidence. In Australia the right wing Liberals have just lost an election turfed out by a coalition of what’s called the Teal vote (“teal” from the colour blueish green – Conservative fiscal policies plus a vigorous green agenda and many of the candidates are women). It’s a new start.

Federal election live blog 2022: Australia to choose between Scott Morrison  or Anthony Albanese in tight poll | Harvey Waroona Reporter


We are in an era of real change – figures like Putin, Trump and Johnson seem weirdly out of step with the new younger voters who are largely liberally minded, cosmopolitan, experimental, friends of change and very opinionated. They feel in the UK, and elsewhere, as remote  from the Brexit campaign and the Jubilee celebrations as anyone could be. 

Robert Kennedy, again, and wasn’t he terrific?

“There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of a comfortable past which, in fact, never existed.

The Go-between By L. P. Hartley


The past is another country as LP Hartley wrote in his novel “The Go-Between”, interesting but not always instructive. The world now is full of people in America, France, Spain, Germany, China, India and Australia with whom I feel I have more in common with than, say, almost anyone in the current cabinet. 

Johnson Cabinet A Who's Who Of Amoral & Incompetent Bastards – Waterford  Whispers News


I like my country – the climate, the architecture, our sense of humour and the food. The food? So much better than it used to be because of much greater foreign influence. 

 

So where are we going? If we follow the instincts of the younger generation I suspect we’ll end up as a better, more civilised, more tolerant place. A country with open borders again. A country that enjoys itself more and stops looking over its shoulder at the threat from foreigners.

 

Back to Kennedy again:

“The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better.”

 

Yes. I’ll buy that.

2 comments:

John Eustace said...

Sadly the facts don't bear out your optimism. Polls suggest Johnson is VERY popular with the 18-24 y.o.'s
God help those who may live to see this
Happy Birthday John
Thank you Richard

Steve Cranford said...

"...the problem with the insularity of Britain right now"

Insularity in the form of so-called American exceptionalism is also pervasive in the United States

However, one cure is to inspire the many who do not currently participate in democracies by voting, to participate

By offering rationales, and the inspiration, to do so, in part by allowing carve-out time to the many caught up in daily hand-to-mouth survival, unable and/or unwilling to invest in the duties of a democracy, such as becoming informed and, of course, voting