HOW DO YOU FEEL?

Everyone I know is wandering around saying they’re  miserable, weary and off-colour. So it was surprising to discover we’d shot up the league table in a recent global “Happiness Index.”  It isn’t as though this was after we’d beaten the Czech Republic 5-0 with a team of young stars which  cheered me up.

But then I read the Sunday Times and the political analyses and I got miserable again. I called a friend who’d been a senior civil servant and he patiently explained “You must understand that politicians are not like us. They don’t think or behave like us.”

Well if these blogs I write are going to have any value at all (and you must realise I intend them to have the same effect on you as a large, exceedingly cold dry martini) then I had to find some cheerful ingredients. This means this’ll be a very short piece or something strange will have occurred like me drinking dry martini. Slurp! … we are lucky to be alive in “sush” times. 

First I read that many Germans think they are watching real democracy at play in the UK right now. Profound out-in-the-open debate. Unashamed arguing about who, what and why we are as a country. Sacred cows are lying slaughtered beside our potholed roads. Why can’t everyone have a voice rather than being muffled by the EU? Well that’s an amusing take.

Then there’s the Danny Devito of Westminster,  John Bercow. Throughout the world he’s becoming a rock star. In Germany (again) he’s been given Wagnerian status (that’s saying something.) They claim he doesn’t say or even shout “ORDER!” He sings it. After this is over Little John will be the highest paid one-man show ever on the global stage.

Jacinda Ardern PM in New Zealand with whom everyone has fallen in love not least because unlike nearly all politicians she is like us and she thinks and behaves like we wish they all would. She’s done more to change global gun laws than anyone else has done by reading the timing right and just saying “banned”. She really has put New Zealand on a new thought-leading map.

And of course it’s Spring.  A week ago there was an article about Spring by Caitlin Moran that made me roar with laughter – that moment of levity didn’t last too long (obviously). She said it’s the best of all seasons not least because it’s fresh, exciting and comic. Things grow where they shouldn’t and at an enormous rate. I thought about Keats and his eulogy of Autumn. How dare he not write one about Spring instead of leaving it to Wordsworth.

Here is Wordsworth lounging about as poets do “in pensive mood” recalling those daffodils

“And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.”

But it’s their boisterousness I love. Like a rowdy football crowd shouting “Yellow. Yellow. Yellow.”

 There you are then. Another injection to the Happiness Index- it’s zooming on up. Hurrah!

PANDEMONIUM

Wonderful word. It’s in ‘Paradise Lost’ and means “place of demons”.

Today it describes a situation where there’s a lot of noise and confusion because people are excited, angry or frightened.

And that’s where we are.

Three things happened in my week. The first when a American friend wrote to me supposing I knew what was going on: 

"I’m sure I’m over-simplifying but surely there’s only two courses of action now ? If we accept that the E.U. will NOT allow time for negotiation (despite Corbyn thinking he can finesse it) only for a second referendum. The steps are:

1. A second referendum or (which will drive some Leavers crazy) or
2. Exiting without a deal. 

Doesn’t that lead us to the sensible option of # 1 - rather than the suicidal option of # 2 ?"

My reply can’t have pleased him and it certainly didn’t please me but the unremitting contretemps led me to say:

"Sorry,  I hope you’re sitting down.

The trouble with a Second Referendum is it actually takes ages to arrange –probably 7 months. Too long for the current situation. And I doubt if it solves any of the deep problems.

Because there are no easy answers to this at all. May’s deal was actually fine because it was EU approved but it was badly sold and presented. Instead, since it cannot be easily presented again, we are into playing political games. But… 

There is no majority for anything.

Cross party agreements won’t easily work - look at the people involved!

The EU won’t give way.

The hard extremes of all parties are implacable and getting more implacable.

Sometimes you just have to tell the patient there is nothing you can do and that they are going to die.

No deal is not an option now. It’s the political reality."

The second thing happened a day later on Question Time in Derby. In the middle of a heated debate Fiona Bruce turned to Isabel Oakeshott (author, journalist and Brexiteer) and asked if she had a solution to the impasse. She replied:

“Well actually I do. Given where we are the only solution I can see is to walk away and have a no-deal exit.” 

The audience reaction was remarkable as they rose to their feet cheering. Jeremy Corbyn are you listening?  Two out of the three Derbyshire seats are held by Labour.

The third thing that happened was a friend wrote to me praising the courteous, good humoured and adept way the Speaker John Bercow had handled the debate. I replied saying I thought he had stepped outside his brief and had gone potty. When my friend deferred to me, mildly saying “I probably knew more than they did” I took stock.

I actually think they were a bit more in tune than me having been watching Parliament TV. Anyway the point wasn’t about who was right or wrong. It was about having a courteous debate.

Unlike Westminster where they’re embracing disruption leading to…

Pandemonium