AS the thrum of engines from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight faded softly into London’s afternoon air, and the gathered masses on the streets below gazed skywards, how many I wonder would concur with Cecil Rhodes’s judgement that “To be born English is to win first prize in the lottery of life”.
The local elections and by-election occasioned a tsunami of muddle-headed punditry across the media. Politicians and party leaders jockeyed to utter mundane banalities as to what lay behind Reform’s success.
But first prize in vacuity must be claimed by Sir Keir Starmer, whose response to Labour’s drubbing was the pronouncement that they must go further and faster . Many people hearing this fatuous garbage will no doubt have been uttering – “Earth to Keir, come in please”.
One charitably assumes that as a KC and Leader of a political party, he is in possession of a modicum of common sense. Yet he we are, the day after a spectacular defenestration and a rejection of all that Labour stand for, we watch slack jawed at our very own Buzz Lightyear made flesh. All that was missing from his penetrating apercu was the statement “to infinity and beyond” – give me strength.
Did he mean that we wanted further and faster immigration? Further and faster tax increases? Further and faster net zero policies? Further and faster destruction of fee-paying schools? Further and faster NHS lists to be put on? Further and faster public sector pay increases?
Whatever he meant was neatly packaged with a gift-wrapped bow in a box labelled change. If I hear this word one more time I will scream. Perhaps we don’t want change, perhaps we would like, just for once, some thought through coherent beneficial policies that put the aspirations and needs of the electorate first – fat chance.
No sooner had Buzz Lightyear uttered his gnomic proverb than we were treated to the unveiling of Ed Milliband and Angela Rayner’s – hare brained scheme to push for a speedy ban on gas boilers in new homes. Who’s driving this I wonder?
One often hears the accusation that politicians don’t live in the real world, and as time marches on, one begins to appreciate the veracity behind this. My, (and it may be yours too) bugbear is the incomprehensible and unjustified deification of technology.
Whilst daily we here of cyber-attacks, data theft and all manner of IT driven catastrophes, the government ploughs on regardless of the accumulating evidence, in splurging billions in the wholesale embrace of this brave new world, which we are told, will be of untold benefit. Most of us who have daily interface with AI chat assistants and automated call centres will happily attest to the weary energy sapping nature of these so-called developments
Every single aspect of UK plc seems broken. From arranging to see a GP or for waiting interminably for scans or routine surgery. Local councils failing to maintain rubbish collection, keeping the lights or repairing the roads – or indeed doing anything that might remotely benefit their residents. Train travel, the Justice system – largely unfit for purpose, immigration – the list goes on and on. Pick almost any feature of life outside of your direct control and ask yourself, is it easier or better than it was ten or twenty years ago?
Schools deficient in inculcating their charges with basic skills for later life, but happy and rewarded to stuff an ideological pablum down impressionable students’ throats. Taxes at an all time high with no reduction in sight, and to top it off a ballooning and astronomical public debt.
In days gone by, Britain was a hot house for burgeoning talent. Architects, engineers, scientists, doctors, physicists and, let us not forget, statesmen. These people, admired and venerated for their contribution to society are justifiably remembered for their achievements. Whilst we still have many talented people it is unquestionable that the people posing as statesmen are a distinctly lacklustre body.
Thatcher, Pitt, Disraeli, Gladstone, Peel, Clive, Canning – contrast and compared to Cooper, Thornberry, Khan, Rayner etc. It’s enough to make you weep.
So, to pose the earlier question, would you agree that –“To be born English is to win first prize in the lottery of life” or given the current state of affairs, would you think it needs updating to being akin to winning third prize in the local church raffle?
