the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Ah, the illiberal demagogues, bless! Lead – I mean the heavy metal thick used on roofs sense, not in charting a sensible course – by the unillustrious Jo Swindle, she is political proof of Joseph Goebbel’s famous dictum, namely, that if you tell a big lie often enough, eventually people will start to believe. I mean, one almost has to applaud the sheer audacity of a political party calling itself the Liberal Democrats, when it’s main appeal to voters is that its going to repeal Article 50. Regardless of the legality or not of that, what is more concerning is the incomprehensible arrogance needed to ignore the wishes of 17.4 million people who voted ‘Leave’. How is that either Liberal or Democratic?

She was challenged on this, on how was ignoring the wishes of 17.4million people the start needed to heal the divisions in this disUnited Kingdom by holding a second referendum,a peoples vote or revoking Article 50, at her press conference on Monday by the BBBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. Her response was essentially ‘We’ve been upfront about what we’ll do, we think Brexit is a bad idea, we want to stop it, we’ve made no secret of it and if I’m the next Prime Minister , that’s what I’ll do.’ (You can hear it on the BBC’s excellent ‘Electioncast’ here, at 11min

I mean they are aware that we have a first past the post electoral system for general elections aren’t they? And that the only reason they enjoyed the success they did in the recent European elections was because they use proportional representation? Only in my nightmares is she going to be the next Prime Minister

And just because they proclaim to be something doesn’t mean they are, unless of course they’re channelling the spirit of the ‘Red Queen’ in ‘Alice in Wonderland’, in which case it means what she says it means. Otherwise could someone please tell me exactly how are the ‘Liberal Democrats’ either liberal or democratic? How is ignoring the result of  democratic vote, compatible with that. Being in a democracy means accepting things you don’t like when the result isn’t the one you wanted. I voted for to remain like a lot of people but more people didn’t. It sucked cocks in hell for few days but after that I got over it. Unlike people who put (lack of) virtue-signalling above the more pressing domestic challenges our country faces. It’s a simple choice, thankfully made easier by Jo Swindle, for people who like simple choices.

Because they’re known for keeping any pre-election pledges, aren’t they? Oh…….

BBC News is reporting that ‘Johnson vows to take the UK out of the EU by end of January’

Mmm. Call me cynical, but isn’t this the same unloveable rogue who promised, as part of his bid to become Tory leader and therefore unelected Prime Minister that we would leave the EU ‘no ifs, no buts’ by the 31st October.

And said he would rather die in a ditch than prolong matters. Clearly, a man whose word is his blonde.

Or brunette.

Or a redhead.

Or…

I’m a bit late posting today, as I’ve been wandering around Kings Cross both somewhat astonished but totally appalled by wanton vandalism of the developers. Yes, to be sure, they created new homes, but how many of those houses are affordable to nurses or schoolteachers and whilst they may have also created ‘exciting new retail and restaurant opportunities, are they affordable to anyone other than tourists who’ve just got off at Kings Cross International? The Kings Cross of my youth was seedy now it is safe. Full of street-food stalls and clothes shops where junkies and prostitutes used to hang out. It is now bland and anodyne, and there is nothing distinctive about it; it could easily be any canal-side development in any European capital. Mind you, I can’t see the town planners in Paris allowing that!

Anyway, if Jacob Rees-Mogg faced trial by social media over his comments about Grenfell yesterday, what then of John Bercow and his comments , reported in ‘The Guardian’ under the headline

John Bercow: Brexit is UK’s biggest mistake since second world war

My first thought, when my friend showed it to me was ‘WTF?” I couldn’t read on, because it was on her ‘phone and I needed to stop sitting down being outraged at – and in – Kings Cross. I thought how genuinely offensive that comment was, especially so close to Rememberence Sunday, and on and so forth. Then I got home and read the article, and realised the it was the headline writer or the sub-editors who were at fault, rather than John Bercow. What he actually said, if one read the story, was

Bercow, who was persistently accused of bias by Brexit-backing MPs during his term as Speaker, gave a valedictory speech to the Foreign Press Association, revealing himself to be a remainer.

“I don’t think it helps the UK. Brexit is the biggest mistake of this country after the war. I respect [the] prime minister, [Boris] Johnson, but Brexit doesn’t help us. It’s better to be part of the [EU] power bloc,” Bercow said, according to the journalist Antonello Guerrera, of La Repubblica, who attended the event in London.

‘I know’, I thought,’I’ll see what the Daily Mail make of it, because one can always depend on them for outrage.’

And what greeted me was the headline;

John Bercow reveals what he REALLY thinks about Brexit: Former Speaker calls leaving the EU ‘the biggest foreign policy mistake in the post war period’ in his first speech since leaving Commons

No mention of the Second World War. For a moment I thought I was in an alternate reality, one where ‘The Guardian’ and ‘Daily Mail’ had swopped and one had become the other. In an election campaign, this matters hugely, because if I used Facebook, Twitter or something else, and if someone sent me the headline in ‘The Guardian’, I’d be in a massive tizzy right now. Flaming pitchforks, the works! And as a worrying amount of people get their news from social media, news that chimes with opinions agree with and have short attention spans – they only glance at their social media news feeds This should be concerning. It should concern ‘The Guardian’ who bang on endlessly about Cambridge Analytica, the fear-mongering promolgated by Edward Snowden, and only yesterday were condemning the governments decision not to release a report into alledged Russian interference in UK affairs, including supposed fake news.

Perhaps someone should have a word with their subs first?

I must write that if I were caught up in the unimaginable horror of being trapped in a burning tower block, I’d have it on my toes – well not now so much, because of my brain damage – and leg it, ignoring any advice which ignored the basic rule of fire. Namely that fire burns up and ideally one wants to be under the fire. There’s nothing whatsoever wrong in saying that. There is something wrong, however, with those who suggest there is, that in some way espousing such sentiments is somehow disrespectful those who died at Grenfell by following the ‘stay put’ advice of the Fire Brigade. At best it is misguided anger and at worst it is seeking to brand a senior Conservative MP, as uncaring, unfeeling and many other labels that politicians wish to avoid at the start of a general election campaign.

,

I’m no great fan of Jacob Rees-Mogg, but I side with him on this. Had Grenfell United made the point loudly and continuously, that had a similar tragedy happened at a private tower block in Woking, Basingstoke or Cambridge, then more decisive action, not only to re-house the survivors, provide them with proper counselling and long term support, but to also as a matter of urgency fund the identification and removal work of similar flammable cladding, would have been taken much, much sooner.

Maybe they have.

I wrote yesterday that Labour’s proposal to insulate every home in the UK to make them more energy efficient would cost £250 billion. This was incorrect, but then, if I cite a figure and don’t provide a credible source from where that figure hails, then where does the blame lie? It’s not as if this blog is in any way reputable source. But then, this isn’t my first rodeo, as an American would say, and the older you are, it isn’t yours either. We know all politicians make implausible spending pledges to get our votes, which they’ll then conveniently forget if they attain office. We know, for example, that you can’t cut taxes while increasing public spending. It’s nonsense, we know it’s nonsense, but politcians still make such improbable claims. But who is more delusional, those who make the claims or those that believe them?

 If this government was serious about democracy, it would make the 12^th December a public holiday, to ensure that as many people as possible have the opportunity to vote. I can sort of understand the government’s dilemma here. On the one hand there’s the economic cost, and as the Conservatives are pro business – and in an election campaign will wish to avoid doing to damage that impression – the last thing they’ll want to do is give everyone a paid day off work, which business won’t be happy about, as not only will they have to pay for it, they’ll also have to absorb the cost of a loss of a days productivity. On the other hand there’s the consideration that by doing so, it’ll boost the Conservative vote among traditional working class Labour voters, who might otherwise stay at home after getting in after a days work.

Also the weather is a factor. If it’s quite mild and sunny, then people are more likely to venture out than if it’s cold, wet and gloomy. And given that a fair proportion of Conservative voters are coffin dodgers – again, this blog is not reputable – it’s not unreasonable to pre-suppose that it’s in the Conservatives interests to make it a public holiday. After all, there’s no point in being pro business if your not the government, now is there?

We know the election is here because politicians are promising to a massive financial giveaway. The Conservatives have announced an end to the freeze on in work benefits – which they’d announced in the last budget – in April, whilst Labour have pledged to insulate every home in the UK at a cost estimated to be £250 billion. The Lib Dems may have announced something, but really, who cares?

Anyway, it was just on the news that the government will, if re-elected, raise the national minimum wage to £10.50 an hour over five years. Whoopie-fuckin-do! I don’t know what sort of percentage increase that is, but I’d wager something on the fact that its far less than an increase in food and energy bills over the next five years, far less than transport and housing cost will increase, with an increasingly more disproportionally effect on one the lower their wage is. If the government was serious about alleviating the financial hardship that years of austerity have created, it could pass put before parliament legislation to cap energy bills, reduce the fuel levy, bring back into public ownership the railways, reverse to cuts to local authority budgets, consider what the effects of an ageing population on our society might be and how best we plan for and fund the changes that’ll be needed for adult social care. These things and more besides should have been the proper responsibility of government these last few years, but no.

Brexit has been more important. So what will change with a new government, possibly a hung one, that will be in any way less Brexit obsessed than this one?

As with the last general election, I’m going to try and post every day and much like 2017, this will mean my posts won’t always be as polished as they might be, the thoughts and the ways in which they are expressed might not be as coherent as they might otherwise have been, had I not been labouring under a self-imposed deadline.

As evidence of this, my post today was going to about something else, but upon writing out ‘E-Day-39’ another thought struck me. Given how our unloveable rogue though ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ was a metaphor for Brexit. might I suggest that ‘The 39 Steps’ is an even better one for this election.

The film based on a potboiler of a rabble rousing thriller with the express intention of promoting a jingoistic sentiment by  pitting a plucky Englishman against beastly Germans. I must confess to not having read the book, but in the most recent adaptation of the book by the BBC, the Liberals were portrayed as well meaning but ultimate gullible fools. So no change then.

As polling day is Thursday 12^th, then the it follows that election results come in on Friday 13^th. And given that our unliveable rogue has likened Brexit to the film ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, perhaps there might be other, more suitable films to identify with. After all, ‘The Shawshank Redemption was a box office flop upon it’s initial cinema release and although Boris focuses on Andy’s crawl through a sewer to escape prison as something of a metaphor, it is worth noting that whilst Andy was innocent of the double murder that put him there, as he himself says ‘it took coming to prison to make me a criminal.’ Specifically facilitating, if not making possible, the prison wardens fraudulent activities by his money laundering skills. Perhaps then not the best choice, despite some morons calling it a classic. It isn’t, and is only considered to be so by cretins who persist in the deluded belief that somehow the ‘Star Wars’ films are anything but children’s films.

Now ‘The Third Man’ is a classic but I can’t say why I think it more suitable a metaphor for Brexit than ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ as I’m going to recommend it to a friend and I don’t want to give away any spoilers. Thinking about it, Boris’s choice of “The Shawshank Redemption’ perfectly encapsulates his whole political outlook. Most people have heard it hailed as a classic, but despite not having seen it, think it must be. It’s an easy win for a political chancer. He wants us to think he has the common touch, but his well-documented horizontal gymnastics suggest his touch is more Casanova than common

So the news today is that the EU has announced an extension of the first extension which takes us up to the 31st January.  Whoopie-fucking-do! If Boris Johnson was just a regular Joe, chancing his arm with sneaking in another building extension under the noses of the planning department and applied retrospectively, he’d have to tear it down and possibly be prosecuted.

But our unloveable rogue isn’t an ordinary Joe, he’s the Prime Minister and this extension of an extension paves the way for a general election. Apparently. Don’t ask me how exactly, but somehow this becomes a very real possibility. Except, of course for one tiny detail, that might unravel the whole enterprise – or underline how much of a hostage to fortune it is.

It isn’t the by now well rehearsed arguments that places that would normally be used to count the votes – civic centres, sports halls – and other places essential to a smooth running of a general election, are already booked for Christmas events. Whilst financially challenged councils might at a pinch be able to reimburse to hire charges, would they be able to stump up the loss of earnings that a Winter Fayre might generate. Oh, savour if you will, the delicious irony of a Conservative PM being unable to call a general election because of market forces! But does Boris want to be like Alan Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham in ‘Robin Hood; Prince of Thieves and cancel? Christmas’ Of course not!

No, for me the problem is the pesky ‘Fixed Term Parliament Act’ which requires that MP’s will have to pass a bill allowing it to happen. Given that many MP’s face the very real prospect of losing their jobs, are they really going to vote for it? Just a thought.

I know that in and of itself its not exactly the most thoughtful of reasons in favour of Brexit, but that extra hour of glorious sunshine we’re having – well here in London anyway – but under EU proposals that would end.

Because in March 2019, the European Parliament approved a proposal that would put an end to twice-yearly clock changes altogether. If it’s passed by member states and becomes law, it means that we’ll all be changing our clocks for the final time in either March or October 2021. You can get more details of this here.

Of course the EU have tried to dress it all up as somehow having health benefits for citizens, but as is almost always the case when it announces proposed legislation that is claimed to have health benefits, the main beneficiaries are businesses. Shock.

There’s spurious guff about our circadian rhythms – you know, the 24-hour cycles that determine when we feel sleepy, hungry or need to go to the toilet – those one’s. Apparently when the clocks change, this knocks our circadian rhythms out of whack, making us feel more tired and distracted than usual. So our nothing whatsoever to do with the fear of employers hiring cheaper foreign labour to do you’re job and you being forced to work more hours, for less money, because now your being all competitive like. Not that at all.

But the real reason is economic. A study from US think tank the RAND Corporation – not exactly a bastion of of workers rights –  found that inadequate sleep costs the UK economy £50 billion a year in lost productivity and sickness. Oh how my heart bleeds.

And we already know from a study of US workers between 1983 and 2006 that the Mondays after clocks go forward employees tend to sleep 40 minutes less, which is associated with 5.7% more workplace injuries and 67.6% more lost work days. Or was it 8.6% more workplace injuries and 71.3% more lost work days. I may have made that bit up, although it may be true. Who knows? Who’s going to check anyway? But if it seems true, then it must be, right? Doesn’t it feel like it might be true?

Simplifying time also makes a lot of sense from a trade perspective., which is the abiding concern of the EU here. At the moment, the EU is currently spread across three time zones and depending on whether different states opt to stick to their summer or winter times, we could see the UK move into the same time zone as mainland Europe, which would make trade a lot easier.

As I wrote at the start that I know that in and of itself its not exactly the most thoughtful and considered of reasons in thinking that there might just be some wins in Brexit, but as daylight saving was first introduced because of the need the keep our factories as productive as possible during the First World War, it does seem a bit something for the EU to want to change it. I mean, I’m going to be lied to anyway, but I’d much rather be lied to by politicians without a foreign accent!