So That’s Why You Can’t Get British Nostalgia

It’s all gone wrong. No level of harking back to the good old days, a time of empire and not having to worry about the feelings of lesser people, has achieved anything. It seems that time is aggressively linear and not prone to letting us skip backwards into eras considered altogether that little bit more rosy (depending on your position in that world). Modern pressures and events keep on coming, no matter how hard we fight for things to stay the same (or go back to what we reckon they might have once been like).

More than that though, even nostalgia isn’t as good as it used to be. Once upon a time, you could have held a whole room of people to rapt attention as you waxed lyrical about how wonderful things used to be in a bygone era. They wouldn’t roll their eyes at your assertion that it used to be all fields. They didn’t interrupt and present compelling reasons why more housing is needed or why a diverse society is actually a good thing.

Maybe it’s young people these days. Nothing to do with the parents of course, or perhaps it is, depending on what generation you belong to. They don’t understand the need for hard graft or they don’t appreciate that, while the rug’s been pulled out from underneath them and there aren’t the opportunities available that there used to be, it’s just another illustration of the fact that young people these days chose to be born in the wrong era. If they’d had the sense to pop out in the fifties or whatever, it would be so much the better for them.

Everything’s moving too fast to keep up with. Simple messaging, protecting our own, grabbing a slice of past glory, now what’s so wrong with all that?

Mueller Breaks Two-Year Silence to Restore Broken Bond With Police

Even without the merest hint of a cape, Mueller is a modern day superhero. Sure, his extensive report might not have brought about the decisive action so many were craving but he’s been clear in his statement that the only thing protecting Trump is the office he holds. There’s only so much you can ask of an individual trying to operate within a system built to constrain and protect the status quo.

As such, Robert Mueller has become frustrated by his lot in life. He’s passed the task onto congress to see what they want to do with the information he’s provided. As a stickler for protocol and that, he was never going to step over a bound he wasn’t within his rights to cross. But that doesn’t mean he’s not going to do something else altogether. Come hell or high water though, he’s going to do everything he can to distance himself from Washington.

That means avoiding legislative fights so he’s not going to touch the increasing egregious attacks on women’s rights. And it would also be a good idea to steer clear of foreign policy or anything of that nature. So, something home grown and sufficiently non-controversial that no one’s going to raise too much of a fuss. That’s a taller order than people might have initially thought.

But he found a cause to work on, never you worry. There have been a few issues with policing in the country and that’s put Mueller to work, crafting an outreach campaign to bring criminals and general naughty sorts together with the police officers who only want to help. I think. To be honest, I tuned out as soon as he made it clear that he wasn’t recommending the immediate impeachment of the orange individual in the oval office. That’s all we woolly liberals are concerned about these days.

Corbyn to Back Day of Shame

Labour doesn’t make a whole heap of sense at the moment. Alistair Campbell came out to say that he voted for another party at the European elections. You can see why Labour might not be best pleased with such a public stance on, you know, not casting support behind them. But they expelled Campbell a hell of a lot faster than people who’ve made threats of violence against sitting MPs, made free with anti-Semitic comments and they’ve done nothing whatsoever about Kate Hoey.

Maybe they’re trying to distract from the fact that they didn’t do quite as well as might otherwise have been expected at the last couple of elections. Being Opposition to an unpopular government and their non-existent majority as they try to ram through controversial legislation should put them in a position to hoover up all disenfranchised voters. But they’re not, they’re haemorrhaging support almost as fast as the Tories and something has to be done about their stunning ability to keep on dropping vote share.

So, nobody’s to worry, Jeremy’s on the case. He’s going to show everyone just how sorry he is for all the mess that’s been happening since he took over the reins of the party. No, he’s not going to give slightly less muted support to the idea of a second referendum (nothing will make him let go of the idea of a general election, even though he wouldn’t win one). And neither will he take firmer steps when it takes to expelling those who spout anti-Semitic opinions.

No, those just wouldn’t be sufficient to show the depth of Jeremy’s contrition (so they won’t be happening at all). It’s time and past for sackcloth and ashes. While there will be someone ringing a bell behind him and calling out ‘shame’, he won’t be going full walk of shame. It would be adding insult to injury for us all to have to see him in the nip.

Brexit Deal Must be Suicide for Conservatives

It’s not as harsh a sentence as it might otherwise be interpreted to be. After all, the last bout of election fever seems to show that the Tories have reached the stage of end of life care. A leadership race is the vain hope of injecting a little vitality into the flaccid corpse of the flailing party. Europe has defeated yet another Prime Minister and the odds very much aren’t in the favour of whoever takes up the mantle next.

So, and I shudder to admit this, maybe the Brexit party have a point. No, not about a no-deal Brexit being a good idea or the will of the people or that they’ve somehow won the right to get involved in the negotiations. All of that blunder and bumpf is clouding the real issue. Which is that the two parties who’ve been at the top of the pile for ages now aren’t getting their respective jobs done. It might be time for some new ones.

It’s already happening to a certain extent. The first and second places of the European elections went to the recently cobbled together vehicle for a smarmy snake-oil salesman and the perennial third place party. Then again, the less said about Change UK’s performance, the better. Labour just aren’t coping as opposition and I think it’s clear that the Tories are falling apart at the seams. Being in charge has taken its toll.

Maybe then, the Tories should treat Brexit and whatever happens to the process as their swansong. As those in leadership are so often wont to do, they ought to bow out gracefully. I know that might run a risk of the swivel eyed loons running rampant over political systems. There’s even the urge to lean into it, show everyone how little substance their is behind their bombastic rhetoric and let sense take over afterwards. Actually, I take it back. Status quo forever please, I’ve seen the alternatives and I’ve still got chills.

Knives Out for Humiliation

Hmm, the man who managed to score rather a lot of election coverage without necessarily bothering to come up with coherent pledges has managed to scoop a significant share of the vote. The Remain alliance didn’t exactly come together and so, while an arguably larger portion of voters put their support behind them, the seats were split between them. This is as much as could have been otherwise expected.

What do we do now? Do we give up on the notion of a second referendum because things are about as divided and fractured as they’ve ever been? Move to Peru? While tempting, we can’t keep ignoring the problems in front of our faces. Or maybe we should. Pretend that Farage isn’t on every available outlet, demanding that he be part of the negotiations regardless of the fact that all we know when it comes to his position on Brexit is that it must happen and no deal would be fine, in spite of everything that was said pre-referendum.

Of course, a hopelessly split vote means that, once again, the results can be interpreted every which way. The Brexit party emerged as the largest single bloc but the overall majority was for remain parties. We’re cracked right down the middle. All that’s for sure is that Corbyn will remain tight lipped and enigmatic, occasionally mumbling something that sounds suspiciously like ‘general election.’ Oh, and the Tories have received yet another smacking.

All that there is to be said has been chewed over regarding these elections, even before the results trickled in. They’re the European elections after all, no one’s been all that fussed about them before, we can’t suddenly load them up with meaning and significance just because they’re there and we can’t force another referendum out of the powers that be. Doesn’t mean the papers won’t be having a go though.

Open Battle Turning Toxic Already

Oh, they can only wish that the situation was half this dramatic. No one’s going to don armour or throw down gauntlets for the sake of restoring honour or take up arms to defend civil liberties. That’s not the kind of society we live in but somehow it’s still the variety of rhetoric we adopt when middle and upper class white people approach anything resembling a spat. Under different circumstances, we might consider this to be a brawl.

But it’s true that nastiness and sniping, so often key components of the electoral process, have already been deployed in the not yet begun Tory leadership race. There’s a certain amount of declaring all the reasons why so and so is the very best candidate for the job, embodying all the superlative qualities of a great martial leader, but the tearing down has begun too. Don’t vote for Boris, he’ll be awful (I mean, he absolutely will). I mean, none of the candidates are as good as I (whoever’s talking) am.

I don’t think I’m advocating for a return to supposed civility. I’m not harking back to some nostalgia-crammed rose-tinted era that I never lived in and possibly never existed at all. Competing candidates have almost certainly never been kind to each other. But it does feel a bit like we’re descending into a pit where we’ll eventually see political hopefuls stripped to the waist, tearing chunks out of one another in the hope of being crowned the winner.

While that will make for good television, I’m not convinced that it’s the way we choose the most capable leader. Good military commanders don’t necessarily name for effective governors. But that’s a step beyond the point we’ve reached for the time being. Right now, it’s gossip and snide remarks, the sort of thing that wouldn’t be out of place on any playground. Just fills you with confidence about the future, doesn’t it?

Broken by Crying

Sometimes, it’s difficult to tell if we have a misogynist press or not. My impulse is that we do. Sure, if a male PM had teared up during an exit speech, I imagine that the papers would have something to say about it. On the other hand, it’s been three days in a row now that the papers have mentioned the fact that the current (for now) leader of our country has tear ducts.

My sympathy for the woman is limited. She’s dedicated to the office and that but her time at the top is marked by a significant dearth of progress and also increases in homelessness, food bank use and many other markers of poverty. So she’s not exactly done a bang up job. I maintain, as often as possible, that she’s played a terrible hand of cards in an utterly appalling way. But that doesn’t have anything in particular to do with her gender.

And so now we look to the future and boy is it bleak. Johnson and Javid and Raab, oh my. Sure, Leadsome is probably in the mix like she was last time, possibly Mordaunt too but my spidey sense is telling me that we’re not going to get another lady at the top for quite some time. Given the candidates on the slate, that might not be the worst thing in the world.

We’re putting our country in the hands of the Conservative party members. And Boris Johnson is the odds on favourite to win. I’m scared. My hatred for the man is such that the idea of him coming out on top is the absolute worst but I can’t find another possibility in the bunch to fill me with anything remotely resembling joy. It’s something of a consolation that the next PM is going to struggle almost as much as the current one.

May to Quit Time

Sure, she’s announced a departure date (well, the point at which she’s sworn she’ll definitely resign, allow a successor race to start and just wait until we beg her not to go, scared stiff as we’ll be by the prospect of a Hunt or Johnson or Raab premiership) but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t found a loophole she’s going to exploit for all it’s worth. Who said she’s going to recognise June 7th by the time it rolls around?

As far as she’s concerned, it’s going to be May 24th forever. It works on so many levels. If she’s perpetually two weeks away from the end of her tenure, she can play it however she wants. She might say that with such a compressed time frame to go, it’s urgent that she gets this and that done. On the other hand, on days when it’s all feeling a bit too much, she can use the end of term vibe to let people bring in games and have a bit of fun.

Of course, some of the plebs might grow confused by the new system. At first, Theresa will use that to her advantage too. She can dodge whatever meetings she doesn’t want to go to by just scheduling them on May 27th or even May 25th if she wants people to feel less snubbed. But then fresh nomenclature will have to take hold. It will become May 24th the 1st and so on into infinity.

Come on, the alternative is that we have to install a rabid Brexiteer at the top of the Tory party. And I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but she really really wants to do this job. In a pretty sticky situation, she’s slathered herself in treacle and honey (an attempt to show how ‘hard’ she is in spite of her diabetes) and tried to wade through regardless.

Tears in the Bunker

Today’s the day. I have to go into a polling booth, put a cross in a box, walk out trying to convince myself I felt good about what I did in there and pretend it made a difference in the long run. The European elections have come around and the polls are showing a distressing lead for the Brexit party. So, while I’m not completely sure which Remain party to put my support behind, I know I have to cast a vote against the other lot.

It basically boils down to the Greens or the Lib Dems. For reasons I’ve discussed before (they’re still not giving full throated support to a second referendum, let alone being in favour of Remain. And then there’s the whole anti-Semitism thing. My dad’s thrilled that I’m not a Labour supporter anymore but I swear I haven’t abandoned any of my woolly socialist principles), I can’t vote for Labour.

Obviously, nothing could make me go for UKIP or the Tories. And Change UK or the Independent Party or whatever those crazy kids are calling themselves these days are an irrelevance. All other things being equal, I’d rather go for the Greens but tactical voting tells me that the Lib Dems are the closest to a second MEP seat. So I’ve got to be sensible about this.

This vote shouldn’t be blown out of all proportion. It’s not a general election, this isn’t the People’s Vote that certain folk are gunning for. This is the chance we get to actually elect those unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. I’m not squandering my democratic right, even if I’m not jazzed about my choices and am concerned what a lead for the Brexit party will be interpreted as.

Oh, and Theresa May was crying in a car last night so the papers are acting as if the elections don’t exist at all. What a fun, misogynistic world we live in.

Tory Fury Over May’s Final Effort

Why is anyone even a little bit surprised over the fact that May’s taking a final stand? She’s the poster girl for perseverance. If, even for just one moment, she stops keeping on keeping on then the clockwork will grind to a halt and she’ll stop altogether. The writing on the wall should have been visible after three supposedly meaningful votes so it should have come as no surprise that she’d have tried her level best to find a work around.

So she’s been making promises left, right and centre, all in the pursuit of a deal that isn’t going to end up going anywhere. That means we’ve got three weeks or so to practice our surprised faces when the latest gamble crumbles away into nothing at all.

Then again, that’s quite a few days of nothing much. We were given a grace period, a handful of months to try and sort ourselves out, get a handle on wha we really want and come back to the EU with a plan intact. And so far, there have been talks with Labour that have predictably withered away because of a lack of compromise, there have been recesses and gaps, elections and very little other business getting done and a distinct lack of forward momentum on Brexit.

I suppose it stands to reason that people would be displeased by what’s been going down. Then again, the Tory party isn’t exactly a bastion of reasoned debate and rationality at the moment what with potential leadership candidates peacocking their way around the schoolyard. Brexit has been a three year distraction, it’s not getting through under current Parliamentary arithmetic and nothing else is getting done. I guess it’s just taken us until this point for more people to get upset about it. The rest of us were there already.