- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Apparently there’s some election today, where apparently a lot of us are about to vote
in some representatives- temporarily- to a body that they themselves don’t want us to
belong to. If successful they’ll sulk around being spoilt brats until they have to pack
their bags again. Ironically, a different group of representatives in another body nearer
to home are very possibly going to make things so that we might choose to stay in the
organisation the first lot desperately don’t want to be in…..despite their soliciting
your votes to represent you there. They might end up being in posts they don’t want
for some years….firmly making us look like a bunch of complete morons. Happily for
them, they would at least be paid handsomely for this inconvenience.
Meanwhile, an ambitious politician at home, famous for pretending to be a bungling
but lovable oaf, is finally making his play for power. His plan is to usurp the steering
wheel from the poor benighted incumbent, who is desperately struggling to complete
the impossible task he himself was so instrumental in putting in front of her. An
extensive field of his competitors jostle, although I suspect the wisest heads are still
keeping their own council and staying out of the front row. For while poor Theresa
has made as good a fist of it as anyone could’ve – rarely has such a poisoned chalice
been handed to a Prime Minister- the game evidently isn’t over yet. Her successor
certainly hasn’t got it in the bag, and the whole farrago could explode in either
direction yet, inevitably leading to years of subsequent back biting and ill-will.
Indeed, there isn’t an outcome I can see which everyone will accept with good grace.
At the other end of the country, another politician of the fairer sex is making political
hay, desperate to leave a political union with a neighbour with whom she shares a
language, a currency, hundreds of years of peace, and whole tranches of culture, and
to which her ‘country’ is physically attached. She is ironically equally anxious to
remain in another union without the shared currency, language, or peace, and is
sundered by 500 miles, the wrong side of a country she is adamant she wants nothing
to do with, and a sea crossing. But raking over the cold coals of a fire that’s been dead
for centuries somehow makes her plans plausible to her followers.
Head West across another body of water, and a smidgen of yet another country is
still just about in a union with us, although the values held by those keenest to
maintain it are pretty alien to almost everyone over here…..to say the least. The larger
part of that island is an independent country, quietly getting on with shedding the
difficult aspects of their history, and moving forward. They’ve remained committed to
the bigger club some of us want to leave. In the smidgen notionally attached to the
UK, recent referenda have indicated that they’d like to remain allied to us, although
the thought of leaving the bigger club could make many erstwhile Union voters jump
ship should there be another vote. And critically it’s a secret ballot….no-one has to
know how you voted. That too will be divisive and bitter when it comes.
I’m spelling it all out to try and get my own head round it, and I can’t. We’re right
up that creek where you really need a long paddle, empty handed. And I cannot see a
happy outcome. The only man sure of a big old belly laugh about it is sitting in the
Kremlin, counting his money and chortling. For it looks pretty likely that this is
exactly what he wanted.
Anyway, on brighter note, spring is erupting forth around me, with an explosion of
green creeping slowly up the valleys. I did have a very unpleasant thought occur this
week, whilst observing that the oak is well out before the ash this year. Because,
while the oak was abnormally early –or so it seemed to me at the time – the ash is
now equally late. And the nasty feeling I suddenly had was….what happens if
in some representatives- temporarily- to a body that they themselves don’t want us to
belong to. If successful they’ll sulk around being spoilt brats until they have to pack
their bags again. Ironically, a different group of representatives in another body nearer
to home are very possibly going to make things so that we might choose to stay in the
organisation the first lot desperately don’t want to be in…..despite their soliciting
your votes to represent you there. They might end up being in posts they don’t want
for some years….firmly making us look like a bunch of complete morons. Happily for
them, they would at least be paid handsomely for this inconvenience.
Meanwhile, an ambitious politician at home, famous for pretending to be a bungling
but lovable oaf, is finally making his play for power. His plan is to usurp the steering
wheel from the poor benighted incumbent, who is desperately struggling to complete
the impossible task he himself was so instrumental in putting in front of her. An
extensive field of his competitors jostle, although I suspect the wisest heads are still
keeping their own council and staying out of the front row. For while poor Theresa
has made as good a fist of it as anyone could’ve – rarely has such a poisoned chalice
been handed to a Prime Minister- the game evidently isn’t over yet. Her successor
certainly hasn’t got it in the bag, and the whole farrago could explode in either
direction yet, inevitably leading to years of subsequent back biting and ill-will.
Indeed, there isn’t an outcome I can see which everyone will accept with good grace.
At the other end of the country, another politician of the fairer sex is making political
hay, desperate to leave a political union with a neighbour with whom she shares a
language, a currency, hundreds of years of peace, and whole tranches of culture, and
to which her ‘country’ is physically attached. She is ironically equally anxious to
remain in another union without the shared currency, language, or peace, and is
sundered by 500 miles, the wrong side of a country she is adamant she wants nothing
to do with, and a sea crossing. But raking over the cold coals of a fire that’s been dead
for centuries somehow makes her plans plausible to her followers.
Head West across another body of water, and a smidgen of yet another country is
still just about in a union with us, although the values held by those keenest to
maintain it are pretty alien to almost everyone over here…..to say the least. The larger
part of that island is an independent country, quietly getting on with shedding the
difficult aspects of their history, and moving forward. They’ve remained committed to
the bigger club some of us want to leave. In the smidgen notionally attached to the
UK, recent referenda have indicated that they’d like to remain allied to us, although
the thought of leaving the bigger club could make many erstwhile Union voters jump
ship should there be another vote. And critically it’s a secret ballot….no-one has to
know how you voted. That too will be divisive and bitter when it comes.
I’m spelling it all out to try and get my own head round it, and I can’t. We’re right
up that creek where you really need a long paddle, empty handed. And I cannot see a
happy outcome. The only man sure of a big old belly laugh about it is sitting in the
Kremlin, counting his money and chortling. For it looks pretty likely that this is
exactly what he wanted.
Anyway, on brighter note, spring is erupting forth around me, with an explosion of
green creeping slowly up the valleys. I did have a very unpleasant thought occur this
week, whilst observing that the oak is well out before the ash this year. Because,
while the oak was abnormally early –or so it seemed to me at the time – the ash is
now equally late. And the nasty feeling I suddenly had was….what happens if