Repost

Thinking back to the last general election in Britain. This is what I wrote on December 13th 2019. To me it was an extremely depressing moment in history as the charlatan Boris Johnson got the keys to Downing Street and became our prime minister with a strong majority...

Tonight I am feeling as low as I felt that night in 1979 when Thatcher grabbed the keys to 10 Downing Street. This time the British electorate have apparently given their support to Johnson and his baying Tory mob. I am looking at television and the writing is already on the wall. The Conservative Party is about to enjoy a solid majority in The Houses of Parliament. They will be gloating and guffawing as only Tories can gloat and guffaw.

How on earth could British voters have allowed themselves to be fooled like this? I shake my head in despair. Five years of Johnson ahead and no chance whatsoever of returning to the European fold. That ship has already left the wharf.

I spent Thursday working at one of our local polling stations, arriving there at 6.15 in the morning and departing at 10.30pm. I had been hoping that the day would bring a hung parliament with a chance of achieving a second European Union referendum. But that dream is over.

The Tories are in and as I say I feel terribly low tonight. There are food banks in our country. There are rough sleepers on our streets. There is continuing division. The NHS is in crisis. We are breaking away from The European Union. Thousands of children are living in poverty. And yet, and yet...British voters fell for Johnson's lies, false promises and buffoonery.

He kept saying over and over again "Get Brexit Done!" and an army of fools listened. Hope is lost now. We are entering an unhappier world with kindness in retreat. BoJo The Clown is pulling the strings now. Save our Souls.

⦿

How things can change! Johnson soon revealed his true self. Idle. Self-serving. A showman. A shirker without substance. Entitled. Finally the voters who were hoodwinked by him started to see him for what he was. Leading Labour at the time was Jeremy Corbyn. A principled, hard-working parliamentarian  but he was also a dreamer who failed to see that his socialist visions were out of synch with the realities of modern times. Also in the picture is Huw Edwards the BBC's main news anchor. He has since left the BBC under a cloud  because of sexual misconduct allegations that he has not denied.

Tomorrow night,  as Labour sweep into power  and The Tories are unceremoniously cast aside, my feelings will be so different from  that miserable night in December 2019.

Labour

Keir Starmer - about to become Britain's next prime minister

Great  Britain will be holding a General Election on Thursday of this week. After fourteen years of Conservative rule, it very much looks as though they will be replaced by The Labour Party. That is what all the opinion polls are saying anyway.

Connecting with previous struggles by working people, The Labour Party was formed as recently as 1900. They were first in power in  a hung parliament headed by Ramsay MacDonald in 1923. Then in 1945 - straight after World War II - The Labour Party stormed to victory under Clement Attlee. The next opportunity to rule came under Harold Wilson in 1964 who passed the baton to James Callaghan. Next came Tony Blair in 1997 who gave way to Gordon Brown.

The current leader of Labour is Sir Keir Starmer who will surely become the seventh Labour prime minister with a stonking majority - bigger than any enjoyed by his predecessors.

I suppose that Labour's core values align most closely with those of The Democrats in The United States - whereas Conservative politics echo those of The Republicans. Confusingly, red is Labour's colour and blue belongs to The Conservatives.

Since I was eighteen, I have voted in every election I was entitled to participate in and every single time I have voted Labour. No tactical voting for me - it's always Labour. I vote from the heart.

Some people claim that politicians are all the same and they never do anything anyway but those braying donkey voices are wrong. If you look back through Labour's record when in power, you will see that they have achieved many great things on behalf of the working people of this country and in the name of justice. See some history.

Keir Starmer has a talented team of Labour politicians around him and together they will do their best to make amends for the past fourteen years when life in Britain for ordinary families has become much more difficult. It won't be easy - that's for sure and change will not come about easily. The Tories have ruined a lot of things - some of them almost irreparable. You may say that they are handing over a poisoned chalice. 

Meaningful change will prove challenging and I am sure that The Labour Party are about to drive down a bumpy road with many twists and turns. We must be patient but as far as Thursday is concerned :-

Sisters

Margot was born in November 2023 and Phoebe was born in January 2021. These little girls have enriched my life more than words can say. Only a few days ago, I said to their father, Stewart, that I can no longer imagine a world without Phoebe and Margot in it. We are so lucky that they live just nine minutes walk away. In addition, we are privileged to be able to play a key role in their care and upbringing. Not all grandparents get to do that.

Of course, down in London, our only grandson - Zachary continues to develop. We hope to go down south to see him this month. Apparently, he is ahead of the game with his mobility and can even crawl upstairs. I see smartphone pictures of him and short videos too. It is sad that we cannot play a larger part in his upbringing. But that's just how it is. At least he is not in some faraway country like Australia or Canada.

Margot loves to be picked up and cuddled but you need to be wary of her paws for she often threatens to rip one's face off. Her chubby little fingers dig in and if she can get them in one's mouth - all the better. Similarly, Phoebe has a forceful personality and a rare ability to get what she wants. 

See the image above. Phoebe refused to sit there when asked to do so by her mama but when I promised to give her a piece of chocolate she was up there on the sofa like a squirrel up a tree.

One of her top questions is "Please may I watch something?" She loves to see "Bluey", "Peppa Pig", "Hey Duggee" and "Trotro" and once she is in front of a screen she can become very reluctant to be parted from it. I look back to when I was a small child and my family didn't even have a television set. There was no screen time at all. I have no idea what extended screen time does to small children - how it affects them in the long run. But what I do know is that it's not Phoebe's fault that those shows I mentioned even exist. In this regard, it is not easy to know what's best.

Assuming that there are no tragedies along the way, Phoebe and Margot will be sisters until they are old ladies. I hope they will always be there for each other, keeping in touch, riding the roller-coaster of life. Sibling love can be very special as the years pass by. Friends may come and go but you can never quite shake off a sibling relationship. It never goes away - not even if you might sometimes feel that you  want to terminate it.