I’ve a long list of things I want to write about but little time to do it at the moment, so some thoughts and spleen-venting are appearing here. I’ve had a busy few days which has left me with lots of pictures to edit against the clock as I’ve needed to get them out to clients – hence yesterday’s blog purdah. The whole day was spent staring at a screen as I waded through several hundred pictures which needed checking/tweaking. That said, yesterday was a good day to do it as the weather here in the Calder Valley was appalling. It didn’t stop raining once. Even so, we didn’t experience any flooding – unlike poor Chesterfield where I was the previous day. I’ve chosen (by accident more than design) a good couple of days to stay away from the rail network. Our Victorian system was designed when no-one had even dreamt of climate-change. Still, isn’t is a good job we’re building a new railway spine (HS2) that’s designed to cope with our changing climate? Oh, wait…

The one bright spot yesterday was hearing that that Tories were hammered in the two by-elections in what were supposedly ultra-safe seats. The other bright spot is hearing the levels of denial from the Tories over why this has happened. The delusions are weapons-grade. According to many Tories it’s because they’re not right-wing enough. Seriously? Talk about being out of touch! It reminds me of how the hard-left always used to blame Labour defeats on the fact the party wasn’t left-wing enough. Then along came their golden-boy, Jeremy Corbyn and his corbynistas. Corbyn still wasn’t left wing enough to win an election? Oh boy! The Tories are making exactly the same mistake, but then reality denial is a prerequisite of ideological purity. My gut feeling is that the Tories are going to lose the next election in spectacular fashion and then split just as Labour did in the 1980s when some of the centre-left went off to form the Social Democrat Party (SDP). The difference here is that I believe what’s left of the main Tory party will become UKIP by another name (aren’t they already? Ed) which will leave the right having completely abandoned the centre ground of politics. The old ‘one nation’ Tory party is dead, Boris Johnson saw to that when he expelled those people for opposing him over Brexit. Thus, the far-right Tory loons will become increasingly isolated. The SDP had the Liberals to merge with and the Liberals were the 3rd party with a powerbase and MPs. Who will the far-right Tories merge with? Reform? Britain First? Bless!

Sadly, Tory travails were the only high-point of my day. The economy (which they’re ignoring, preferring navel-gazing and stoking culture wars) is hardly in good shape and being hammered by the combination of Brexit, the war in Ukraine and the appalling scenes from Israel/Palestine. The old (apocryphal) Chinese curse ‘may you live in interesting times’ couldn’t be more appropriate. Still, the disaster capitalists are rubbing their hands in glee. Frankly? I’m getting fed up of interesting times. Like any rational person I’d actually prefer some stability but I can’t see us getting that for quite some time. There’s too many nutters around, both rich and poor.

Meanwhile, the rest of us rational poor plebs will try and weather the storm until Sunak decides he’s wrecked the country enough (or made enough money from doing so, which is more likely), leaving the rest of us to have our say via the ballot box. That will be one election where I’ll be staying up all night with the champagne on ice – although I don’t underestimate the challenge Labour will face when they take over.

In the meantime, here’s a picture from Thursday. After the successful launch of the new electric shunter a few of us adjourned to Chesterfield for a pint or two and the chance to catch-up after far too long. Imagine this as me and my old friend Steve Upton (@DriverPotter on Twitter) having adjourned to the Winchester, having a nice pint and waiting for this this to all blow over*…

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312

* See the 2004 cult film ‘Shaun of the dead’ which was filmed in 2003 with many scenes recorded just around the corner from where I lived in Crouch End, London.