Today feels like one of those days where you don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the state of the country – or planet. To say it’s been unseasonably mild here in the Calder Valley would be an understatement. According to various registers we hit a balmy 15 degrees. There’s only one problem. That’s way, way above the seasonal average for Sowerby Bridge and (if confirmed) a new record. So, to those who say global warming is a myth. I have a two word answer – and the second word is “Off”…
The pair of us spent most of our day working from home apart from an outing in the car as Dawn had to drop off work papers at their accountants, so we decided to kill two birds with one stone to pop into our local Indian supermarket to stock up on various exotic herbs, spices and other goodies before doing the more mundane shopping at Tesco. Not that we bought crap you understand, just staples.
Back home I ploughed on with various work including a request for a selection of old railway pictures from the early 1990s that may (or may not) make it into a magazine. When I took them it was purely for pleasure. I never dreamed that one day they might make it into print, but that’s nostalgia for you. What seemed everyday on the railways back in 1990 looks anything but now.
Whilst I was working I did have half an eye on’t t’internet and the campaigning that’s going on in two by-elections today. Labour are widely expected to win both former Tory safe seats and in the case of Wellingborough it’s not hard to see why. Not only were the local Tory party stupid enough to pick the girlfriend of the ousted MP (Peter Bone) as their candidate, the other parties are making a mess of things too. ‘Reform’ – formerly known as the Brexit party, has put forward ‘man of the people’ (My arse: Ed) Ben Habib. Only it seems Mr Habib is about as familiar with his potential constituency as he is with the truth. Hence this, from Twitter – and it’s only one of many mocking examples!
The only saving grace of fools like this is that Reform don’t stand a chance of getting elected but they will abstract enough votes from the Tories to make it an easy Labour win. I’ll look forward to waking up in the morning to a very different future – in two constituencies at least. The rest of us? We’ll have to soldier on in a country that’s increasingly falling apart as it’s asset stripped by Sunak and Co to try and fund their election bribe – sorry ‘tax cuts’ in order to win the next election. Only they won’t win, and neither will we. The only people who will are the people rich enough to make money from such tax cuts and insulate themselves from what comes next. Hopefully, enough people will wake up to that fact before it’s too late.
In the meantime I hope to enjoy some short-lived schadenfreude at the Tories expense tomorrow. Oh, I’ve other plans too, but that’s for another blog…
I’ve a small favour to ask…
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