No, it’s not a strange aversion to defunct video
equipment. I have a bad case of Voting Card Revulsion…
Yesterday my polling card for the May 23rd
EU elections popped through the door, a month shy of 3 years since Britain (or
rather the English and the Welsh) voted to take us out of the EU for reasons no
one is clear on. I’m not sure I can bring myself to touch it. Could this
situation be madder if a toad dressed in a tutu tap-danced into my living room?
The new Farage/Annunziata Brexit party have the biggest poll showing for the forthcoming EU elections here in Britain, while
the Labour party still have to waste time and energy explaining the
inexplicable Jeremy Corbyn .
We’ve got the arch self-promoter and racist Boris
Johnson still spewing up toxic guff in The Telegraph but now with a sister in
the also new Change UK party. Explanations
on a postcard please as to their political profile. They recently ejected one
candidate shortly after announcing his candidacy because of his racist
tweets!!!
Rees Mogg, Brexit lunatic, brother of Annunziata and
our faux Dickensian twonk - has still not apologised for uncritically
re-tweeting a German fascist party.
The Liberals reckon it’s worth someone putting a
tick next to them on the ballot even though their Leader is a dead man walking
(Vince resigns in the summer) the country may have forgiven them for their part
in the David Cameron coalition. I haven't.
The 10 Irish lumps of the DUP continue to claim to be
implementing the will of the people
by pushing for the hardest of hard Brexits even though Ireland voted more
decisively than any other part of Britain to REMAIN in the EU. Also, many blame
the recent violence including the death of the young Irish journalist Lyra McKee
on the continuing lack of leadership on the island of Ireland, uncertainty over
Brexit and the fear of a return to internal borders.
Here in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon dangled the
possibility of a second Indy Ref ahead of the SNP conference as we struggle with
the combined and conflicting outcomes of both referenda. The 2014 Indy ref was
sealed by fiscal scare-mongering AND the threat that an independent Scotland
would not be allowed to stay in the EU!!! Now we are being dragged down the
sewer by England (and Wales), the way being liberally smeared with you-know-what by
the Westminster cabal of crazies.
Few media outlets seem interested in talking to
Green candidates – what with the Environment being all so not-a-problem and
all.
Then over the weekend more hysteria e.g. John
Rentoul’s op ed piece in The Independent claiming that Theresa May has ‘killed
Brexit and her Party’ so Corbyn will now get into Downing St. I’m not sure what
drugs he’s on but a. you can’t kill the walking dead. b. even Corbyn’s own
party clearly no longer think he is electable. Plus he keeps trying to climb
aboard any passing bandwagon and landing on his face. Last week he wanted
climate change declared an emergency (wow – really JC) presumably tapping into
Greta Thunberg’s youth popularity – like a creepy political vampire feeding off
the young.
Meanwhile, stories about the number of companies
that have bailed out of the UK have dropped out of headline position and we are
embroiled in a new silly situation over security and Huawei and May’s apparent
decision to give the go-ahead to the Chinese telecommunications company despite
global concerns about state involvement. No one but no one is asking – for
example – how all their super-high-speed tech is going to work in a country
with badly failing infrastructure that has shattered its global reputation. Surely,
if things continue on their backward trajectory away from the future will we
not plunge down into a grey 1970s world of power cuts and tinned food…
What I liked about the 1970s first time around was
being a child and not understanding anything about politics…
*
Oh – and –for lazy environmentalists and need-a-lie-down
eco-warriors who may be too depressed to muster the energy for the book version
of Casey & the Surfmen (see last
week) there is a bandcamp version – read by me - for streaming and downloading - click here...