Brexit-falling off the edge

Brexit- falling off the edge

As the date for the activation of article 50 approaches, the uncertainty of its effect is being discussed by every UK business and enterprise. Recently there was a piece on the BBC about its impact on the farming industry. At the moment farmers enjoy tariff free trade with the Common market and receive large subsidies to maintain their production and protect the countryside. But they fear the future if that was all to change. The same applies to the auto industry, the manufacturing industry etc. All face an unknown future as we sail into uncharted waters. I am reminded of those early sailors who believed the world was flat and if they went too far they would fall off the edge. Will history show that Brexit was a step too far?

A meteorite called Trump

            A meteorite called Trump has struck the Western World. It is wobbling on its axis while people wait spellbound to see which way it will settle. Will it waver uncertainly swinging from right to left, will it spin off into obscurity or will it stabilise and settled into a rational pattern. Nations are holding their breath wondering whether the agreements that they have made will be honoured. Meanwhile the moneymen are having a heyday racking in huge profits as they speculate with the life savings of the ordinary man and woman.

            The corruption of misinformation has infected both sides of the Atlantic. The mass of the people have been conned into believing that all that glitters IS gold. Trumps trumpeting and Boris boasting have led people up the path to a Walt Disney dream world where you get everything for nothing and THEY owe you a living.                                                                                              9/11/2016

A Speech of Hope

A speech of Hope

            The memorial service for Shimon Peres held today on Mount Herzl in Israel was a watershed in many ways. It commemorated the death of a great and beloved leader. The heads of state of more than twenty countries attended with the presence of Mahmoud Abbas a significant feature. The handshake between him and Netanyahu was particularly poignant. After speeches by the main figures in Israel’s politics and including President Clinton, Barach Obama gave the final eulogy. In a statesman like presentation he gave a moving and thoughtful review of his admiration and respect for Shimon. In particular he repeated his support for Shimon’s unquestionable optimism and belief that the unrest in the Middle East can be resolved and that future generations will see the two states living side by side in peace.

J’ACCUSE        

            The advent of the smartphone with its in-built camera and the availability of Facebook and the mass media have become the tools whereby too many of us trivialise the suffering and loss of those we do not know. To stand and photograph men women and children laying dying in the streets in Brussels, Paris, or Nice rather than come to their aid if only to be with them during their dying moments is an indictment against all who have lost their humanity.

            We listen to the numbers of dead from the lips of the carefully coiffured TV announcers as if recording the result of some obscene game; one hundred and twenty three dead they gleefully announce as the mythical Devil licks his lips.

            Yet each is a father, mother, sister, brother, daughter, son a living breathing human being with the same aspirations as the voyeurs who cold bloodily stand and watch.

            How have we forgotten that ‘there but for the grace of God go I?

Why doesn’t our humanity shout out and say?,

            ‘No we will not let their deaths be in vain.’
Later we stand and light candles and cry but where were we in their moment of need?

Brexit a disaster

            The Parliamentary Conservative party of the United Kingdom has made its decision. Two women, Teresa May and Andrea Leadson are now competing for the position of Prime Minister. It is has been left to the 125 thousand members of the grass roots Conservative Party to decide who will be chosen,

            They have been placed in an invidious position as a result of an asinine decision to have a Referendum to leave the EU. The resultant vote to leave was a mistake of the most far-reaching and catastrophic proportions. It has plunged the country into a sea of chaos with a falling pound, uncertain trade deals and an unchanged immigration threat.

            It could have been so much easier. Who in his right mind leaves a club that he wants to reform?  Who walks away from one of the world's largest trading blocks?  To trade with the EU we will still have to accept the free flow of EU citizens to the UK. 

The answer is the UK citizen 

17^th June 2016

Jo Cox:   ‘she truly believed in a better world’

            The mindless killing of Jo Cox an MP in North England yesterday shook the western world. All who heard about it will have been affected. I felt an immense sadness as tears pricked my eyes- a life hardly started had been viciously ended by the action of an enraged member of the public.

            We will hear that the perpetrator was deranged and therefore less responsible for his actions. Later the finger will be pointed at the police and the social services, which will be shown to have overlooked something, which might have prevented this appalling act. 

            Eventually the whole awful event will be sanitised as an unavoidable occurrence, the price we pay to live in a free society.

           Finally the finger will be pointed at the gratuitous violence that we see on the TV, in films and on the Internet and the part it played in the death of this young promising life. We are all responsible will be the cry.

          

 Instead it was in my opinion the act of a mindless bully who grew up to believe that violence solves problems. Killing her he believed would stop a movement that he opposed. How wrong he was.

            

Has individual accountability been assigned to the pages of history?