Category: British

GE2024

Let me spectate. I’m no professional commentator, pollster or political pundit but do try to keep myself up to speed with the current affairs. The question in the mind of a lot of people is: when will the next UK General Election take place?

In these days before Christmas, it’s possible the Prime Minister (PM) doesn’t even know the answer to this question. It’s a balance of how strategic or opportunist he will be when it comes to making such big decisions. Most current predictions are that the Conservatives are destined to be defeated. The gap in the national opinion polls is substantial. That makes the decision of timing of an election one that could mark the end of the current PM’s term of office or elevation to Conservative saviour. Currently, political parties are desperately selecting candidates for each constituency. Something is afoot. Better stop there before I get tempted into a pun.

Let’s put aside any consideration of a winter vote. Arctic weather gloom hovers like cold mist. With the prospect of large heating bills upsetting most of the population there’s no politician who will want to accept the blame for that situation. Naturally, they will say that they are working at pace to tame inflation and overseas conflicts are the root of the pain.

The first step on the road ahead is next year’s springtime. Local elections are expected. Every year, they take place on the first Thursday in May. This is when a third, or less of the electorate put a cross in a box. At the same time London’s next mayor will be elected. So, 2nd May 2024 will be like a mini political barometer. Real votes in real ballot boxes are always a better indicator than sampling or sage views.

The European Parliament election is scheduled for 6th to 9th June 2024. You may think this European Union (EU) election has no bearing on the UK, but I beg to differ. If there’s a significant advance of right-wing political parties across Europe, then the impact will be felt in the UK.

The 2020 United States (US) presidential election was quite a show. In prospect, for the 2024 US presidential election is a gripping event despite the weak selection of candidates. That US national election is scheduled for Tuesday, 5th November 2024. Guy Fawkes day[1] in the UK.

Let’s assume the Conservative party will want to hang on, not to the bitter end, but to get as much time elapsed after the pandemic shockwave, Partygate, mini budget madness and the cost-of-living crisis as they can. We are still reeling from the post-Brexit political earthquakes that have trashed confidence and the economy. Will the cost of government be political exile? That all said, people have shifted a long way since last year. The big question is: who do you trust?

The UK’s Labour party opposition should be confident and smiling. However, the opposition probably feels aggrieved having to wait so long for others to fail before getting an opportunity to win a general election. What doesn’t help is that the electorate are now pessimistic about any sustained recovery. Sadly, the public mood is beset with quite a sense of decline-ism.

Traditionally, in the UK, September is party conference season. That leaves October open for an election. But as noted above there’s a news media attention getting clash between what’s happening in the UK and US. Since significant geopolitical tensions are going to be raging throughout 2024, I think that topic may not be an influencing factor on the UK election date question.

Rolling the dice as late as October 2024 has several advantages for the incumbents. If there’s good summertime news, say inflation reduced and a modicum of economic growth the government will claim a great success. The struggle between democracy or autocracy around the globe could give a UK PM a platform on which to make one or two grand gestures. Also, with nearly a year to go, the opportunity for the opposition parties to trip-up increases.

When polls ask is Britain a better place to live than it was ten years ago or a worse place to live than ten years ago the pointer points at worse. It’s hard to imagine this will not impact voter intentions. 

#ukpolitics #ukpolitics #politics #generalelection

[1] https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/parliamentaryauthority/the-gunpowder-plot-of-1605/overview/people-behind-the-plot/guy-fawkes-/

Ineptitude

Yesterday’s announcement went like this: “The government will also increase the minimum income required for British citizens and those settled in the UK who want their family members to join them.” This Conservative view, that families are a burdening the State persists like a stubborn stain.

The Universal Declaration of Human Right says: The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Clearly, by the measures announced, in the case of this UK Government the family is not a fundamental group unit of society. In fact, family members based overseas will be required to separate in the event of a person accepting a low income in the UK. That low income in the UK maybe relatively large when compared with what is available in their home country.

I guess this is fine for lawmakers when considering the level of a Minister or Member of Parliament’s salary and benefits. There’s no impediment that will impact their lives in this respect regardless of the nationality of their partner and children.

What I’m wondering is: what will be the case if a British pensioner, living in a European country, who wishes to return with a partner or children who don’t have British passports? If the increased threshold of £38,700 applies, then that will effectively ban them from returning unless they have a generous pension. It may be the case that they have worked on overseas and accumulated a non-UK pension, but this would be irrelevant if the deciding factors is a UK earnings threshold.

I don’t think there’s much disagreement that those who wish to move to the UK should be able to support themselves. The UK minimum wage is set at £21,673.60 for a 40-hour week. So, is the UK Government saying that no one can support themselves on the UK minimum wage?

Ministers have been quick to deny any responsibility for the chaotic state of the immigration system in the UK. Instead, they pretend that they are adapting to changing circumstances. The fact that they are 100% responsible for the current circumstances is brushed aside.

Having persisted for years with one set of flawed notions Ministers now announce another set of ill-thought-out proposals. The Brexit slogan of Take Back Control did not envisage giving control to a cabal of incompetence. In stark reality, that is what has happened.

The knee jerk reactions and ever shifting sand of the last decade need to come to an end. The British people should not be denied a General Election. More months of more chaos and ineptitude are incredibly damaging.

POST: U-turn. Minimum income requirement will not be increased as much as originally announced. A new threshold will be applied from the spring. A policy designed to exclude people from entry to the UK has been watered down for practical reasons.

Dr Who at 60

Now, I can be nerdy par excellence. It makes me nervous to the extent that there are far more knowledgeable scribblers on Doctor Who. It’s not like the internet is without a massive amount of coverage of every aspect of the time lord’s life. Although, I’m not sure I’ve seen the details of David Tennant’s shoe size – yet.

Last night, way out on the edge of the know universe was a spaceship. Somehow it got there through a random worm hole. The drama doesn’t expand as to what the enormous ship does, or why it only had one crew member or the anarchic mix of technologies.

Almost like a sketch from the Twilight Zone, the mystery mounts as we are asked to go beyond our normal understanding. That’s a good plot line, in that anything then becomes possible. So, at the edge of what exists there’s nothing but blackness ahead. Behind is everything that was ever known in space and time. The good, the bad and the indifferent. And where most of us would rather be.

The end of everything, as far back in time as it’s possible to travel in this story is not empty. A malevolent force or mystical entity hides there hoping to one day make its way forward in time to annihilate everything it finds. Malevolence is so often associated with emptiness. It’s a primal thing.

That’s what The Doctor and annoying companion Donna encounter when the Tardis goes awry. Given that it was spilt coffee that threw them to this point in space and time maybe the transport ship they encounter was an intergalactic coffee carrier or a shoe carrier. With respect to Douglas Adams.

Titled “Wild Blue Yonder” the tale told wasn’t so much blue as void of natural light. Way yonder lurked a clever and evil shape shifter. So, evil that the Tardis runs away, as it rebuilds itself. Our two protagonists were then marooned on a giant ghost ship with no idea what’s happening. Now, that’s a fine plot. Adrift in the deep darkness.

Over a series of frantic moments, the story pieces together. The original pilot of the ship turns out to be a hero, prepared to sacrifice themselves to destroy the nameless baddies on the ship. The pilot’s cunning plan was ticking away at ultra slow speed to evade the speedy thinking malevolent thingies. Distracted but feeling imprisoned the shape shifting villains put all their energies into attempting to copy The Doctor and Donna.

The copies strategy then appears to have been to hop on board the Tardis when it returned. That’s a bit of a plot flaw. Since the Tardis would presumably only return when the air of evilness had been destroyed. That’s what did happen in a wonderful just-in-time moment. Concluding the story with the destruction of the spaceship and the physical forms of the lurking baddies. Thus, again we are all saved from extinction. Open is the question of whether the lurking baddies still lurk.

This 60th anniversary special was for fans. To those uninitiated into The Doctors world, it must have been confusing. Difficult to follow. In fact, rather slow in parts. David Tennant as the 14th Doctor is the best modern incarnation. Long may the Tardis take us to the limits of imagination. It’s possible that the 120th anniversary will include a virtual world that we will be able to step into and be immersed in a vast spectacle. Good luck to those who last that long.

Future

The road to fixing climate change is not an endless road. Today, our whole approach to climate change goes somewhat like this:

I’m not sure I’m convinced. Yeah, maybe we have a problem. We should do something. Definitely, but send me the plans, I’ll get to it, I’m busy. Time passes. What was it we should be doing? Oh yes, but that plan is for (insert a name) not me. I’m not contributing much to the problem. Anyway, there’s time between now and (insert a date).

So, we go on. There’s no doubt that there are changes needed to tackle climate change that are immensely difficult to do. Trouble is that by fixating on those difficult problems we talk ourselves out of doing the easier things. Let’s put simple actions like home insulation on the agenda again. Let’s loosen-up on our ridiculously restrictive policy on wind farms. Let’s invest in our national electrical grid to permit more connections to be made easier and quicker.

Yes, it’s advantageous for the PR companies employed by high carbon businesses to talk up difficulties and herald small gains as miracles. I mean, that’s what they are employed to do. On the other side we have PR companies employed by activists and campaigners who paint pictures of dire consequences and delinquent Governments.

I keep pointing out the dangers of populism and nationalism. The history of both is not a good one. They generally make most people poorer and a minority richer and more powerful. However, the tactics they use to gain popular appeal don’t seem to die off down the ages. A case in point is the story of Rome and Julius Caesar, as he crushed Roman democracy and seized power[1]. The chronicle is being well told on BBC 2. In the Britian, it’s often only their incompetence that halts the progress of Caesar like characters. Not mentioning any names.

To make change happen on climate change there needs to be a greater appeal to the populous. Expecting politicians to take a lead on the subject is nice in theory but wanton of hope. In our system of governance terms of office can be measured in days. Expecting neurotic politicians to step-up to a challenge that requires real long-term commitment is asking a bit much.

Campaigners will not give up on highlighting the challenges ahead. Periodically, politicians will pick-up on that campaigning fervour and try to jump on-board. However, as soon as a more immediate public concern comes along, they will jump-off.

I’m not saying that the cost-of-living crisis isn’t a number one priority. What I am saying is that a cost-of-living crisis is not an excuse to put climate policy on a dusty shelf for another few years. The road to fixing climate change is not an endless road.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0gjlmkv

Duck

I take for granted that everyone knows the saying: “Red Sky at night Shepherd’s delight. Red Sky at morning Shepherd’s warning”. It’s not superstition. In the sense that calamitous events will descend on us because the rising sun happens to colour early morning clouds. It’s more the practical reality that British weather most often comes from the North Atlantic. So, clouds hovering in the West can be the signs of a cold front coming our way.

Being born in the countryside these ditties are bread and butter to me. Rural sayings about different times of the year, or nature in general endure, even in the mobile phone age. Now, up to date weather predictions, based on proven science are only a touch screen stroke away. Even so, memorable adages stick.

Last week, I heard a new one. New to me. A rhyming prognostic on the coming winter. This is not only a saying confined to rural areas. It adds to a long list of observations about the habits of birds.

This is not witchcraft. Birds’ behaviour can help us predict the weather, even if the means they use can be obscure. Our feathered friends are much more in-touch with nature than we can be.

“If the ice in November can bear a Duck. The rest of the Winter will be slush and muck”.

What’s going on with this traditional bird proverbs stumps me. OK, this suggest that a hard frost in November is an indicator that a warm, wet, and soggy winter is ahead. The duck as a measure of weight may be incidental. However, some ducks do migrate to find warmer places to overwinter. So, does the saying mean that because the duck is still here, it’s decided that the winter will be mild?

That’s contradictory to the presence of the thickness of ice needed to hold a three-pound bird. If a duck can stand on the ice and is happy with that situation. They are in the local park. Then that could mean a blast of cold air from the North before the year ends, has some meaning in terms of what happens next. What’s that got to do with slush and mush? I wonder.

Is this saying somehow linked to the past when hunting ducks was an annual event. Some strange observation that ducks are easier to hunt earlier in the winter. Or is that nonsense on my part.

This folklore saying about winter can be put to the test. Although we are close to the end of November, the frost has been hard enough to bear a duck. Not a huge duck but an average mallard.

If this means a mild winter, we’ll soon know. Maybe duck barometers will work as long-term predictors. Showing us a sign of coming foul weather. Ho, ho.

The Dr

There’s something wonderfully peculiar about a time traveller wandering around the universe in a British police box. Time and space are the stuff of an infinite number of story lines. But the ones who strike a cord with us most are the humancentric ones. Our home, Earth is under threat. Humanity is in peril. Nobody knows what to do. Then stepping out of street furniture from the 1960s comes a hero. Not a muscle bound, gun toting superhero with magical powers. No, an eccentric, cerebral alien who looks like a college professor who took too many happy pills in their hippy phase. Humanoid in appearance. Wherever The Doctor goes so enemies follow, set for a final showdown[1].

Iconic features of Dr Who’s[2] life echo down through our decades. The Doctor’s vehicle is nothing like H G Well imagined. With a nice trick of being bigger inside than out it dazzles all who hitch a ride. If only we could master that transformation. I for one, don’t think it’s entirely impossible. Afterall isn’t physics up to about 12 dimensions now?

No saviour of the human race is complete without uniquely bad adversaries. Strangely enough quite a few are machine-based baddies. How in the moment is that? With increasing neurosis about what machines may be capable of in the near future. Daleks look a bit crude with what we know now. Unlike the iPhone we haven’t yet seen an upgrade to a version of the Dalek 15 Pro. I dread to think what that might do. They may have a resistance to any means of destruction.

Some Science Fiction can bore with an intensely serious inspection of our planetary dilemmas. Dr Who steers clear of that trap. Injecting humour and simple everyday relationships into the stories, the level is more connectable. One person matters, as much as billions.

My Doctor is Tom Baker. As a Time Lord, he captured that frenetic, unpredictable, jumbo schoolboy who knew no bounds. Yet, he retained a masterly command of dangerous situations. He could look stern as well as overjoyed. Never did I think that he would turn to the darkside.

My favourite evil monsters are the Cybermen. The idea that machines should decide that humans would be better if they were transformed into machines is a true horror story. It a kind of malevolent evil that doesn’t know it’s evil. It’s possible to believe that could exist.

Pure fiction, mixed with a scary look at expanding technology and always a partnership between good folk to overcome despots like The Master and singularly driven uncharitable aliens. That blend makes for wonderful entertainment. Long may television, and its replacements celebrate this combination. Regeneration has no end.

Today, it’s Doctor Who’s 60th Anniversary[3]. Happy birthday.

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056751/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who

[3] https://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/doctor-who-is-60-today-99309.htm

Divided

Away for a week. I’ve been in Canada. In Montreal. On return to the UK, I see the next step in the convolutions of the Conservative Party have littered newspaper column inches. If ever there was a thin man on tight rope balancing a can of worms on one arm and a broken bicycle on the other, then it’s the current Prime Minister.

I’m sure he never trained for the Cirque du Soleil. Maybe Rishi Sunak should take up traditional circus disciplines like the swinging trapeze and flying hand to hand. Certainly, he could make a living that way even if he doesn’t need the money. Circus or pantomime would be a good opening for a great number of pending unemployed politicians.

Suella Braverman’s second sacking as Home Secretary opens the opportunity for her to take to the stage. In her case the audience would know when to boo without any prompting. The world of the pantomime villain[1] might revive a flagging political career.

Nigel Farage, former leader of the UK Independence Party is off the jungle[2]. Most suitably he’ll be featured alongside comedians anxious to keep themselves in the public eye. The cartoonists are having a field day with this oddity.

Boris Johnson’s trying his hand with comedy too. His new position as a GB News broadcaster will be pandering to a small but loyal right-wing audience. That will not put him off, I’m sure. I wonder what kind of studio wallpaper will be his backing?

Others have gone to ground or are typing WhatsApp messages to a 101 groups all fighting to be the next star of the right. The Brexit brigade of the past is finding a natural home in entertainment. It’s one way of jumping ship before the poltical Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD) to come. This is a wonderfully inventive acronym for a complete disaster.

If I was to make a guess as to what Rishi Sunak might be attempting, it’s a rebranding the likes of which we haven’t seen since the chocolate bar Marathon changed to Snickers. I seem to remember that name change was a marketing curiosity. The British public didn’t understand it. After decades past the rebrand, the name Marathon was brought back. Is the Conservative Party that chocolate bar fallen out of favour and looking desperately for a retro-look?

Sweeping a decade of chaos under the carpet is a tall order. Even with the maxim that a week is a long time in politics. I don’t think the British public are so forgiving or forgetful. The roots of our problems are the results of poor political judgement and poor actions over a long trem of office.

No doubt the Conservatives will try to jerrymander, as much as slight of hand will allow them to get away with in the media spotlight. Voter ID rules will keep some potential voters at home come the next general election. Shifting the boundaries of some constituencies has benefits too. A pre-election bag of goodies is being put together to stiffen the resolve of wavering traditional conservatives. Expect Springtime give aways.

My overall sense is that major change is coming. Abraham Lincoln said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” and that applies more broadly than the reason it was said in the 1850s. The strands of conservatism that have been so politically successful in Britain are divided amongst themselves. Not just a few small gaps. Hulking great chasms exist between entrenched groups. That situation never goes well. Not for anyone.

[1] http://celebratepanto.co.uk/toptipsforvillainy/

[2] https://www.entertainmentdaily.com/tv/im-a-celebrity-nigel-farage-backlaash-from-celebrities/

Way back

It’s easy to sound like a takeout from the four Yorkshire[1]. That emulated sketch where a group of drinking men on holiday try to upstage each other with tales of hardship. It’s beautifully comic because it ventures off into the absurd. Each man is determined to out do the other.

Back in my day. Any sentence that starts like that conjures up a man leaning on a bar in a rustic pub where time has stopped. There are people who make a speciality of reminiscence. A rambling epistle about hardship and struggle. Peppered with a contrast with the ease of contemporary living. Point being how weak and wishy-washy we are now. How enduring and mighty we were in the way back. Most of this is pure nostalgic babble. The Monty Python sketch is funny because it crosses a line. Please reprimand me severely if I cross that wobbly line. Beside it takes comic genius to write a good sketch and I’ve never claimed that ability.

However, telling stories that paint pictures of former times is a good way of setting this time in context. Change is a constant. The decades are ones of accelerating change. That can be unsettling.

This week, for inexplicable reasons my mind wandered off to my parent’s farmhouse kitchen in the mid-1960s. That’s boyhood memories. The back of house room was not quite square. At one end, two substantial painted wood doors faced each other. A draft blow under one when the outside door was open.

A standing stainless-steel sink sat between the two doors. Opposite, a thin steel framed window looked out on the farmyard. Stone walls were a couple of feet thick. That left space for a seat under the window. It was a farmer’s window. Being able to see the road and all business comings and goings from the kitchen table. Looking direct West, the evening sun would play across the yard.

On a weekday. Not a high day or a holiday. That would be a reason to light a fire in the front room. The kitchen was the warmest place in the house. A thumping great cast iron Aga[2] filled an alcove and filled the kitchen with a warmth all day and night. In winter, other parts of the house could be an ice box. Bedroom windows had as much ice on the inside as on the outside of the glass. There’s a good explanation of why the image of that kitchen is so rooted in my mind.

A large sturdy wooden kitchen table sat right in the centre of the room. It had a Formica top in a deep maroon colour. Four chunky turned legs at each corner. An eclectic mix of wheelback chairs permanently tucked in when not in use. If they weren’t, there was no squeezing around the table.

The habit of sitting in the same spot was deep-rooted in practicality. It’s as if we had assigned seating. Naturally the best place to sit was with the Aga at your back. Opposite the Aga, up against the wall was a fridge that must have come from Noah’s days. Next to that was a peculiar free-standing kitchen cabinet unit. They are sold on eBay as mid-century vintage now. Ghastly thing that today’s sellers describe as gorgeous.

One corner of the room had a beaten and battered two-seat sofa. That was a comfortable warm spot. Above it, in the wall was the remains of a bread oven. A hinged iron door was a curiosity covering nothing but cobwebs. It was an age when Linoleum remained a popular floor covering. It was a lot nicer underfoot than the flagstone floor. The flooring took such a bashing that it got replaced with more of the same when holes started to appear.

That room was the heartbeat of the farmhouse. The kitchen table played so many different parts in farm life. It could go from being a butchers block heavy with a side of pork to a desk for tidying up the paperwork. Even the kitchen cabinet unit had a draw full of Sturminster Newton market reports. Auctioneers Senior & Goodwin sent out blue printed reports listing cattle prices every week.

In the simplest way, that’s how I was first introduce to data analytics!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Yorkshiremen_sketch

[2] https://www.agaliving.com/

Batteries

We can talk about chemistry. It’s not a strong subject for me. The simple basics, I remember. As far as handling batteries, or at least knowing what they do, I was quite young on first encounter.  

At the back of the farmhouse where I grew up there were several working rooms that that were part of the building. A room we called “egg house” was indeed used to store eggs. That wasn’t its first purpose. In one corner was a copper vat with a small furnace underneath it. I was told this was for sterilising milking machine parts before chemicals took over that role.

On the opposite side of the wide back door corridor was “boot house.” The name was a giveaway as to one of its uses. Boots propped up against the wall. It had a stone mullioned window that looked out on another working room that was part of a later add on. That’s where a shiny stainless-steel milk bulk tank sat filling up most of the space.

Like a lot of obsolete stuff stashed in a corner and then forgotten, eventually they were thrown out. As far as I know. What I speak of is several large round glass jars. They made of thick greenish glass and were about a couple of feet in diameter. Their original purpose was to store sulfuric acid. The acid was an electrolyte used in heavy batteries that were once the backbone of the electrical system of the farm.

My father moved to Goulds Farm in 1938. As I understand it mains electricity didn’t come to the farm until the 1950s. In one of the stone built buildings around the farmyard, there was a single cylinder stationary engine, generator, and DC electric distribution board on the wall. It was like something out of an early Frankenstein movie. Bare metal switches and a couple of round dials for volts and amps. All covered in dust and cobwebs. I never did see the “submarine” lead-acid batteries[1]. I guess they were parts of this early farm electrical system that had a reasonable scrap value and so got sold on.

There were lead-acid batteries in and out of the house in the winter. Heavy tractor batteries often sat in “egg house” charging overnight. Given their cost every little bit of life was squeezed out of them before they were replaced. Some batteries had a second life powering an electric fence.

Now, here we are in 2023. An electrical revolution is underway. It’s fascinating to note some of the objections to electrification. So, wedded to gas and oil that all sorts of spurious arguments get thrown up. Not that there aren’t hazards with each different technology.

Battery technology has advanced at great pace. Chemistry has provided batteries that have huge potential when compared with they predecessor. The race is on to go much further. I’m confident that we’ve a long way to go before every combination and permutation of materials has been exploited for electrical storage. Manufacturing techniques race ahead too.

Lead and acid presented hazards. Ironically, one of them was hydrogen gas emission. In such systems ventilation is a must so that there’s no danger of explosion. Now, hydrogen is heralded as a fuel of the future. Hazards remain but we do get better at managing each and every one.

My message is that electrical technology has both an upside and a downside. Ultimately the upside is much the bigger.

[1] https://uboat.net/articles/id/54

Watch it

Today, the same hubris that plagued the Brexit referendum in 2016 is in the air. That’s when people become dangerous overconfident that they know what’s going to happen next. All the signs in the stars, almanac’s predictions and emotional forces point one way but hard cold reality respects none of these pointers.

It goes like this. Every day there’s a story about how dreadful the Conservative Government has been in recent years. Like tales of manic cartoon characters, the retelling of events is almost unbelievable. At the same time, the opinion polls and the commonly held media assumption is that, come the next General Election, next year the Labour Party will romp home with a workable parliamentary majority.

A great number of people may think that politicians have let them down and public figures that brim with arrogant self-confidence and bluster should not be trusted. However, that may not translate into a simple selection of an alternative. The primitive assumption that voters act in a binary way, dislike candidate A means like candidate B, belongs in a prior century.

This decade is different. The speed with which events happen and then are glossed over or suddenly uncovered is astonishing. It’s frantic. Watching a replay of last year’s “Have I Got News For You[1]” and it’s like visiting a distant land. Even some of the jokes no longer land. Names of people in the daily news rise and fade like waves hitting a rocky shore.

If we, me, and you were entirely rational then I’m sure there would be a strong wish for a period of consistent dull normality. A decade when competent people worked hard to make the world a better place. When the news was more about cats getting caught up trees and puppies chasing balls. When the economy gradually got rebuilt and a feeling of prosperity and security started to spread far and wide across the country. Ultimately, at the end of a term of office the whole country should be happier, healthier, and wealthier.

We are not rational. So, as a life-long liberal I warn my Labour Party colleagues of the dangers of excessive pride and over-confidence. Yes, lots of traditional indicators may suggest that change is coming. I’ve written about the great need for change, but we can soon be shocked or shaken by cold reality. Afterall that’s what happened at the 2016 referendum.

Reasons to vote can come from multiple directions. Personalities can sway the climate of opinion. We may hope for a coming decade of progress and sanity. It’s by no means guaranteed. Hubris is frequently the cause of upsets and surprises. That’s where we are at the end of 2023.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mkw3