There’s Jez and John and the Final Say. And there’s Bill and Ben and the Little Weed. Bill and Ben were Flowerpot Men and belong with Listen with Mother in the nurseries of the past, along with the Little Weed. And Jez Corbyn and John McDonnell ? Where do they belong ?
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I’m thinking here of our sleek new Foreign Secretary’s recent comment, saying – as reported in the Guardian – that “relations with the EU will be ‘poisoned for many years to come’ if Brussels fails to budge in the Brexit talks.” In other words, says Mr Hunt, he of the bell which keeps breaking in his hand : “Yah boo. It’s all the EU’s fault that we can’t get our way in doing the wrong thing ineptly.”
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The parrot thought he was studying the tea leaves. Instead he found himself watching in horror as the tea cup crumbled in his hand
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For people in the UK, the stomach-churning mess and disgrace of Brexit, as it runs on and on from climax to climax – no “climax” really seeming to shift anything substantial – can sometimes seem the only show in town, a bit like a very serious illness in a family member. For those closely connected, the illness makes the rest of life seem to recede.
But actually Brexit can be highly misleading in that regard. You can begin to see it as a cause of things, so that when at last all this is “over” in some fashion, “things” will settle again, even though the settling is likely to be unpleasant, perhaps even dangerous.
But Brexit is not primarily a cause at all. It is just one of many possible symptoms of a Society that isn’t working properly for its citizens or for their present and future welfare. Least of all is it some kind of answer or solution in itself to whatever is ” wrong.” There is indeed plenty wrong. But Brexit is just a sign of that, like a blister, or a sudden lump ; and an inexcusable distraction from the emergencies we face in the frenzied world we have created.
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The night before these two stanzas were written, it was reported that the Cabinet had told Theresa May that in the next few months, she would have to go, so that another Tory leader could be chosen, presumably to deny and face down reality even more doggedly than she had been doing.
Would this make things even worse ? Or a tiny bit less bad ? Did it matter ?
It was as if the nation was inexhaustible in its production of monsters in these years. Brexit itself was a monster. We had created it and it was tearing us apart. And, on top of that, we kept appointing these appalling leaders. The worst possible people to act wisely or effectively on our behalf. Were we that desperate to throw ourselves into the pit ?
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Very soon after the Labour Group cast off, so did a slightly smaller Tory group and the two groups combined to form what may become a new political party. Tories left behind were more sorrowful than critical, at least in front of the microphones. By contrast, notable Labour figures left behind carried on snarling, shrieking and threatening.
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This was written immediately after 7 Labour EU Remainers became 7 Labour Leavers. Lots of instant Twitter shrieks and howls followed, enough to remind us that among so much of sanity that has now disappeared into the past, is any shared understanding that important events warrant time for reflection on what they mean. I thought Tom Watson’s response, then and since, was the most interesting and most nearly corrrect – and gave more cause for hope than most, as well.
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