Coronavirus: Raise Your Voice and Point the Finger
- April 22, 2020
- by
- Matt
There are times when it’s necessary, and even obligatory, to establish a truce or even a temporary alliance with your political opponents in order to fight an enemy that is even dangerous and harmful than they are. Such truces might involve all kinds of unlikely compromises and political arrangements, from coalition or unity governments to a willingness to put aside long-established confrontations and find ways of working between politicians that would not normally touch each other with a barge pole.
This is why Labour politicians joined Churchill’s wartime government. At first sight the Coronavirus crisis...
You Clap for Me: A Celebration and a Warning
- April 16, 2020
- by
- Matt
It seems a long time ago, back in the days when ‘normal’ still existed, that we didn’t think much of immigrants in this country – especially the ‘unskilled’ kind. In those days we learned week in and week out from our newspapers and from many of our politicians, that immigrants were a burden on ‘our’...
Clap for Boris? You must be joking
- April 11, 2020
- by
- Matt
As most people in the UK will be aware, Boris Johnson has spent most of the last week in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Fortunately, he is now recovering. I say ‘fortunately’ because only ghouls wish to see their political enemies, no matter how contemptible they find them to be, exposed to physical suffering and...
Beware the Lies of March
- March 29, 2020
- by
- Matt
In difficult times, it’s comforting and perhaps essential to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel, but it’s also wise to bear in mind that there are always alternative possibilities. Historical tragedies are not like novels or theatrical tragedies. They don’t come with redemptive endings or instructive moral messages. They do...
Lockdown Sunday
- March 23, 2020
- by
- Matt
This weekend was the first weekend of spring. After a long dreary winter filled with rainy days, floods, and moaning winds, the population came out in force to enjoy the sunny weather. At Skegness, hundreds of thousands flocked to the caravan parks and arcades on Saturday. In Victoria and Richmond parks, cyclists, walkers and other...
Ventilator Blues
- March 21, 2020
- by
- Matt
When the coronavirus nightmare ends – as it will end one day – there are many things those of us who survive it will want to remember, and there are things that governments – including our own – will want us to forget. One of them is the chronic lack of medical ventilator machines available...
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