Reversing into space

 There is I think something deeply shameful about the Tory Leadership election. Apart from a fundamental failure on my part to understand why anyone can actually be a Tory????  Or why they can justify being in hoc to capitalisms task masters?  Or how a few thousand Tory voters can elect a Prime Minister without a general election?  Not one of the candidates has accepted responsibility for the mess we’re in and which has been made by the party they want to lead?  Not one apology, not one new idea, just a rehashing of failed policies. All the candidates agree that we are in a mess economically, socially and politically yet not a single one is prepared to accept responsibility for the mess that their party and their government has created. Two of the candidates were senior members of cabinet as Chancellor and Foreign Secretary yet inflation is at an all time high, there is a cost of living crisis and Europe is at war with Russia. Two of the candidates want to remove the commitment to net

 I haven't need to look into my rear view mirror these past few days what has been unfolding in front of us on the nightly news has been so riveting. I haven't watched a movie on Netflix, I haven't watched East Enders, I haven't really watched TV at all other than News, News and more News. It has been both unbelievable and utterly riveting to watch the end of an era being played out live on TV.  It seems that the triggers that have unleashed this political drama have been a mixture of Partygate and the associated untruths, the Chris Pincher affair and the loss of two by-elections. Each on their own might have been survival but as each story has hit the headlines the growing wave of distrust in the personality and judgement of the Prime Minister has grown to represent what one MP interviewed on TV called a 'Tsunami'. The culmination of the 24/7 news coverage, although by no means the final dramatic act was the speech at the podium in Downing Street which has alre

 Unions are important. A marriage is a Union. A friend of mine calls his band Hadrian’s Union because he was born at one end of Hadrian’s Wall and now lives at the other end and the band members come from various towns along the wall. Unions are important as I discovered when I was in dispute with an employer, with the support from the Union I was able to defend myself, reject some of what had been falsely claimed and leave with my dignity intact and all the false allegations dismissed. In the light of this inadequate and failing Government it is clear that, as shareholders, business leaders and bankers are unfairly rewarded, the people who create the wealth that the employers share amongst themselves are being punished by pay rises far below the rate of inflation amidst calls for ‘pay restraint’ from the same shareholders, business leaders and bankers. The Chancellor of the Exchequer appears to be completely out of ideas as to how inflation can be managed and the associated cost of li

 One of my treasured possessions is a signed copy of Harold Wilson's book a Prime Minister on Prime Ministers. In the book Wilson reviews the leadership of twelve Prime Ministers from The Younger Pitt to Harold McMillan, all fare well in his generous review. Of course Lord Wilson is not here now to review the current Prime Minister, although he does quote from a satirical review of the shortest Prime Ministerial administration, that of the Earl of Bath, which lasted 48 and 3/4 hours, 7 minutes and 11 seconds, and: 'which may truly be called the most honest of all administrations: the minister to the astonishment of all wise men never transacted one rash thing; and, what is more marvellous, left as much money in the Treasury as he found in it'. I leave you the reader to make your own judgement as to what Lord Wilson might have made of the Johnson administration! It is my opinion that Wilson was the best of all the Prime Ministers who have served in that office in my lifetime

 Like most people the Accession and the Coronation have become linked over time so at the street party on my estate in Carlisle most of the conversation was linked to memories of the Coronation. One of our neighbours in 1953 had bought himself an old Riley motorcar, he couldn't afford the petrol (some things it appears never change) so instead of driving he sat outside in his car and listened instead to the Coronation on radio. My family boasted one TV between three families and so we had to travel on the 210 Trolley Bus to Hyde so that we could watch the Coronation on my Aunts Black and White TV with its 9 inch screen. That is where the old Manchester joke comes from: Where do flies go in winter? Through Denton to Hyde! I guess at 8 years of age I just thought the weather in London was just grey and misty and wet. The highlight of the day was the model Coronation Coach that my grandfather bought me in order to remember this great occasion.  I still have the Coach. It is somewhat t

It can be difficult at times to know what is going on. Today I took my car into a garage for an oil change. It should have been a simple procedure. Undo a sump nut place a bowl beneath the engine block stand back wait until the first flushing becomes a dribble tighten the sump nut and pour the new oil into the car.  But nothing these days is what it seems. So the job became more complicated because the mechanic having put the car up on the ramp discovered that my four wheel car was in fact a two wheel car. The prop shaft had been removed at some point in its life.  Panic! Given that (at 77) I no longer have any enthusiasm for crawling underneath cars to repair them, I have in the past but not now, the lack of a prop shaft had passed me by. So I drove the car home with the same dirty engine oil and began to wonder why, having passed four or five MoT's, had repairs to both clutch and rear differential, no-one had thought to mention the missing propellor shaft. Indeed was it there whe