Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln….

BLOG 62

Can’t you be trusted to do anything right? I mean, all you had to do while we were away on holiday was feed the goldfish, water the plants and DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING IMPORTANT! And what did you do? Oh yes, in case we need a reminder, you managed to crash the economy, play havoc with Mrs Blog’s pension pot, sacrifice the pound, further reduce the employment prospects of Blogdaughter and others of her generation and make GB the laughing stock of the rest of the world. As others have said before me, at least we voted for this recession. Not bad going for one careless Thursday, was it?

So, when friends and work colleagues ask how our holiday went (and of course we had voted postally before we went), it was ruined, thanks very much. I’ve certainly never returned from any holiday in such low, angry spirits. I could really use a holiday right now – if I could still afford it…

A dozen things we learned over this past week or two:

1. That passionate conviction coupled with an absence of knowledge and understanding may have dire consequences.
2. Information, facts and expert opinion are no longer to be a major consideration in our politics. As a substitute for these many are content to believe whatever the Mail, Express and Sun are keen for them to believe.
3. Contrary to what this blog has previously claimed, you may actually find things in the Daily Mail that are true. Admittedly they have been appearing in very small font at the foot of an inside page, confessing that the previous day’s front page banner headlines were in fact untrue – but hey, a step in the right direction?
4. Future funding of the NHS can at last be made secure, now that we’re all going to be worse off and the government’s going to have less money available. Oh no, sorry, that canard only lasted until the Friday.
5. That half of our voting population is very keen to re-establish the 1950s as our Golden Era of choice, presumably complete with the widespread poverty, malnutrition and disease as we’ve become quite used to those again recently. Because beer cost 1d a gallon, Life with the Lyons was so hilarious, wasn’t it, and we used to beat everybody at “international sport” before others took up the game.
6. Not to go to a sports bar while abroad on holiday to watch the England football team immediately after an EU referendum.
7. That it’s not OK to vote Leave to see what happens then change your mind and “have another go” when it all turns out the way the Remain people told you. If you wanted to “send a message” to the politicians, why didn’t you write an email?
8. It’s quite OK to be a racist provided you begin each sentence with the words, “Of course, I’m no racist but…”
9. That keeping swarms of Bangladeshis (remind me, are they from the EU?) from taking over Wiltshire is worth making a huge financial sacrifice for a few decades. Or was it the Scots that were doing the swarming? Or Vikings, or Anglo-Saxons? Or keeping Syrians out of Iraq, or Turkey out of the EU? Or getting rid of young people from the UK, or banning the 21^st century from reaching our shores? But above all, we don’t want any racists here. Because they’re awful people. And we’re not.
10. That Scotland can come up with statesmanlike parliamentarians in the way that England can now only envy.
11. That David Cameron, who after all was only trying to deliver what was best for the Tory party by holding the referendum, and whom this blog always believed to be at the toxic end of the “Rubbish Prime Ministers” spectrum, will surely be remembered as truly decent once we’ve experienced whoever is set to follow.
12. We lost the right to laugh at politics in the USA. Until November?

 

 Ah, if only we could return to those good old days…

 

But, to return to football terminology for a moment, it’s been a game of two halves. On landing at Gatwick on Saturday morning after an overnight flight, this blog set off jetlagged and unsuitably attired into London to meet up with Blogdaughter and some of her friends to take part in the big anti-Brexit march/demo. Not something I’m prone to but you have to do something – and it’s surely in the economic interests of Brexiteers as well as Remainers that a halt be called to the nonsense triggered by the vote.

My long experience of taking part in the Lewes bonfire processions made me want to line up the walkers in smart lines of three with blazing torches but they weren’t having it. But what a lifting of the spirits. To be accompanied by tens of thousands of predominantly young people, with plenty of older folk thrown in, committed to ensuring that the nation retained some modicum of belief in toleration and a viable future – economically, socially and environmentally — despite all that society has dumped on them in recent years, was nothing short of inspirational. We have a better “younger generation” than we deserve.