FORGIVE AND BUILD ANEW

The United Kingdom has been far from united over the last 3 years. The Referendum and the Brexit debates in Parliament have created deep divisions in our society; families have been split, generations have been estranged and friendships endangered. The substantial Conservative victory in the December 2019 general election has cleared the way politically and the new Parliament will vote for withdrawal from the EU by 31 January 2020. This will end the Brexit controversy and set the stage for a new Britain - an important element in this is rebuilding damaged relationships at home.

The Palace of Westminster

As an avid Leaver and Brexiteer, I acknowledge that it is easier for me and my kind to extend the hand of reconciliation as we have ultimately prevailed and are now tasting victory. Our quest for sovereignty, for institutional and economic freedom, and for delivering the expressed will of the people has been met, although important bargaining on the precise form of continued trade with the EU lies before us. A contrary bitter taste remains in the mouths of the Remainers which will take many months to erase. I have heard eloquent regrets of the damage done to the City in capital terms by the flight to the EU of important parts of overseas banks previously based in London; similarly, many friends have been upset by the weakening of links with a Europe they cherish. For sure Britain will not be unscathed by Brexit but I am sure the positives will outweigh the negatives and a worthy cause for all Britons is to work together to deliver those benefits and minimize those costs.

Our mutual forgiveness should embrace all statements made or arguments deployed which ignored or overstated the factual evidence. Such delinquencies are common-place in the heat of controversy. Insults were traded, which will be regretted on reflection, and Project Fear saw both sides distort statistics – we will soon see who was the greater sinner – but that chapter is closed and we can move on. Candidly, the milk of human kindness flows only so far and we are well rid of Jeremy Corbyn and his coterie, soon enough to be consigned to the dustbin of history. Few regret the disappearance of Speaker Bercow, whose bias debased his office and who, thank heaven, receives no honour at the New Year. Privileged undemocratic figures like MP Dominic Grieve and Lady Hale of the obstructionist Supreme Court are off the stage while blessed retirement has embraced over-rated Ken Clarke. I would welcome a substantial official honour for Nigel Farage, a doughty champion of Brexit, whose decisions have much helped Boris, but he may have to wait.

To protect our well-established two-party system, Labour needs much more moderate leadership to attract voters. These moderates exist and will have to climb out of their silent bunker; a re-alignment on the Left to include the LibDems and Greens is always possible. The Fixed Term Parliament Act needs to be reconsidered as it can, we know, immobilise government. The simple machinery of government has to be oiled – at least we now have a sensible Speaker in Sir Lindsay Hoyle, and the 2013 boundary changes, shamefully shelved by the Coalition in deference to the LibDems, should be enacted, reducing seats from 650 to 600 and evening out constituency sizes.

The Conservative government will have to deliver on its promises to fully fund the NHS, the social care system and to break the circle of deprivation which clouds the lives and prospects of the disadvantaged. It is a huge, but urgent challenge. A focus on the neglected parts of our country is sure to discover real local talent; revive their spirit and large areas can benefit. Longer term educational standards at schools and universities can be made more relevant and more useful to the demands of our modern world.

The future of the Union itself is being put to the test. Northern Ireland’s devolved constitution is not working with no Assembly at Stormont. The Orange and Green sects cannot agree on cooperation, with the UK’s many enemies in the Republic trying to wreak havoc while the UK is preoccupied with the EU. Brussels itself has fomented disunity in Ireland to bolster its cause. Post-Brexit the UK will want to ease border trade tensions, try to reconcile the factions and get government working again, not budging on the Unionist principle. The DUP will have to do more than proclaim a flat “No surrender” but also reach out to Catholic Ireland.

A more deadly threat to the Union comes from the SNP. Well established in Scottish government for 10 years, the SNP is obsessed with the goal of seceding from the Union. The SNP has failed to explain how its huge fiscal deficit can be bridged in an independence scenario, what its currency plans are and what it has to do to re-enter the EU. Tactfully Boris will have to steer Scottish opinion back to reality. I do not believe a majority exists for Scottish independence but nationalism is a powerful ideology and the UK government will need all its wit and determination to mobilise unionism and win this vital battle.

So, the nation faces many challenges, yet the proud spirit in this land is optimistic. We have entered times of great opportunity and we commend this great moment by selectively borrowing the positive inspirations of Ecclesiastes 3;

To everything there is a season:

A Time to be born, A Time to plant

A Time to heal, A Time to build up

A Time to laugh, A Time to dance

A Time to embrace, A Time to gain

A Time to keep, A Time to speak

A Time to love, and A Time of Peace.

SMD

29.12.19

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2019

BORIS HITS THE JACKPOT

Glory, Glory Hallelujah! The Conservatives have won the UK general election with a majority of 80 and the government should be able easily to pass the required legislation and withdraw from the European Union by 31 January 2020. This is an astonishing victory for Boris Johnson who attracted massive support from working-class voters in the Midlands, Wales and the North of England to add to the traditional Tory heartlands in Southern England. The political landscape has amazingly been transformed beyond all recognition.

Boris celebrates a famous victory at No 10

The election campaign itself was curiously uninspiring – the issues were “discussed” in the context of mindless slogans – “Get Brexit done” or “For the Many not the Few”. Boris seems to have been advised to keep a low and cautious profile, checking his natural ebullience and his TV appearances were few and far between. Jeremy Corbyn, Islington’s representative from Agitprop, spouted Leftie nonsense, usually unchallenged by the overwhelmingly anti-Tory media. Jo Swinson of the LibDems tried to make us believe she was in close contention for the office of Prime Minister. Noisy groups snapped at Boris’ heels disparaging Brexit. North of the border, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland kept up a steady Anglophobic bile, specifically directed at Boris.

The campaign was thus thoroughly depressing and I confess that in the dark watches of the night I sometimes could not dispel demonic visions of a future Corbynista “re-education camp” or of being trapped in a lift with arch-Remainers John Bercow, Dominic Grieve and Anna Soubry, to awake mercifully in a cold sweat.

But my nocturnal panic was wholly unnecessary. Jeremy (and Jo) turned off the electorate big-time. Labour seats which had stayed loyal to that cause since the days of Clem Attlee and even Ramsay Macdonald dropped to the Tories in droves – the likes of Bassetlaw, Stoke, Redcar, Wrexham and Bolsover. The voters were indignant that their referendum choice of Leave had been ignored for 3 years by the London Establishment and by arrogant Labour, led by a repellent Trotskyite clique. A revolution was taking place – Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive – and it was coming from ordinary patriotic Britons, not from the radical Left.

Of course, Boris’ government faces formidable challenges. After the formal mechanics of Brexit, the UK needs to agree a comprehensive trade deal with the EU – but both sides accept they have a mutual interest in a sensible outcome. We will want to attract inward investment on a large scale, paralysed during the Brexit wrangles, so we need always to be friendly to lawful business. Reunifying our country will involve high public spending on deprived areas – already promised. We will want to strengthen links with friendly allies outside the EU. The position of Scotland, currently run by Independence-obsessed yet well-entrenched Nicola Sturgeon, needs tact and statecraft to return my native country to the Unionist fold. I have every confidence that liberally-minded Boris can grasp all these nettles.

The enemies of promise have been vanquished. Corbyn will soon be dumped but Labour may never recover from this debacle. Jo Swinson has already lost her seat and resigned her leadership, entirely self-inflicted wounds after the LibDems sought to cancel Brexit. The Tory Remainers all failed to be re-elected. Truly we have been delivered from Evil.

Rejoice, Rejoice!

SMD

14.12.19

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2019

GOOD SPORTS

My excellent 1950s public school in Edinburgh was rather too enthusiastic about rugby in my time (I suppose it now teaches the French horn, interracial studies and plays a gender-inclusive version of lacrosse) and one of the joys of then going up to Oxford was the revelation that playing games was no longer mandatory nor even expected. No more wearisome scrums, no more communal showers and no more mud-bespattered hair – ah bliss! I was not some shrinking nerd but I soon enough concentrated on darts and shove-ha’penny, agreeable indoor recreations well sheltered from the North Wind and usually accompanied by a convivial pint or three of ale.

I wonder how our beloved leaders exercise when they are not haranguing the luckless electorate. We know that Boris rides a bike, a quasi-suicidal activity in central London, but I have to say his generous embonpoint probably prevents him from enjoying many streamlining benefits; the comfort of his ministerial Jag more becomes him. Michael Gove is a jogger and is often caught gasping like a gaffed salmon as he finally returns to the haven of his front door. What Jacob Rees-Mogg gets up to I can only speculate – I see him practising a spidery entrechat at the barre – whatever, his equable temper is its own reward.

Boris on his bike

Gove running for office

Jeremy Corbyn is not a team player and is, or certainly was, a keen cyclist too. In the 1960s he was to be encountered, all knobbly-knee’d and bicycle-clipped, touring the empty roads of East Germany admiring Ulbricht’s workers’ paradise. Unaccountably those workers were continually trying to escape to the West – not a journey contemplated in Jeremy’s Marxist handbook. Jo Swinson is a sociable type probably into synchronized swimming – her entire party can join her - while Nicola Sturgeon perhaps favours haggis-hurling, as long as she can blame England for any of her shortcomings.

Jeremy mounts his (red) bike

Widening the net, I suppose golf is a typical exercise for the laid-back leaders of men. Its image as a sport is besieged at present as its most ardent protagonist is none other than President Donald Trump. Is The Donald entirely to be trusted, will his conduct of foreign policy by tweet become the new norm and will impeachment proceedings enliven 2020? He will need the best shots in his locker to dodge these difficulties and achieve re-election next November, but we have seen this peculiar phoenix rise from the ashes several times already.

Trump drives on regardless

    

Closer to home, another golfer with a precarious grip on reality is our Prince Andrew, clouded and eclipsed by sordid scandal and perhaps to be exiled forever from the splendours of Windsor and Buck House. He has made a complete Horlicks of his position and deeply embarrassed our revered Queen.

Andrew stuck in the rough for good

The man in the news as I write is Emmanuel Macron quarrelling with Trump, Brussels and now beset by so-called ouvriers complaining about their amazingly generous, but clearly unaffordable, state- underwritten pension schemes. Mind you, if I were an ouvrier I would certainly defend these valuable “rights” – I am probably just sick with envy as I contemplate the UK’s feeble state pension. I do not believe Macron participates in any sport but I see this proud stony-faced figure drawn in a lavish carriage with liveried outriders, waving a gloved and bejewelled hand at a despised mob of Jacobins and gilets jaunes. Apparently even his cherished wife Brigitte finds Macron “arrogant” – quite an accolade from a people noted for their arrogance from Louis XIV through Napoleon to Charles de Gaulle.

Brigitte and "arrogant" Emmanuel Macron

                                 

My final sad sportsman is Sir John Major, successor to Thatcher and hitherto well-regarded retired Premier. The convention is that ex-Prime Ministers avoid partisan politics but yesterday Major advised the electors to support Tory Remain rebels, most of whom have been expelled from the Party he once led. This disloyalty sticks in the craw and while Major loved cricket in his idyllic (and disappeared) Huntingdonshire, I hope he is tied in further knots by an unplayable googly or that the ghost of splendid Bob Willis shatters his wicket with a jet-powered Yorker.

SMD

07.12.19

Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2019