What a weird few weeks in terms of news and events. After umpteen stalled efforts at article writing, the whole month of April ended up passing by without a single post being published. That’s a first in six and a half years of blogging.
The media was however awash with material worthy of comment … but by the time I had got around to contemplating a particular subject, another one had come up to divert my thoughts.
This piece is going to be a quick catch up of “What The Fuck?” moments from April.
First up is the Windrush nastiness. Last month saw lots of coverage about the dreadful treatment of legitimate British citizens by their own government. I was appalled to learn that some of the families of the Windrush generation were at risk of being deported. Our country’s immigration protocols are well and truly buggered when our authorities allow in the needy from all over the world, whilst trying to turf out those that have already paid taxes, integrated into and contributed towards our multicultural British society. It is no wonder that lots of people were very angry.
The MP for Tottenham, David Lammy’s impassioned speech in the house of commons was excellent, a link is shared if you didn’t get to watch/hear it at the time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2q2dQlsywY
Those that made the journey to the UK from the Caribbean, and other places, from 1948 onwards, faced all sorts of challenges, not least of which was racism. The Windrush generation and their families helped make our society a more enlightened one; shitty, ignorant, casual bigotry on the scale that I observed in the seventies and eighties, has largely, and thankfully, been eradicated from our society. For those that were born in this country, that faced deportation (or worse, were actually thrown out), there couldn’t have been a worse slight. It’s no surprise that Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary has since resigned and that compensation is now the order of the day.
Next up North Korea.
WTF has been going on in that country to change its war mongering rhetoric to something more like reconciliation? I read the news of meetings in China, of North/South Korea dialogue and of Trump’s possible visit with astonishment.
I have been guessing at the reasons for this change of heart. Is it that all the sanctions have finally bitten? I wouldn’t bet on this one.
Is it that the North Korean regime now has fully functional nukes? This feels more likely to me than the first idea. Maybe Kim Jong Un believes he now has a better negotiating position because he is in charge of a super power too?
My final thought is that his testing programme has gone badly wrong and he has inadvertently destroyed his testing environment. Maybe the earthquakes/landslides reported by China were “significant”.
Whatever was the catalyst, I don’t believe for a moment that altruism has any part to play.
Inadvertently destroying, brings me to Northamptonshire County Council. I live within the territory of the authority and am frankly dismayed by the fuck up that has been made of running the council. N.C.C. is basically broke, if it was a business, it would have gone the way of Maplin and Toys ‘R’ Us.
Disasters, including building new offices it couldn’t afford (and actually having to rent them after construction), being scammed out of bucket loads of cash for NOT building a stand at Northampton Town Football Club, one chief executive being investigated by the police, another resigning, not to mention the Council being unable to fund any new initiatives or even its existing services … mean expletives are unavoidable when referring to the institution. I am embarrassed to admit that my council tax contributes to the authority’s coffers.
I hate politics, the thought of working in the public sector fills me with dread, our local MP is an arse … but W.T.F., all that stated, I think that even I’d do a better job of running N.C.C. than the current leadership.
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The media was however awash with material worthy of comment … but by the time I had got around to contemplating a particular subject, another one had come up to divert my thoughts.
This piece is going to be a quick catch up of “What The Fuck?” moments from April.
First up is the Windrush nastiness. Last month saw lots of coverage about the dreadful treatment of legitimate British citizens by their own government. I was appalled to learn that some of the families of the Windrush generation were at risk of being deported. Our country’s immigration protocols are well and truly buggered when our authorities allow in the needy from all over the world, whilst trying to turf out those that have already paid taxes, integrated into and contributed towards our multicultural British society. It is no wonder that lots of people were very angry.
The MP for Tottenham, David Lammy’s impassioned speech in the house of commons was excellent, a link is shared if you didn’t get to watch/hear it at the time - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2q2dQlsywY
Those that made the journey to the UK from the Caribbean, and other places, from 1948 onwards, faced all sorts of challenges, not least of which was racism. The Windrush generation and their families helped make our society a more enlightened one; shitty, ignorant, casual bigotry on the scale that I observed in the seventies and eighties, has largely, and thankfully, been eradicated from our society. For those that were born in this country, that faced deportation (or worse, were actually thrown out), there couldn’t have been a worse slight. It’s no surprise that Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary has since resigned and that compensation is now the order of the day.
Next up North Korea.
WTF has been going on in that country to change its war mongering rhetoric to something more like reconciliation? I read the news of meetings in China, of North/South Korea dialogue and of Trump’s possible visit with astonishment.
I have been guessing at the reasons for this change of heart. Is it that all the sanctions have finally bitten? I wouldn’t bet on this one.
Is it that the North Korean regime now has fully functional nukes? This feels more likely to me than the first idea. Maybe Kim Jong Un believes he now has a better negotiating position because he is in charge of a super power too?
My final thought is that his testing programme has gone badly wrong and he has inadvertently destroyed his testing environment. Maybe the earthquakes/landslides reported by China were “significant”.
Whatever was the catalyst, I don’t believe for a moment that altruism has any part to play.
Inadvertently destroying, brings me to Northamptonshire County Council. I live within the territory of the authority and am frankly dismayed by the fuck up that has been made of running the council. N.C.C. is basically broke, if it was a business, it would have gone the way of Maplin and Toys ‘R’ Us.
Disasters, including building new offices it couldn’t afford (and actually having to rent them after construction), being scammed out of bucket loads of cash for NOT building a stand at Northampton Town Football Club, one chief executive being investigated by the police, another resigning, not to mention the Council being unable to fund any new initiatives or even its existing services … mean expletives are unavoidable when referring to the institution. I am embarrassed to admit that my council tax contributes to the authority’s coffers.
I hate politics, the thought of working in the public sector fills me with dread, our local MP is an arse … but W.T.F., all that stated, I think that even I’d do a better job of running N.C.C. than the current leadership.
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