16th August 2012

Manchester United lost the Championship last season with a draw at Everton. They won’t win it back in the opening game of this season even if the new players perform exceptionally well.

A known name and two unknown names will be in the side and with the opening whistle the long haul will begin by the end of the season the names will be familiar and on every fans lips as they cheer the team down the final straight.

In a perfect season it should be won well before my birthday, last season’s last minute goal scored after United’s game had ended with the necessary win, was just too much pressure and whilst I can’t speak for old men in general it certainly made this old man weep into his Boddington’s beer.

Hopefully in politics, as in football the new season will mark the beginning of changes that will contribute to improving the lives of people in communities around the country.

Once the Party Conference season is over and the stand-up comedians, who double for politicians these days, have made their speeches then hopefully common sense will prevail.

It is time to take stock.

The feel good effects of Jubilees and Olympics have not had the required effect and the need for a radical long term change of policy is once again clear.

Austerity is not working and can never work when the poor are left in poverty and rich exercise no social responsibility.

The so called quantitive easing strategy has failed, mainly it seems because most of the new money has been used to rebuild bank balances and the rest has gone in bonuses, golden handshakes and golden farewells.

August the 15th is the Feast of the Assumption of our Lady, I was visiting with friends and was invited to attend an evening service with them in their local church on the eve of the feast.

I generally enjoy the culture of the Roman Catholic Church there is a familiarity of usage alongside the reverence shown both to the clergy and the church itself, it is an easy going kind of reverence as the rhythm of the liturgy carries both the Priest and the Congregation along in an unhurried but brisk rehearsal of the sacred words summed up always in the final words:  ita Missa est. The Mass is ended. Go in Peace.

The final words are usually followed by a rush to the door and then off to the pub.

This day was somehow different.

Readers of this blog know that I am an Anglican parson and that generally, now that I am older I try to avoid religion and to maintain a wry view of politics.

But something serious happened on Lady Day this year.

We read the piece of scripture that is sometimes called the Magnificat aka Mary’s Song.

Try this.

The proud scattered in their conceit.

The mighty cast down and the lowly lifted up.

The hungry filled with good things.

The rich sent away empty.

Now there is a manifesto for change.

There is a whole new way forward, but who will have the courage to adopt such a radical programme and implement it?

One small step might be to think about quantitive easing and approach it differently rather than giving the money to the discredited bankers, declare 2013 a year of jubilee across the land.

Send every household a £1000 gratis, free and without strings attached other than the proviso that it should be spent.

Imagine the boost to the High Street.

Mary Portas would be delighted.

Imagine all that money flowing into the economy in a fast flowing stream of benefits and bonuses.

Rather than continued recession imagine the boost to the economy and if nothing else the houses and pantries of the lowly and the hungry might be filled with good things.

And then in an ideal world United would be Champions for the twentieth time unless of course Roberto Mancini visits the Shrine of Our Lady at Medjugorje again as he did last year, ‘finding peace’ and unseating the champions!