20th June 2016

So this is the week when the 'neverendum' finally drags itself, scarred and battle weary, to its conclusion.

On Friday, or Saturday, or Sunday, or Monday, depending of course on how many recounts will be required before this closely fought 'neverendum' requires before, by the narrowest of margins, one side or the other calls victory and the other concedes defeat, it won't, unlike our World Cup success of 1966, be over.

The debate will drag on with both sides claiming that their defeat/success was really a moral victory.

Will their be a rematch?

Will David Cameron hunker down in his Downing Street Bunker in Churchill's war room and ruminate about fighting on the beaches?

Or will Boris Johnson march up and down The Mall with placards demanding immediate entry?

That the 'neverendum' has become toxic cannot be in doubt when strangers meeting on opposite sides of the debate can literally fell each other at a demonstration in a City Centre.

This 'neverendum' has quite literally divided families, communities, neighbourhoods, congregations and societies.

Of course it should never have been called.

The Prime Ministers appearance on Question Time last evening demonstrated beyond all doubt that the public hasn't quite 'got it', some of the questioners stated that clearly, we are not sure about the issues, neither side has been clear or convincing, others simply made it clear by their questions.

Does it really all come down to immigration?

This referendum has unleashed a torrent of hatred, tragically focused in Birstall, West Yorkshire.

The 'outers' have a responsibility for promoting this hatred with their mantra of controlling our borders (we do now) and give us our country back (its not gone anywhere) now Nigel Farage says violence is inevitable, (based on false propositions), somehow, neither 'New' Labour or the 'condems' have addressed the issue of how and why ( I'm not mentioning Margaret Thatcher here) a whole class and generation have been made (redundant) surplus to the success of our economy, whilst capitalism's love children have sucked billions out of their businesses and lodged them in tax free locations.

The reality of the social progress that has happened during my life time is three fold:

The world has got smaller.  As a twelve year old I was offered the choice between a school trip to France or a New Bicycle, I was married with children before I finally acquired a passport and travelled to the continent, a family holiday in France. Since then I have travelled to Scandinavia, Europe, North Africa and the Americas, North and South. As my personal pilgrimage has extended my horizons so others have begun to see the future in terms of locating or relocating to improve their and their families lives.

Technology has advanced beyond the bounds of possibility. It was impossible to imagine as a child growing up in the North of England in the Fifties and Sixties just what the future would offer. From iPhones, to computers, to Robots, it was then, unimaginable, now as a Seventy year old I take it for granted, even if at times it feels like magic, that I can stream music, watch movies, order goods and download books at the press of a button. Do I want to return to the Fifties as the Leave campaign appears to be recommending? 

No I do not!

But I recognise that technological advances mean that all our lives have changed forever, whether it is work, leisure, banking, buying and selling, not only do we have the technology but we are rebuilding the world around us on a daily basis.

Climate change is changing everything. That the world is changing is clear that the climate is changing is still subject to argument and counter argument. But the impetus for the global movement of peoples is due not only to war but also to climate change, in fact some of the explanations about why war is destroying the lives of people in Africa and the Middle east is climate change and its impact on agriculture in rural areas, the shifting of populations into urban areas and the pressure for space and resources resulting in conflict spilling over into violence.

When I listen to the arguments of the leave campaigners I hear the constant Mantra of 'immigration' and 'sovereignty', what I do not hear is the sense that as the world changes so that we in the West will have to change too, not even to progress, actually, simply to stand still and maintain our place in the hierarchy of things, places and people.

It is clear that the European project is struggling to adapt to these Global Pressures but surely the way forward if the West is to continue to enjoy peace and prosperity is to work with our European neighbours and partners.

Leaving Europe will not free us from the consequences of geography, technology and climate change but it will  make it harder for an isolated offshore island, subject to the winds of change not only to stand still but to survive in a rapidly changing world.

9th June 2016

I have enjoyed my recent blogging sabbatical.

It came about for two  main reasons, the first was the 'neverendum' called by David Cameron which will actually 'end' on June 23rd but which everyone knows will not end then because the deeply divided Tory Party will never accept the result whether it is to remain within the EU or whether its is for 'Brexit' a  combination of hard headedness, ambition and opportunism will see to that.

The second reason was harder to deal with but involved the indoor critic and a constant round of medical interventions resulting in the end that we had to insist that our failing local NHS Trust referred herself to Newcastle, this meant an instant improvement in diagnosis, treatment and prognosis.

There has been alongside all this, despite all the words written, (and I read The Guardian, The Independent, The Financial Times and The London Review of Books) I have a strong sense that none of the commentators either know or understand what in practice Brexit will mean or indeed what the benefits of remain will be.

Clearly facts are at a premium.

Either Britain will rebuild its Empire, the Global map will be redrawn and repainted Red, White and Blue, Dom Joly's Schrodinger's immigrant will return home or not, the NHS will be £350M a week better off or not and our GDP will soar like a helium balloon into the sunny skies that will shine over Dover's White Cliffs.

Or my pension will disappear, my house will halve in value, my grandchildren will face a long term future of uncertainty, and the NHS will run out of Doctors and Nurses, because like Schrodinger's immigrant they are either here on benefits or here stealing our jobs or indeed, both, and war and mayhem will break out across the channel we insist on Calling English.

One commentator, clearly for remaining, has blogged relatively frequently, perhaps too frequently hence my own self imposed sabbatical, encouraging everyone to realise that they have a Christian duty to vote remain, as though he has, it seems, forgotten that it was only recently in Church terms, some four hundred years or so, that under the leadership of the King of the Day with the connivance of the Archbishop of the Day, that England left Europe the last time and that turned out alright. But that implies, as Giles Fraser noted in The Guardian, that Europe in inextricably bound up with the Big Guy in The Vatican, and our rejection of Europe is really a rejection of papal supremacy?

So what am I voting for, or against, and does it matter?

Harold Wilson in a speech made in 1971 made the following statement:

'We shall watch anxiously how far the irresponsible men now in power in this country fritter away (our) strength by pursuing false economic objectives and by their policy of dividing our nation'

Harold Wilson called the first referendum in 1975 and it was his negotiation of the European Regional Development Fund that has done so much to benefit the British Economy and the Regions of the British Isles.

Since then of course our economic strength has been frittered away and our nation divided by successive administrations led by 'irresponsible' men and women.

Initially as this process started I was clear, indeed I said as much in a previous blog. However as the debate has  unfolded and the fog of uncertainty has descended and as I have heard and read so much that is both untrue and false, it has seemed to me that 'brexit' is a classic non seqiter it simply doesn't follow from the arguments.

Not enough houses, house prices unaffordable, too many people are homeless logically the sequiter should be build more houses?

NHS waiting lists are too long, operations cancelled, doctors appointments like gold dust logically the sequiter should be more Doctors? Not as Jeremy Paxman recently suggested stop treating pensioners unless they are tax payers?

Schools are overcrowded, teachers stressed again, surely more teachers are required?

Too many immigrants from the EU picking our cabbages? Surely the answer is not send in some old people to pick them instead in return for their pensions as a Member of Parliament recently suggested?

Clearly calling the referendum was a mistake, David Cameron is no Harold Wilson. But it is becoming an Alice in Wonderland referendum in which too many people are claiming to be believing seven or more impossible things before breakfast.

So the decision to vote remain remains and hopefully after June 23rd no more will be heard from the irresponsible men and women who have created this exercise in democracy gone mad.

Socrates also took a dim view of democracy, in fact his view was probably even dimmer when he was found guilty democratically by a vote of five hundred of his fellow Athenians but it seems that, unless you are a Harold Wilson, allowing, as Socrates expressed it, surrendering the direction of a nations future to people without adequate experience in Government by regarding the opinions of all citizens as being of equal value is simply a folly.

And a folly is what we have.

Clearly 'Brexit' will be a folly even if it is called an 'outstanding success' by the Brexiteers in Chief.