Banner
any day today rss X

News and Comment December 2019

Index: 2009201020112012201320142015201620172018201920202021202220232024

12 December (Part 1) - It’s fingernail biting time

It’s been a funny sort of day, dodging the rain and apprehensive about the future. Forty years ago, not to the day obviously, I promised my then seven and nine year old children I would double their pocket money to a pound a week if Mrs. Thatcher was elected; they told me not all that long ago that it made them the richest kids in class but I am not sure it did a lot of good. One is sufficiently left wing not to be sacked by the BBC and the other one runs a successful small business but is inclined to vote Lib Dem this time. University First Class Honours Degree and all!

I must have been a bad parent.

I have never ever seen any reason to vote Lib Dem. Until this year I’ve never known what their policies are; they have always been inclined to have different policies for different constituencies but in 2019 we do know what they want, to undo the result of a referendum they campaigned for.

There have been a handful of interesting emails today, one from someone who has extracted a promise from the Conservatives to fix the social care problems.


We will urgently work across Parliament to find a cross-party consensus that addresses the significant and complex challenges we face. This process will begin as soon as the next Parliament is established, and we will bring forward an answer that solves the problem, commands the widest possible support, and stands the test of time.

The third point of our plan is that without exception no one needing care will have to sell their home to pay for it.

This three-point plan stabilising the current system, immediately securing cross-party consensus for a long-term solution, and guaranteeing that no one will have to sell their home to pay for care will provide certainty and security for our older population.


With the old girl in East Ham seemingly going on for ever that would be a welcome development.

There were less interesting emails too. Someone complaining they would not vote for anyone who called an election in December. Was there any choice? The complaint came from one of those poor losers who do not understand the word democracy. A school teacher. Would you expect anything else?

There was another from a Sikh complaining bitterly about the Labour Party’s antisemitism. “It will be us next.”

A local businessman gave me a Crossrail related anti-Sadiq Khan rant. “A sh*t Mayor”.

FrothThere was an email from a lady who says she is not voting because her back garden fence is in a different constituency to her house and she is not going to vote for an MP from, as she sees it, a foreign borough. All her business is conducted on the far side of the fence. There is no accounting for that but it is one Tory vote lost.

A rather premature message commiserates with me (using today’s favourite word) for being represented by “a sh*t new MP”. That is very unkind and we don’t even know for certain that Joe Robertson is going to be elected yet.

By the way, the neighbours who burned their furniture to keep warm in the late 1960s “when the pound in your pocket” bought less as every day passed by went on to burn all their doors.

It’s going to be a long night and I have a horrible feeling it will be a horrible dark five years ahead of us too. A reader is so sure I am wrong that he emailed to say he would bet and buy me a beer if Boris Johnson didn’t win a majority. I told him to keep his money. If Corbyn wins he is going to need every penny he has and under him the beer will be all froth anyway, just like his promises, no substance, just air.

 

Return to the top of this page
Bonkers is a cookie free zone. Not a single one