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On a side note, it is no surprise to discover Sir Keir Starmer rents out his expensive North London home. Very socialist…
I don’t have a problem with that, and probably a wise move not to sell it as Starmer’s current abode is looking increasingly temporary with a move back to leafy North London likely in, at most, four years
Your point about we of a certain age having had the best of times is well made. The post-war 50 year-or-so political consensus and its associated economic prosperity was an aberration, not the norm and was essentially an unsustainable selfish carnival: we never had it so good, to paraphrase MacMillan
Someone recently descibed the present as The Age of Consequences which seems about right
Great to be reminded of Larkin’s ever more prescient poem, thanks
A Consequence that’s simmering away right now and might reach boiling point in the near future is the current drought affecting the UK. It’s only mid-May and the countryside is already assuming a brownish hue. I’ve never known it like this so early in the year
Mumblings are being heard from the water companies about low reservoir levels, and farmers/growers are becoming concerned about their crops
Forecasting the weather beyond a couple of weeks is a fool’s errand but nevertheless a ‘difficult’ summer seems more likely than not I reckon
Time will tell, as ever
I noticed that as well, on the way home from New Brighton on Saturday evening. The fairways on Warren Ladies Golf Course looked far more brown than green. Even the greens didn’t look particularly green!
On the subject of good times, I think anyone the same age as my parents (born just before or during WW2) were part of what was probably the most fortunate generation in human history. Too young to have been called up and if they were not in a town or city they were not likely to be in a bombing raid.
They had to endure rationing but afterwards they came to adulthood in a period of rising living standards, stable peace (providing no one was stupid enough to launch a nuclear missile), near full employment, affordable housing and pensions when they retired. And while it is easy to get misty eyed about it, there seemed to be a more secure social contract and a country more at ease with itself.
I pity anyone young today, growing up in a society where the social contract is in threads, there has been no growth in earnings for the best part of two decades, house prices are ridiculous, pensions probably won’t be available until their 70s and a war is raging on the continent with the potential to spread.
Sometimes it is good to be getting old and to have paid into a private pension.
I’ll never forget chatting with an American guy years ago and being horrified when he told me how much debt he was in because he’d had a university education. Never dreamed that young people in this country would face the same situation. I didn’t go to uni myself but my ex did a degree and an MsC and became one of the top engineers in his field. No debt and, with me working we had a fairly comfortable lifestyle. I still live in the house that we bought for @ £11,000 ( although we did live on baked beans, my clothes were second hand and we ran cars that needed the welding equipment that we kept in the garage; a meal out was a once a year experience because an unmarried friend of ours wanted our kids to know what it was like to eat out).We could also afford to have various cats and dogs, too, because veterinary fees weren’t astronomical.
Climate change happening right in front of us but try suggesting doing anything about it and you get accused of promoting ‘net zero madness’…
If you ask me, 24 hour news and social media are a big part of the problem. With 24 hour news they have to fill all of that time somehow and every single utterance by politicians is analysed to death. We used to get by just fine with a few bulletins a day and the odd other programme here and there like Question Time. Newspaper websites often run live blogs on politics all day, is there really that much happening to warrant it?
Social media, and the online world in general, thrives on clicks. Everything becomes polarised because that’s what drives engagement. There’s no room for a bit of healthy, reasoned debate which in fairness you do get on here. It encourages a world where politics is treated like a football match all that matters is that your ‘team’ is ‘winning’. One side is apoplectic when the other side does something they don’t like but when their ‘team’ does it they happily turn a blind eye
Plus of course the owners manipulate what people see and there’s plenty of unverified nonsense doing the rounds with nobody accountable for it. It’s really quite sad to see what social media does to people, some of them intelligent and successful. They end up reduced to spending half their lives sat staring at a phone abusing people they don’t even now.
I honestly don’t know where we go from here.
The upside is that there are some very good political podcasts although I doubt if many people listen to them. I used to watch Question Time religiously but gave up on it years ago when Farage* was on every other week.
*who refuses to be on The Rest is Politics Leading which would give him a platform to tell people what he would actually do in government…That towering intellect of our times Gary Lineker had this to say two years ago:
I assume he will now be criticising Sir Keir Starmer?
Do you honestly believe that Lineker is lacking in intelligence? Have you ever listened to him speak other than on MOTD? Or do you automatically class someone who disagrees with you politically as lacking in intelligence. Lineker has got more decency in his little finger than the whole Reform put together.
“Do you honestly believe that Lineker is lacking in intelligence?”
Yes, is the short answer. And if he wants to be a political commentator he should quit his job at the BBC. He should then go on political programmes and allow himself to be scrutinised and challenged, as opposed to blocking anyone who disagrees with him on social media. But he doesn’t want to do that because he knows he would have rings run around him and be shown up.
The fact he criticised the last government but has nothing to say about Starmer talking about “an island of strangers” shows his outrage his performative, selective and worthless. Imagine how he would have reacted if a Conservative politician had made that remark.
TBH have no political interests what so ever but Lineker and decency should not be in the same sentence .Ask tottenham fans about his snubbing of kids at the training ground back in the day, not even wanting to sign young kids autograph books and just walking past the kids as if not there. Like i say have no view on his politics but as a person he is a wrong un
I know PMQs is just cheap theatre but today Liz Roberts from Plaid Cymru put it to Starmer: “He once spoke of compassion and dignity for migrants and for defending free movement. Now he talks of islands of strangers and taking back control. Somebody here has to call this out Mr Speaker. It seems the only principle he consistently defends is whichever he last heard in a focus group. So I ask him is there any belief he holds which survives a week in Downing Street?””
Starmer replied: “Yes, the belief that she talks rubbish.”
Which bit did she get wrong? Also, note how a prickly little left wing man really didn’t like it when an intelligent woman challenged him. A common trait amongst such types.
Again, imagine if Johnson had made that remark to a woman. There would have been a media frenzy and social media would have gone into meltdown.
I encountered him once as well. He was guest speaker at an event along with David Gower. Let’s just say the contrast between the two was stark.
Met Lineker a few times, always courteous and friendly, despite being continually harassed for selfies
While seeking information on the ‘trade deal’ signed between the UK & USA came across this ….remember on Thursday Starmer called it ‘historic.The published document runs to just five pages and states that it ‘does not constitute a legally binding agreement’
An ‘agreement’ that doesn’t agree anything isn’t worth the paper it’s written on unless it’s binding on both parties.It seems the mad rush to ”agree a deal’ hasn’t in fact hasn’t done anything of the sort.
Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz recently said
“wouldn’t view (the deal) as a great achievement”
“any agreement with Trump isn’t worth the paper it’s written on” …pointing to the deals signed with Canada & Mexico during his first term and finally would view it as Trump strategy ‘divide & conquer’
good luck to all“Do you honestly believe that Lineker is lacking in intelligence?”
Based on his conduct over the last few days and the fact he has just had to apologise for sharing vile antisemitic imagery online (which he claimed he didn’t recognise as such despite it being obvious to anyone with a modicum of sense), I would suggest lacking in intelligence is a polite way of describing him.
The irony will be lost on him but he made a historically illiterate comparison with Nazi Germany two years ago but then shares images online which were used by that very same regime.
Perhaps he should stick to what he does “best”: talking about football and helping to sell fatty, unhealthy snacks to children.
Lineker didn’t know that the rat is a commonplace antisemitic motif, so while he may be rather more intelligent than his footballing peers (damning with faint praise) he’s obviously not researched the topic he’s so fond of banging-on about
I have as little wish to hear Lineker’s views on the Middle East as I did Ian ‘Lord’ Botham’s views on Brexit
Nor would I find Benjamin Netanyahu’s views on the 4-4-2 formation or Hamas’s views on medium-pace swing bowling of any interest
Edit: Crossed post Corker. Indeed
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