Iceberg, dead behind.

En español abajo.

Given the infrequency with which I now make these posts, it would be understandable if, dear reader, you’d thought the blog were dead. So what can have moved me sufficiently to write once again, finally, after so long an absence?



Well, July 4th. A day of great importance, for once, on both sides of the Atlantic. It’ll come as no surprise to anybody who’s read these entries over time that I regard the Tories as a corrupt, incompetent rabble. And a few short days from now they’re going to be swept from power with what, if the polls are to be believed, will be devastating completeness.



If that’s what comes to pass it will not be a first. At least in my lifetime, once the Tories have held power for some time, people seem to come to their senses (from my point of view) and comprehensively remove them from government. And while I will of course be happy if Labour sweep in with a large majority and some sense of society and civil conscience dictates political decision-making – in theory, at least – the reasons why it may be quite such a thrashing are a bit depressing, to be honest.



Putting aside the fact that Labour haven’t had to do or say a damn thing to build a huge lead in the polls, simply letting the Tories’ own vices and indifference to poorer people do their work for them, a significant element of their loss of vote share is going to be the Reform Party splitting it. 

The idea that Nigel Farage, who got his craved-for Brexit, should still be relevant in British politics, and apparently likely to enter parliament as an MP, should of course be an indicator of just how shit things are right now, thanks in large part to the great, shining turd of a decision that he campaigned for. 

But, while there seems to be evidence that even some Leave voters are beginning to accept that Brexit was a stupid fucking idea in the first place, the ongoing presence of that xenophobic, Putin-apologist gobshite on our screens betrays a lurch even further to the right by a chunk of the electorate.

 Brexit didn’t deliver the land of milk and honey that we were all promised? Their much-trumpeted £350 million per week inexplicably never got sent to the NHS? But that must have been true – their campaign bus said so. Just goes to show how deeply those pesky immigrants have screwed things for us. Let’s keep hammering that immigration nail for all it’s worth, shall we?



So we face the unedifying prospect of the far-right spectre in parliament on both sides of the channel. (That's how I view Reform, for all their efforts at in-public respectability.)

 And once the dust settles, and Labour have to actually govern, as they surely will because the polls can’t be that badly wrong, what the hell are they going to be able to do?

The red wall will surely go back up now that those Leave voters have got what they wanted. But nationally, the damage is already done. Brexit isn’t going to be undone any time soon - and why would the EU allow it anyway? - so Labour are just going to have to rearrange the damn deckchairs on the Titanic once again and hope nobody notices we’re still sinking.



Never mind, though. At least England are going great guns in the Eur… oh.

(Here's an addition, made a couple of days after posting this, about the true face of the Reform mob, in case anybody were in any doubt.)

Dada la poca frecuencia con la que ahora hago estas entradas, sería comprensible que, querido lector, dieras por muerto el blog. Entonces, ¿qué puede haberme movido lo suficiente como para volver a escribir, por fin, después de tanto tiempo de ausencia?



Bueno, el 4 de julio. Un día de gran importancia, por una vez, a ambos lados del Atlántico. No sorprenderá a nadie que haya leído estas entradas a lo largo del tiempo que considere a los conservadores una chusma corrupta e incompetente. Y dentro de unos pocos días van a ser barridos del poder con lo que, si las encuestas son creíbles, será una demoledora totalidad.



Si eso es lo que ocurre, no será la primera vez. Al menos durante mi vida, una vez que los conservadores han estado en el poder durante algún tiempo, la gente parece entrar en razón (desde mi punto de vista) y desalojarlos completamente del gobierno. Y aunque, por supuesto, me alegraré si los laboristas arrasan con una amplia mayoría y algún sentido de la sociedad y la conciencia civil dicta la toma de decisiones políticas, en teoría, al menos, las razones por las que puede ser una paliza tan grande son un poco deprimentes, la verdad.



Dejando a un lado el hecho de que los laboristas no han tenido que hacer ni decir una maldita cosa para construir una enorme ventaja en las encuestas, simplemente dejando que los propios vicios de los conservadores y su indiferencia hacia los más pobres hagan el trabajo por ellos, un elemento significativo de su pérdida de votos va a ser la división del Partido Reformista. 

La idea de que Nigel Farage, que consiguió su ansiado Brexit, siga siendo relevante en la política británica, y que aparentemente pueda entrar en el parlamento como diputado, debería ser un indicador de lo mal que están las cosas en este momento, gracias en gran parte a la gran y brillante decisión de mierda por la que hizo campaña. 

Pero, si bien parece haber pruebas de que incluso algunos votantes del Leave están empezando a aceptar que el Brexit fue una puta idea estúpida en primer lugar, la presencia continua de esa mierda xenófoba y apologista de Putin en nuestras pantallas delata un bandazo aún más a la derecha por parte de una porción del electorado.

¿El Brexit no ha traído la tierra de leche y miel que nos prometieron? ¿Sus tan cacareados 350 millones de libras semanales inexplicablemente nunca se enviaron al NHS? Pero tenía que ser verdad, su autobús de campaña lo decía. Eso demuestra hasta qué punto nos han jodido las cosas esos molestos inmigrantes. Vamos a seguir martillando ese clavo de la inmigración por todo lo que vale, ¿de acuerdo?



Así que nos enfrentamos a la poco edificante perspectiva del espectro de la extrema derecha en el parlamento a ambos lados del canal. (Así es como veo la Reforma, a pesar de todos sus esfuerzos por la respetabilidad pública).

 Y una vez que el polvo se asiente, y los laboristas tengan que gobernar de verdad, como seguramente harán porque las encuestas no pueden estar tan equivocadas, ¿qué demonios van a ser capaces de hacer?

El muro rojo seguramente volverá a levantarse ahora que los votantes del Leave han conseguido lo que querían. Pero a nivel nacional, el daño ya está hecho. El Brexit no se va a deshacer a corto plazo (y, de todos modos, ¿por qué lo permitiría la UE?) así que los laboristas van a tener que reorganizar las malditas tumbonas del Titanic una vez más y esperar que nadie se dé cuenta de que seguimos hundiéndonos.



Pero no importa. Al menos Inglaterra va viento en popa en la Europacop... ¡joder!

(He aquí un añadido, hecho un par de días después de publicar esto, sobre la verdadera cara de la chusma Reform, por si alguien tenía alguna duda).

There's a change coming

So, months have passed since my last blog entry. It's not like there's been nothing worth writing about - the current diplomatic crises, particularly with Russia and North Korea, our own political shambles and forthcoming election, the ongoing crisis in the NHS - I could go on. But when the will's simply not there, it just ain't there. That sense of despair I wrote about after Tump's election has manifested itself in my turning away from the news - for the first time in my life - and largely ignoring it.

I've still known what's been going on, of course; in the West the news media is all but ubiquitous. But that knowledge has only been broad strokes. I haven't really paid attention. Instead, I suspect like a lot of people, I've focused on personal stuff, and taking great pleasure in things that have gone well in my own life and those of the people I care about.

One of those things has been a long time coming, but is now in the process of happening. For about two years my partner and I have been seriously contemplating selling up in London and going to Spain permanently. We could see all too clearly what some of our family members are experiencing having worked hard all their lives, and hoped to avoid the same if possible and buy ourselves a little more time off work, as it were, than they've been granted. My own father died less than two years after retirement, and for around 18 months of that he was ill. My mum's stroke, which has left her partially disabled. My partner's mum is not in the best of health either, having worked bloody hard herself just as most people our parents' generation did.

Add those personal reasons to the broader stuff above, and you'd probably think we've got a pretty compelling desire to get 'out'. Well, it's a bit more nuanced than that, of course, as I'll explain below. It's taken a year to sell the house - thanks a lot, Brexit - but it's done. We're currently in Sussex, working our notice periods and getting ready to take car and cats out there. The contents of the house are already out there - more on that particular adventure in another entry. It's nearly done. I have two days' work left as I write this.

I've written in these pages before about the village where we're going to live. The work/life balance, the pace of life generally, the character of the people, the tranquility - all are considerably different to London. This is one of those chances that you have to take, I think, if the opportunity presents itself. We know what we're moving to - Viana doesn't change. It's probably not going to for the rest of our lives. Not much, at any rate. Therein lies the appeal, of course. But therein also lies the apprehension.

I said to my workmates, before my leaving drinks last Friday, that I'm extraordinarily fortunate by any measure. I've been blessed with a happy childhood, loving parents, friends that I'm proud to so name, jobs I've enjoyed. Sometimes. A partner I can never adequately live up to or properly explain her meaning to me. I've not suffered poverty or serious ill health. And anybody who knows me will know that I'm baling out on Sussex just as my football team has finally reached the top flight again after a 34-year wait. Complaining about pretty much anything at the moment would be self-absorbed to the point of solipsism and churlish in the extreme. So to be in a position to choose to make such a monumental change, to give up something that's so good anyway. maybe I'm pushing that luck?

What's swayed us, if I can speak for both of us, is the micro and the macro. That personal stuff gave us the initial trigger, and then what's going on at home and abroad seemed merely to serve up daily reminders that it was time to go. The country moving farther to the right, with a convincing Tory victory seeming likely (assuming they don't trip over their own feet as they seem to be doing their utmost to do). The appalling response of some Brits, both triumphalist and xenophobic in equal measure, to the referendum result. The erosion of the sense of tolerance and modern thinking that has always formed part of my pride in being British.

But, in London, and both working, we've been largely insulated from feeling those things personally. It's been more of a prickling sense that things aren't right out there than a jabbing pain of specificity. We've had it pretty good here compared to most. Even my partner, who's returning to her own home town in this move, has admitted to a sense of loss. Leaving a teeming London, where your door is locked overnight but anonymity is blissful and opportunity everywhere, for sleepy Viana, where your door never needs locking but everybody knows everyone else's business, will be a seismic change.

Locals have warned me about how hard it is over winter. Long, dark nights. Cold. Not seeing the sun. (I have to misquote Billy Connolly here - where do they think I'm from? Benidorm? Brits go whole summers without seeing the sun...) But the summers there are long, warm and reliable. We'll be able to travel. Getting back to Britain to see family and friends is cheap and relatively easy. If you're a child, or of a certain age where yoof stuff is no longer important, there can't be too many better places to be than Viana. We hope our friends will come and visit us, so we can share out just a little of that good fortune in our own hospitality.

So there may not be too much happening to us specifically which prompts me to write here, but who knows? I have so much to learn about leaving the London mindset behind permanently and settling in to another culture, that it may prove a rich seam. I'll keep you posted.




Edit: having just posted this, I've just seen the appalling news coming out of Manchester. Exactly the sort of horror that only happens in places where the shock value of it can be maximised. The likely ages of the victims of this atrocity, when they come out, are going to make unbearable reading. My thoughts with families and friends of everybody affected up there.

Health scares

I've written in these pages before about the Tories' fundamental inability to grasp the concept of the NHS, a huge organisation which does not exist to make money and is therefore completely beyond their comprehension.

Latest suggestions on a prominent Tory forum include limiting the number of times anybody can visit a GP. This, of course, goes against an NHS constitutional principle that access is based on clinical need. God forbid you should have some problem which required repeated visits. "Well, Mr Smith, I'm afraid to tell you that several tests on your shoulder pain have proved inconclusive, and you've now run out of visits. If I were you I'd go home and pray it's not an acute case of gammy-arm-falls-off-at-the-jointitis. See you next year!"

It's only fair to point out of course, that this is not a stated policy aim of the government, merely a right-wing discussion forum shooting the breeze. Like most Tory Health ideas though, the very concept, of course, has been less than warmly welcomed by the professionals it's likely to affect. The Chairman of the BMA's GPs committee certainly hasn't pulled any punches - Health Minister Jeremy Hunt has evidently irked the BMA on GP-related matters generally: Hunt "...keeps on tweeting and speaking a childishly superficial and misleading analysis of a very complex problem," according to the good Doctor Buckman.

Petitions are already being raised, objections voiced. Some of the Tories' more hare-brained ideas on the NHS have already died as a result, in part, of the hugely negative reaction from both professionals and public. With any luck this will be still-born too.

Cameron's spots the same as Thatcher's stripes

So David Cameron wants fundamental changes to the NHS which will, among other things, create more 'competition' between it and private medical services, and which have been branded as little more than privatisation by critics. Leaving aside the commitment in their coalition agreement with the Lib Dems, in which they said, and I quote, "We will stop the top-down reorganisations of the NHS that have got in the way of patient care," this is a bizarre concept to introduce to a publicly funded, not-for-profit organisation, the sole purposes of which should be to care for ill people and offer preventative advice. Exactly what sort of competition does he envisage?

"Undercut BUPA for a week's stay in intensive care and win a year's supply of Walnut Whips! You could even, if you perform exceptionally, win some medical equipment!!!"

We have, of course, yet to see the full text of the proposals, but I simply can't understand how you can introduce competition into an organisation like the NHS. Is it to remain free, apart from the bits you have to pay for? But never mind, according to Cameron on the Today programme this morning, the NHS is 'second rate' anyway, so any change is bound to be an improvement. Again, I quote: "I don't think we should put up with a second rate - with coming second best. We should aim to be the best."

See, that's where the NHS has been going wrong all these years. Instead of all the people who work their arses off within it wasting their time and energy caring about patients and making people well, they should be focusing on being better than Germany, or Spain, or Italy's medical care provision. That's what's really important.

So, Cameron will doubtless press on, trying to take the Lib-Dems with him. He clearly knows his stuff - I had no idea he was a medical practitioner, but evidently the negative comments from the Royal College of GPs and the BMA, apolitical organisations both, that the changes are unneccessary and savings and improvements could be effected without such drastic changes, have made little impact on a man who obviously knows better than they do. The plain fact is that the Tories will push on with stuff like this regardless of the advice from significant sections of the medical profession because they're idealogically compelled to do so. They can't not, because the NHS is one of those organisations that they simply can't understand. It's not there to make money, it's not there to make anybody rich, so it's an utterly foreign thing to them. A bizarre, huge, complicated abstraction that clearly does something, but the arcane depths of its function and its reason to exist are utterly opaque to them.

This hasn't changed since Thatcher's time and never will. I'm pretty sure that if it wasn't such a hugely important national institution that millions of people rely on, they'd ditch it altogether, and leave us with something like the American model, where you need a credit card when you need an ambulance, or you rely on charity. They know that would be catastrophic for their vote, so they can't take it that far and have to come up with some sort of fudge which satisfies their dogmatic impulses but can be twisted to sound like improvements to the service. The new caring, sharing Tories? Bollocks.