ELECTION 2024

“It will all be over by Friday.”

A casual remark about the General Election in the pub just now.

I thought of The Great War, “It will all be over by Christmas.”

The rulers of ordinary people all over Europe failed in their duty to serve the people. In fact, it was their belief that it was the duty of the people to serve the interests of the rulers.

All those medals were not for defending your family, they were awarded for defence of the Establishment.

I see the General Election as a battle, an almost certainly lost battle, in the Great War against exploitation of the poor and the weak.

If/when Starmer wins shall the shareholders of groups like the ones destroying our water be fined and gaoled?

Don’t forget to tell Sid.

Shall all members of the Labour Friends of Israel be expelled from the Party?

That gap between rich and powerful and poor and powerless, shall it widen or narrow?

If/when Starmer wins the real war starts.

Maybe the emotion shall fade, but possibly I am not alone in feeling that I am living somewhere between the Decline and the Fall of the Roman Empire.

Look at so many elections. France, USA and the U.K. are not alone in substituting Comedy Music Hall for Politics.

Is capitalism dead? Or is it as Varoufakis says, transformed into an electronic commercial aristocracy that controls us in ways we cannot see?

The Amazon Empire.

The U.K. thinks it is undergoing an old fashioned General Election. It is not. Few candidates present us with a choice of social values. Instead we are asked, “Which drug would you like?”

Greed is disguised as growth. And then it is rewarded with a peerage.

I was born the same year that the Beveridge Report was published. From it came the Welfare State and the NHS.

Leave the Tories to one side. How many members of the Starmer Party have even heard of that Report?

I have spent my professional life mixing politics and education. I believe that both are about, or supposed to be about, personal and social fulfillment.

Are you only fulfilled when you climb higher and even over the backs of friends, family and neighbours? Are you?

Or can we try a bit of shared fulfilment?

I think we should.

If we do not we shall continue to be exploited, the local libraries shall remain shut and one day we shall wake up to a privatised NHS.

Can I suggest reading the Word Newspaper and visiting its website?

One day I shall learn to explain this electronically.

The fight back!