Half A Glass...

-

I wonder how is it that when the Right or Right-affiliated causes win an election by a small margin - even vanishingly so - it is greeted as a victory of heroic proportions, and when the Left win in similar circumstances, it is greeted as a defeat of like scope. Tigger to one side and Eeyore to the other. The psychology of this is telling, and could be seen as indicative of the reasons behind the current state of British politics: whatever cock-ups the Government makes, or disasters befall them, their attitude and that of their followers and supporters is always one of either insouciance or naked triumphalism. Narrow Labour or Left-affiliated victories however, are treated to a pall of such gloom and pessimism as to give the impression that a Plague Of Locusts was about to descend from God.

Compare and contrast the outcomes of the EU referendum and this weeks Batley & Spen bye-election, held by Labour by a very tight margin and seen by some as a 'defeat' for the party. The referendum result as we all know was to leave by 52% to 48% and was, and still is trumpeted as a glorious and swingeing triumph for the Government. Batley & Spen was held by Labour by the admittedly maddeningly close call of 35% to 34%; but the vote was split by George Galloway's Workers' Party with 22% of the overall votes cast: not as simple as it might first appear. The general feeling on the left is that it was local issues that dictated an overall swing in their direction and away from the Conservatives.

Rather than treat this to the usual glass-half-empty treatment, Labour should cast their faces to the sun and take it for what it is - a victory for the Left. A tad more cohesive optimism from our collective Opposition would go a long way to improving its chances of eventually bringing down this woeful bunch of chancers we kindly grace with the (morally undeserved) title of Government. I just wonder if this result could be a bellwether for a more general shift of focus towards those issues faced by communities and away from the Boris' Big Gestures that is currently the face of national politics: the devil, as they say, is in the detail.

Addendum: Two things - I don't wholly endorse Galloway's views or the simplistic policies of his party, but rather his general left-wing-ness; secondly, I turned on the radio just after posting this and lo & behold Keir Starmer was extolling the Labour win as a great victory - Eeyore with a smile at last. Don't get me wrong, I voted for him in the leadership election and I think he will do a good job, when the current atmosphere of lunacy has given way to some reasoned [two way, Boris, two way] debate.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [
Read more