Immigrant crisis

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Compassionate, caring Tories? Not with this Cabinet.

Balls patiently waiting for levers.

We supported Liz Truss winning the previous Whose Gonna Be The Next Prime Minister competition because we predicted she would sink the Conservative Party. She amply demonstrated her lack of understanding of conventional economics in the leadership debates and correctly anticipated that Conservative party members innate racism and credulity would see her through. The party members duly disengaged their brains and didn’t vote for the right winger who wasn’t promising tax cuts and also had the disadvantage of having a brown skin. The fact that he was reasonably competent and economically literate failed to be a pertinent issue.

With Liz Truss’s demise, Tory MPs acted quickly to neuter a second crazy decision by party members and rapidly voted for Rishi Sunak despite a last ditch attempt by showman and chancer Boris Johnson to regain office.

Now Sunak, as Prime Minister, is appointing his cabinet and revealing his true Tory credentials. Shockingly he has reappointed Suella Braverman as Home Secretary and Therese Coffey has become Environment secretary. Braverman, at a fringe meeting of the recent Conservative Party conference, laughingly commented that her dream was to see a headline Telegraph picture of a jet carrying immigrants and asylum seekers to Rwanda for out of country processing and decision making. Therese Coffey in her former role of Health Secretary made a mockery of her position by openly smoking, revealing she shared her own unwanted antibiotics with friends and suggested nurses could leave the profession if they weren’t happy with their pay rise. She also asserted the UK could recruit nurses from abroad. Oh yeah? What havoc will she reap on the environment? Gavin Williamson has been appointed Minister Without Portfolio, or, in other words, cabinet teaboy.

Sunak himself, this year, cheerfully stated that he thought there was nothing wrong with transferring money away from poorer areas to more well off areas.

Steven Baker becomes Health Secretary. Another right winger with a record of voting for underfunding, and setting unachievable targets for, the NHS.

Twelve years of Tory rule, partisan class politics and tepid economic growth. We are again faced with another swingeing round of cuts and austerity on top of a cost of living crisis. Tory economic policy has failed disastrously. They should call an election immediately.

I went for a 5k run yesterday after I decided to cut my bisoprolol from 7.5mgs to 5mgs a few days earlier. It had tripled to 7.5mgs following onset of atrial fibrillation but I felt I was more breathless on exertion and more tired with the increase recently. The run felt less of an effort and I feel I have a little extra energy. I’m taking my blood pressure several times a day and it remains within healthy limits. I probably would do parkrun again if I had more motivation. Part of the problem is that Milton Country Park did not bring parkrun back after the covid lockdown and the other runs are some distance away. It shouldn’t be a problem but for the present I seem to have lost my running mojo.

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Still running and still shocked by Tory bigotry

First post since last January. I’ve remained well, avoided covid and continued to run consistently. Parkrun returned over four months ago but I’ve only attended one so far. Unfortunately our local parkrun in Cambridge, Milton Country Park, decided not to host the event any more, a controversial decision that was extremely disappointing and taken for unclear reasons.The loss of Milton parkrun means I don’t meet up with running chums consistently and I’ve reverted to being a lone runner . I have, however, had more contact with a person I previously saw once a year at a local school run, which is good. They say friends and socialising is essential for robust mental health. I agree but I’m an introvert at heart. I did do Cambridge half marathon and three local 10k races and I’m currently running 30-35k each week. The Cambridge half took place late, in October, and I’ve signed up for the next one in March 2022.

Perhaps it’s a positive and protective behaviour that we don’t generally share our views and beliefs lightly with acquaintances, or that we do, much more whole heartedly, with people we know better or have reason to understand we will receive a sympathetic response. On the other hand, the unavoidable views of people who express clear opposition and animosity to our core values and standards produce a baleful effect and constant dismay. The Tory party, and Boris Johnson in particular, are the obvious examples. They have clearly demonstrated that elitist showmanship and entertaining guff can win hearts and minds. Unfortunately these skills and abilities are used to gloss over aggessive and cruel policies, blatent corruption and an obvious appeal to their credulous electorate. Their supporters thrive on the Daily Mail diet of fear, outrage, condemnation, predjudice, xenophobia, sentimentalism, thinly disguised racism and anti wokeness. They don’t appear concerned about sleeze, financial irregularities with tax payers’ money, the cavalier and fatal disregard for care home residents in the first covid wave or the plight of refugees dangerously crossing the Channel. Boris Johnson got Brexit done, they crow. We can be in control of our own affairs, stop immigration and forge our own way ahead. We can consider new ways of doing things, like pushing inflatable boats back to France and transporting illegal immigrants to centres abroad to be processed out of the public eye. The supine electorate laps up the big numbers the Tories claim to be spending on the NHS while fogetting that they ran it down in the first place. Rant, rant, rant. It’s not easy taking the moral high ground but this government of doesn’t make it hard either. What can you do when the Tories daily prove they possess no humanity and a sizeable chunk of the population just shrug their shoulders.