Hope and expectation

It seems only days ago that I was watching the House of Lords in the wee, small hours. Yes, I watched as they debated ‘Bojo’s prorogation’. And, for some reason, it was imperative that I watched the debate through the night. 

It seems only days ago that John Bercow was shouting ‘Order’ only to shout it no more when parliament folded ahead of campaigning for today’s polling in the General Election. It seems an even shorter length of time when Anna Soubry, Luciana Berger and Chuka Umunna defected to the Independent Group for Change. 

We’ve had so many votes and calls for ‘clear the lobbies’ in the House of Commons over Brexit it seems there has been no time for parliament to discuss anything else. When the results are in tomorrow some MPs will have lost their seats, even Bojo only has a 5000 majority. New MPs will take up their places as backbenchers and others will be returned to the House.

Parliament will sit on Monday but surely it’ll soon be time for their Christmas recess. I wonder how many days MPs have sat in the debating chamber since Bojo was made PM. It seems very few. And the Irish parliament has hardly sat at all in three years. As the rest of the UK seems to be working round the clock some MPs seem to have had more time outside the House than in it. Not necessarily through choice.

And after all the hype and visits to Europe who remembers what Theresa May did or stood for? Will she regain her seat? And will she be remembered? 

It has been the strangest few years in politics that I can ever remember and I guess one sign that we have ‘weakened’ political parties is that no single party has had a strong majority in the house for over nine years. Another sign that there is turbulence or a lack of faith in our current leaders is, I believe, the fact we’ve had so many general elections in the last few years. It’s a case of choose the least worst leader rather than positively vote for who you feel will do the best job possible.

The country isn’t just divided by left or right politics, nor just north or south, black or white or pro- or anti-Brexit. We are divided in how we treat our poor. 

Last Christmas I couldn’t help quoting the old miser Scrooge from Dickens’  ‘A Christmas Carol’

‘If they would rather die than go to the workhouse, they had better hurry up and do it and decrease the surplus population.’

That was published in 1843. Some of the harshness of how the poor were treated then was echoed in 1847 in Bronte’s ‘Jane Eyre’. Today shocking headlines report a similar treatment of those in need.

‘More than 17,000 sick and disabled people have died while waiting for welfare benefits, figures show’

( The Independent, January 2019)

In the world’s fifth richest nation money spent arguing about Brexit and on high court or supreme court judgements over Bojo’s decisions since becoming PM could have saved some of those lives.

Tonight I will be watching the tv again into the small hours. Results from the general election will be pouring in. With fingers crossed I too will hope for the least worst outcome: a hung parliament. Above all our welfare state and NHS must be ‘reimbursed’ and protected from future cuts. People in Britain must be able to expect better. 

Yesterday, in the space of an hour I was unable to get cash out from an ATM-it was empty, unable to get medications from our pharmacy-they had run out and I had to wait over half an hour in a long queue in our sole remaining local post office (as so many others have been shut). If I was almost destitute or ill I couldn’t have gone on for long without cash in my hand nor medicines in my bathroom cabinet.

When I can get into town I will donate to the Trussell Trust. I have missed the Christmas deadline but no-one will say no to tinned steak, chocolate, wholesome soups and sticky toffee puddings, will they? That’s almost as good as turkey and Christmas pud, isn’t it? 

I do hope my efforts benefit someone in need and I wish Britain would return to being a caring nation. This time tomorrow we will know. And it’ll seem light years since all the electioneering, pamphletting and risen expectations were daily occurrences. My fingers are crossed for a better Britain. No-one should be born into poverty in a modern UK. Jesus Christ was born in a cattle shed. Surely we’ve become more caring about the have-nots in the last 2000 years? We should not have to hope. We should be able to expect better as we leave 2019 behind.