Slippery Slope

One of the many benefits of Blip is that it allows me to look back at my feelings at various times over the last few years.

My fourth Blip was on 24th February 2011and I touched on my increasing worry about the rise, in the UK, of Nationalism by doing something on Patriotism. (my journal goes back to my birthdate but these were all later "Back Blip"posts)

In those early days, I didn't know my way or place in Blip and wanted, of course, to be a nice guy like everyone else and so didn't speak my mind but skirted around it in a light way.

Over the years as Ukip and Brexit developed I went through loads of phases: Anger at David Cameron for being so spineless and certainly ended forever any wish to be associated with the Conservative party which had long ago been my chosen haven. I had moved towards LibDem (what were they called in 80/90s?) but they lost any real clout and anyway I had lost the right to vote, so it didn't matter. The country seemed in pretty good hands under the conservative Blair even if his head over heels love affair with the USA was always troubling.

Well on the day I went to A&E with pains and was operated on and my UK passport ran out, the UK voted at the Referendum and I awoke the next morning to literally listen to the 49.9% become 50.1%. Sheer disbelief.

In the last years, emotions have kept changing between sorrow and sheer outright laughter at the Comedy of Errors. But was still fairly convinced it would all go away and sense would return. But no, it simply got worse, day for day, week for week. Redlines and Deadlines thrown out of windows and cans kicked down roads.

Then, real worry that the entire structure of UK society was breaking down. It seemed not even the Leavers who had perhaps voted that way on a spur of the moment fear, were prepared to admit they would really like to change their minds. It wasn't just the frankly quite openly pig ignorant skinhead bigots and racialists or even the idiots of my generation who could claim around 20 terrible years of pre-EU Britain, struggling to stay above water with strikes everywhere, constant power cuts, union run business, devaluation of the Pound and the World Bank having to step in, and yet claiming we beat the Nazis in a war they never experienced and be GREAT again.

No, it was also many younger people under 40 and I even saw young 20-year-old teachers being interviewed in "serious" discussion programmes, who were repeating all the same pack of lies that had long been exposed. And these people teach the next generation!!

And since December, apart from the ever continuing laughs at Ferry businesses and the like, the simply unbelievable tactics of the UK Prime Minister to a)save her own name b) save her party at ANY and ALL costs. Made all the worse by the opposition Labour Party Leader doing exactly the same.

Despite the fact that the UK's holy mother of all democratic Parliaments having a system that allows a bill to be debated and voted on 3 times in the Commons and 3 times in the Lords, be put to 2 separate Committee stages then 2 Report Stages and finally an Amendments Stage before the Queen signs it, the "People" are told they only have one shot at a vote on the issue and no right to have any review time and accept nearly 3 years later when the world has changed xx times, that the 2016 choice is binding. The self-declared experts in Parliament are allowed nearly 10 stabs at it but the people 1.

Well, today, with the chance of a "2nd Referendum" or "People's Vote" or "Final Say" seemingly gone, I turned angry, really ANGRY. 

I saw a Tweet from a Mother in the UK who along with her student daughter had been so thrilled at getting a place and grant on an EU sponsored Erasmus programme to study somewhere on mainland Europe. Today, the daughter got an email from her Durham University saying that in the event of a No Deal there would be no financing and thus her "dreams" (as the mother wrote) would be lost and gone forever.

Alone this one single event made me boil over.

What do these devils, as Donald Tusk rightly called them, think they are doing to the dreams of millions? I am lost for words.

Tried taking an emergency Blip very late afternoon but it looked awful in the strange blue colouring snow forces on a camera in automatic mode. So have tried with little success to improve it on the PC. It was meant to show that the snow has now disappeared from the roof as we have sun, occasional rain and positive daytime temperatures. Well not quite gone at the point above the front door where the avalanche wall is placed. It is holding back a 3-metre wide block of snow, part of which still covers part of the PV which is now doing otherwise well.