Fragmented

A few days ago I posted some peonies. I think they have a voluptuous beauty. Petals gracefully organised way creating something which gives pleasure and worth looking at.

I’m not comparing good government to peonies, in that even good government will rarely give pleasure and be worth looking at. But government, like peonies, do not last forever may and can fall apart quickly if things like water and trust are removed.

The flowers I photographed have now disintegrated and fallen to the floor. The coherence and structure gone and the centre of the flower now exposed.

From the centre looking out it may be a bit more bright. However those looking in see the stark nature of the plant.

I feel this is applicable to the ongoing saga. Listening to the PM this afternoon all I could hear was an exposed centre blustering around and trying to avoid looking at the floor and the mess created. The lack of direct answers; the obfuscation; the deflections: all designed to divert eyes away and not address the key issue. All that you say has happened is in the past: move on.

I do not underestimate the PM. One of my holiday (remember them?) reads a few years back was a series of articles by him for the Spectator. He has a sharp mind, some acute observations and a grasp of historical perspective. I did not agree with his argumentation and conclusions on various issues but he clearly has his vision of the world.

Yet he hides it under the bluster and bonhomie: hail fellow, well met etc. But it is wearing very thin. The performance before the Parliamentary Committee leads became painful to listen to. Vague references to “ lots of aspects of the DC stories were wrong” without specifying them or recognising that the core facts were true. His statement that “ what the British public want is…was not back up by evidence and ignored the messages the were coming in to MPs. Eventually pushed into admitting that he was convinced by the evidence he was not prepared to divulge the evidence. Now there may be reasons for that but he did not give them and left us relying on what is in the public domain which, as far as I am concerned, does not add up and undermines the core messages in the action against Coronavirus

And then he says in response to a question from one of his own MPs that we should not make things political and should move on. Just ignore the mess at your feet.

The individual petals still have a colour and beauty in their own right but they are not the same.

I wish the PM well in putting the peony back together again. He may partially succeed but it will not look the same.

I will get back to more traditional blip commentary!