Ethical matters!

 Any Questions on the radio began today with a young woman asking, “Should a prime minister be ethical?” Surely the first response should be a resounding YES! It’s led, however, to a whole discussion about what ethical really means, who decides what is and isn’t ethical and all that sort of thing. That’s the problem with asking such a question of a bunch of politicians on a panel!

(The Any Questions audience, by the way, is extremely rowdy. This is the second I’ve heard an audience to this programme cheering and heckling. Is this a sign of the times? Do we no longer sit politely and listen to debate?)

If all politicians had to go through a basic honesty and ethics test before being declared fit to govern, maybe the world would be a better place. 

We’ve got the send-asylum-seekers-to-Rwanda problem and now the proposal to electronically tag asylum seekers. How ethical are these matters? And lurking in the background is the imminent extradition of Julian Assange. He plans to appeal the final decision but personally I don’t hold out much hope. We’ve turned into a rather nasty country, unfortunately!

At the same time we have an ongoing food crisis, with odd solutions proposed such that we should more venison! And it seems that food is rotting in the fields because they can’t find people to harvest it.

And just when we thought Covid was all over, suddenly cases are on the rise again! I blame all those street parties for the jubilee celebrations.

Yesterday our prime minister was supposed to be going to the Northern Research Group Conference in Doncaster but instead he went off on a surprise trip to Ukraine. Was he afraid of Northern Tories? Or is it just more glamourous and heroic to whizz off to a country at war? Government by big gestures? How ethical is that?

Here in the North, things have cooled down since yesterday. My washing is still drying nicely in the garden though. France and Spain continue with excessive heat. The French are taking care to ensure their older people are looked after, not wanting a repeat of 2003 when a lot of older died from dehydration. Spain is suffering from forest fires. None of this heatwave stuff is of itself surprising. What is surprising is that it’s started a whole lot earlier this year than in previous years. 

We need to be careful not to forget climate crisis in the midst of all the other stuff that going on!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!