Well, it seems there was another political parties’ debate on television last night. Another one I missed. The election campaign period is half way through. There are 4,500 candidates and it seems that no seat has fewer than 5 candidates to choose from. There are 459 independent candidates, more than twice the number in the last election. The Reform Party has 609 candidates, again twice as many as the 277 they fielded when the party was the Brexit Party. So there is a danger that Reform might be a notable presence in parliament after all. Hopefully what will happen is that those candidates will take votes away from Conservative candidates and make it possible for Lib Dems and Greens to win more seats. We live in difficult times!
Rishi Sunak is coming in for a lot of mockery for explaining how hard his childhood was without access to Sky! And here are a couple of cartoons regarding opinions of our politicians.
Elsewhere in the world problems we have stopped talking about continue. Here’s a link to the state of affairs for girls in Afghanistan. Girls in their teens are being married off to older men, subjected to abuse and deprived of the dreams they might have had of becoming teachers, doctors, something influential in the world. For many their world is restricted to their homes. A sad state of affairs!
Negotiations are going on about a ceasefire in Gaza. Israel continues to move tanks into Rafah, aid is still not getting in, children continue to die of starvation and yet it is Hamas who are seemingly not cooperating. Interesting! Here is a Michael Rosen take on the situation:
“'Let's have a talk about negotiations,' said the King to his tutor.
'That's a good idea,' said the King's tutor.
'I don't really get why we bother,' said the King.
'Neither do I,' said the tutor.
'Then why do we do them?' said the King.
'Well,' said the tutor, 'mostly because everyone out there says that we should.'
'That's really boring, isn't it?' said the King.
'Yes,' said the tutor.
'Hmm,' said the King, 'so given that we have to do them, what do we do?'
'We say that we are willing to negotiate,' said the tutor.
'Even though we're not willing.' said the King, 'Then what?'
'We faff about,' said the tutor.
'Oh is that where you wave bits of paper about?' said the King.
'Exactly,' said the tutor.
'Then what?' said the King.
'I give you proof that the other side wrecked the negotiations last time and you tell everyone about that,' said the tutor.
'Why do I do that?' said the King.,
'To show the world that we are willing negotiators and the other side are not, and never are,' said the tutor.
'Good,' said the King, 'then what?'
'At some point, once the negotiations get going, I tell you that the negotiations have broken down. I give you a reason. I say that they have broken down because, as we predicted, the other side have made impossible demands,' said the tutor.
'But will they have made impossible demands?' said the King.
'That's neither here nor there,' said the tutor, 'the point is the negotiations break down and we say that it's the other side's fault.'
'Then what?' said the King.,
'We carry on,' said the tutor.
'Which is what we wanted to do in the first place,' said the King.
'You've worked hard in today's lesson,' said the tutor, 'well done.’”
On the positive side, I didn’t get rained on when I went out earlier today. Neither did I get wet going to Tesco. It appeared to have rained while I was in the store but I managed to get home without being soaked.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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