MR. STARMER AND AN OMINOUS FUTURE

That's the United Kingdom's future over the next five years I'm referring to, not the newly-elected Prime Minister. For him it's heady and bright, the tarnish is yet to come, but come it will!  Having read of his not-unexpected cabinet appointments, the one that fills me with dread and not a little loathing is that of Yvette Cooper as Home Secretary.  I never took to her or her other half, Ed Balls, during the 'Expenses scandal'.  They, along with dozens of MP's from all parties, were embroiled in claiming a wide-ranging and imaginative wheezes in order to inflate their income at the taxpayers' expense.  

Claims for second homes, false accounting, nannies 'moonlighting' as secretary's,  dubious gardening services and,  of course, the infamous 'Duck house'.  You can still 'read all about it' on Google ( other mediums are available!).  The list of culprits is long and head-shaking.  Messrs Blair, Brown and Cameron to name but three leaders who grubbied their mitts in the 'Trough of plenty'.  Unlike virtually all investigations of both MP's and House of Lords members that were upheld along with the appropriate repayments and admonishments, the case against 'Balls & Co' were dismissed.  Hopefully that served as a warning to the pair, though no smoke without fire,  I say!

YC's appointment, that of being in charge of the police and immigration, does not make for a confident start to life under the new regime.  The Rwanda plan is dead.  I see no problem with that -  I always saw it as a costly and unnecessary exercise.  Labour will always see it as an 'inhumane' exercise, although without a publicly-mentioned alternative to the burdensome problem    Ms. Cooper will no doubt open the flood gates if her previous stance on letting in the wastrels, the undeserving and the unwanted is anything to go by.  Released into our society to claim from our very generous benefit system, flout our laws and involve themselves in crime on a regular basis, it appears to fly in the face of Mr. Starmer's announcement that too many people are in prison!  My lack of faith in the Labour Party as a governing body has never changed despite internal swings from left to hard left and back again.  They are, and always will be the party of the the benefit claimant, lapdogs to the unions and weak on law and order.

I do hope the Labour Party will not assume that their large majority is in any way related to their popularity and turnout.  Their percentage of voters was 33.7% whilst winning 63% of the seats.  The Tories accrued 24% of the vote and 19% of the seats.  Whilst proportional representation would have been extremely beneficial to the smaller parties, I still favour 'First past the post'.  It's simple, and frankly, you know where you are, it's not difficult to follow.  However, one can sympathise with both Reform UK and the Green Party - that is if one could ever sympathise with the Green Party, who in my books are an exaggerated and far more worrying version of the Labour Party, in other words, not something to be recommended!  Luckily for those sporting 'common sense' and a 'sense of justice',  we Brits will not have to worry about the 'Greens' other than putting them to one side of the political plate for a while yet.  They did manage 7% of the vote and are up from one MP to four.  Reform UK ranked third in terms of voters  - 14% of the share -  but have only 5 MP's to show for it.  The Lib-Dems however, appear to have done their homework and now have a heady 70+ seats, which is quite a remarkable success when you bear in mind they only attained 11% of the share.  To me, both Labour and the L-D's are punching above the popularity rating.  I do hope they remember their share when preening like peacocks and crowing like cockerels. The problem with politicians is that they believe that their self-indulgent success will carry them through the next five years. They could do worse than to remind themselves of the Tories demise through similar failings.

The one aspect of British life that thankfully never fails is our ability to see the funny side of disasters, and that includes elections. I received several humorous pics and cartoons leading up to, and post result.  One was a poster advising: 'Vote Rick Astley for Prime Minister', with a photo of him beneath the headline.  Below are the lyrics listed as bullet points alongside 'tick boxes':  'We will never' - 'Give you up',  'Let you down',   'Run around',  'Desert you',  'Make you cry',  Say goodbye',  Tell a lie' ' Hurt you'...  How quick these quipsters are!  

Another pic saw Rishi Sunak in a takeaway clutching a carrier bag.  The caption reads: 'New Deliveroo driver on a practise run before starting 5th July.'   One pic appropriate to our new government's attitude to crime and punishment shows the rear panel of a white van pleading:  'DON"T steal my tools. I need then to pay for your BENEFITS!'.  The last is my favourite.  It shows  Mr . Starmer outside No.10 with the caption:  'It's not often a white family gets rehoused at the expense of an Asian family.'   Cue wry smile...

Until the next time, enjoy learning of the policies the Labour Party didn't make public until it was safe to do so!