THAT "SCOTTISH PLAY" - A SHAMATUER PERFORMANCE

If ever there were three ready-made recruits for a new stage version of Macbeth that will run for five years, then surely all three witches can be found in the shape and personalities of Angela Rayner, Yvette Cooper and Rachel Reeves.  

The rush to pass legislation forcing local councils to allow swathes of our already shrinking countryside for yet more housing along with the increased traffic that comes with it, shows a total disregard for our environment and the wishes of the native population.  Angela Rayner Hyphen Witch will have a lot to be remembered for in this Government sponsored farce!  

Changes to immigration rules, relaxing the system that allows more ready access to visas and citizenship for illegal migrants and dependents will only increase our population, swell the percentage of unnecessary and unwanted incomers and increase the need for yet more housing. Yvette Cooper has spent her political career crusading on behalf of those who contribute nothing to our country but will be a constant drain on our already stretched finances.  Another witch to stir the 'Cauldron of Misguided Idealism'.

A disputed £20 billion hole in the country's finances has led with great haste to our newly-installed Chancellor axing the winter fuel allowance for the majority of pensioners.  That move may well come back to bite the witch.  If there is a financial 'hole' of that magnitude that needs plugging, instead of cancelling rail and road projects that have cost fortunes in taxpayers money to get where they were in the pipeline of projects, why not just take the course that would bring joy and relief to every beating native heart - STOP OVERSEAS AID!!!

Why oh why are we still giving millions of pounds to despot rulers, third world countries who should be looking after their own burgeoning population, propping up economies and injecting taxpayers 'hard-earned' cash into countries that possess their own nuclear capabilities but still take our money?  All three hate the middle-classes, those who have worked for what they have and contributed throughout their lives to the betterment of this country.

According to the 2022 financial report by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, we no longer give 'aid'.  Oh no, nothing so divisive a word, it now comes under the all-embracing title of ODA - 'Official Development Assistance', such a benign and nebulous term, no-one would know it was there.  It could be taken straight out of 'Yes Minister'! We now have a 'development partnership with India based on sharing skills, expertise and development capital investments'.  This work reduces poverty, tackles climate change and creates new partners and markets for the UK.  Well that's the story they tell you on their website.  A site I'm sure they're very proud of. A site, not to mention sight, for sore eyes sadly. Larger chest expansion and tub-thumping comes from their statistic that £80.2 million of the UK's investment has already been returned to Her Majesty's Government (In 2022 we still had a Queen), This £80+ million 'payback' covers the period 2015 - 2020.  During that time we handed out the grand sum of £356+ million.  The disparity appears a little one-sided!  The amount received back from Pakistan, however, is not mentioned in dispatches, so no trumpets blown on that score, but the amount 'invested'  by the UK was, over the same period, £1,871million.  That not-untidy-sum would have been a lot better spent within the NHS, care, education, or getting that bloody tunnel built under Stonehenge!

My hope is for a lack of infighting and back-biting from the Tories.  They are past-masters, and I suspect past-mistresses, in the art of 'knifing in the front' let alone the 'back'! Please get it right, choose a leader that has genuinely listened to the publics concerns and realise that they are serving our country, not the other way round.  Do not wring your hands in embarrassment or awkwardness when challenged by a do-gooding woke-ridden leftie over the perils of immigration and racism.  If black lives matter, so do white ones as well.  What's good for the coloured or swarthy goose is good for the pinker-shade-of-white gander.  If all else fails in their search for a leader, they could do a lot worse than crawl back to Boris, give him their unswerving loyalty and having asked for his forgiveness, sought his leadership at the next election.  Michael Gove and that odious Cummings fellow are no longer in the stalls planning their next self-satisfying and destructive move.  The Conservative party is well shot of the pair of them.  What a pity one cannot say the same of the 'Witches of Westminster'!