4/7/24: A flicker of hope?
As the UK electors are at last given an opportunity to rid themselves of the clowns that have been in charge of government for the last while, I find myself asking why I still care so much about British politics. It is, after all, almost 18 years since I left the country in which I was born, that my father died fighting for, and that educated and nurtured me.
Of course, there is the simple fact that my income now comes from pensions earned over 48 years of working for British companies. The purchasing power of that UK income here in the Eurozone is influenced by the economic policies pursued by the British government. The banking crisis of 2008/9 reduced it by a quarter. A small recovery over the next few years was wiped out by the infamous decision, eight years ago, to extricate the country from the European Union.
That is a selfish reason for taking a close interest in events across the water. But it goes much deeper. That decision, taken by a small majority of people who had been lied to repeatedly about the nature and purpose of the EU, was symptomatic of a regression of the body politic into a brutal regime more supportive of the wealthy than of the unfortunate.
Forty odd years ago I believed myself to be a minor cog in the resistance against Thatcherism. It was Britain’s first woman prime minister who began the reversal of the post-war…