It’s not been a good week for our friends and neighbours across the short straights as Grant Shapps now refers to the Straits of Dover (presumably for some reason known only to himself, as for most people here the Straits of Dover is what that stretch of the English Channel is known as and if asked would probably not know what he was talking about). Not that most people have any idea of what the Prime Minister and Ministers of this government mean when they speak anyway, as there have been so many ‘U-turns,’ obfuscations, and spins in the last year which make even the ‘government’ of David Cameron seem staid by comparison.

We’ve all now become accustomed to the presidential style of press briefings held in Downing Street which have become something of a talking point, mostly because of the utterings of various civil servants or politicians as they jockey for position for their moment of fame before the world press. The one earlier this week took the biscuit, when the Prime Minister said he took full responsibility, looking as if he had had yet another bad hair day and at one time it looked as if he would collapse into floods of tears. If somebody is coaching ministers these days can somebody point out that at a time of what we are told is a national crisis, we need somebody – and to be honest I’m now past caring who it is or what they do – to get up and at least look as if they are in command of themselves, speak in an authoritative manner and show some leadership and, dare I say it, some courage.

This continuous virtue signalling about the covid situation and reporting the deaths of people is now getting tedious in the extreme. How many more times do we have to hear the hackneyed phrase ‘our thoughts are with the bereaved who have lost loved ones’ and ‘we’ have done our best’.  Well, actually, I had this old-fashioned view that is what the government and ministers actually did, take seriously their duty to, amongst other things, protect and keep the country and its citizens safe. Yes, we know they have made mistakes, we all understand that. We also understand that other governments in many countries have also made mistakes, even if the talking heads on breakfast T.V. admit and report so.

The country is getting restless. We are now one month into a new year with – outside the army of favoured public employees and apparently increasing numbers of furloughed families – people are seeing their savings disappear, the future’s uncertain and their children’s educational prospects are reducing. People need some hard facts now, not slogans about keeping safe and protecting the NHS. Of course, the NHS needs protecting, and the government has provided billions of pounds and promised to fund whatever it takes. Which is all very well, but even the residents of Audi Avenue are now starting to ask how all this is to be paid for. Apparently, the Chancellor is sitting on a debt mountain of over £2.13 trillion pounds and is borrowing more each month, debt that is going to be a millstone around the neck of taxpayers and future taxpayers for generations to come. It seems the unspoken elephant in the room is also unemployment, which is rising. However, according to the BBC, we don’t now say unemployment, we say a reduction in employment or some such.

In December 2020, 2.6 million people were claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance or Universal Credit. Hotels and restaurants, shops and entertainment have all seen large numbers of jobs lost, all of which employ vast numbers of young people. The self-employed, too, have been badly hit and as yet many have received very little if any help from current government schemes.

Our local town, normally a hive of activity has seen more than its share of retail closures – hotels restaurants and entertainments venues – and this in an area that welcomes hundreds of thousands of tourists homegrown and international. A walk around the town is a dispiriting experience, and as some wag recently said, the town and business is basically dead, the only signs of life you see are at the cemetery.

So, a little motivation from political and media figures, both local and national, would be nice. Readers may remember ‘nice.’ It’s on posters all over the place and is apparently part of the ‘nice’ and ‘woke agenda’. The problem is, however much the ‘woke’ world and their partners would love to live in the world portrayed by ‘Friends’, it just hasn’t happened. For all the ‘soundbites’ the ‘touchy feely lights, the catch phrases, the slogans, and the memes’ when, as we’ve seen over the last few days, push comes to shove, self-interest as well as national self-interest comes forcibly back into play. Well, isn’t that a surprise, although it may not have been to anyone over the age of 60. Those people, of course, according to younger generations (whenever has it been different?), know very little and if they ever did, have views and attitudes which are so, well, yesterday and are most certainly, to use one of the most weasel mealy mouthed words beloved by the public sector and the broadcast media, inappropriate.

You may well think that it’s inappropriate for younger people, particularly those who kid themselves that they are ‘middle class’ and who deride older and therefore lesser people’s problems as ‘very first world’ and of no consequence – to them at least – to be faced with a turn of events that they have to solve without throwing buckets of  preferably someone else’s money at it, or by the modern phenomena of cancelling views or noises that don’t fit their narrative, have finally found that life and the actions of others do not always work to their advantage.

Older hands may well smile and, to use one of the woke generation’s favourite words, be quite satisfied to see and experience ‘karma,’ and how well deserved.

Instead of talking our country down, which most of the so-called educated of the last thirty years have delighted in doing while praising the worth of everybody and everything that emanates from anywhere else on the planet, and who knows judging by how and what these people  often talk about, from some other galaxy; they have found to their evident disappointment, that, with all its faults and mistakes and driven by goodness knows whom as far as ordering and producing and distributing the apparently life-saving vaccine, the U.K. actually got something right. Leaving our ‘friends and partners’ collectively gnashing their teeth and trying to derail government attempts to actually look after its citizens, something only a generation ago would have been seen as normal. Suddenly our friends and neighbours’ efforts to belittle Brexit and cause as much disruption to the Brexit process and embarrassment to Boris Johnson’s government as possible, seems not such a wonderful idea. After all, why, you may ask? Well ‘I mean this affects us’ doesn’t it, ‘they,’ the E.U. are not playing fair are they! Oh dear, never mind, what a shame, what a surprise. Welcome  to the real word. Perhaps parents and grandparents knew something after all, but as we all know, ‘well it’s different this time.’ It certainly is, because this time millennials, parents and grandparents are not calling the shots, you are and good luck with virtue signalling and emoting when the going gets tough, you may well find that emerging competitors will be playing by different rules.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Part 2.

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