6 July 2023
Corbynista Rides Again
Sickness and Nonsense
by Don Urquhart
3 February 2023
We were visited by young Norman last week. Like many friends and relations he blames us for the current state of the country because we voted for Brexit. Norman and I often engage in vigorous political discussions i.e. he shouts at me. He knows my views on Starmer and warns me against wasting my vote on the Greens and such just because I have Starmer as only a little less evil than the Tories. He told me to hold my nose and vote for Starmer to get the Tories out. You don’t argue with Norman.
6 February 2023
A month ago the Prime Minister told us the goals he should be judged by this year. The themes were:
Inflation;
Growth;
Debt;
Waiting Lists;
Small Boats.
He and other ministers told us these were the people’s priorities. I wonder which people he was talking to and about.
He has not asked the 13.4 million people living in poverty what their priorities are. I think their list might be something like this:
Enough decent food;
Somewhere warm and dry to live;
Emergency services that turn up on time;
Schools with enough qualified teachers;
Inexpensive public transport.
7 February 2023
After 2 months of tests, wrong diagnoses and treatments I am referred to the MacMillan Centre where a Consultant shows me the results of a PET scan which looks to me like an abstract attempt at rice pudding invading a human body in a lumpy manner. For him it signifies aggressive lymphoma and a poor prognosis. Nevertheless he prescribes chemotherapy and a cornucopia of tablets and injections: i.e. he didn’t give up on me.
Like his hero, Corbynista went into hibernation. So 3 months of low appetite, poor concentration. Reading and writing were impossible. Family and friends carried me through.
Early May they got me to the hospital in a wheelchair. My consultant was putting me on an experimental US drug unlicensed anywhere in the world. Two days ago I walked into the consulting room much improved physically. He told me that 6 weeks previously they thought they had lost me and not to take anything for granted.
In my hibernation I missed the interaction with Shawsheet contributors and readers. It has remained a good read but is clearly missing a leavening of left wing lunacy.
Which brings me to…
29 June 2023
I am impatient with the incompetence and mendacity of our political leaders. In my enforced hibernation I have caught up with much telly, notably 3 series of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. Series 4 starts tomorrow and it is my fantasy that Jack will bring good old US democracy to the UK the way he did to Venezuela in Season 2. Admittedly, this involves much gunning down of undesirables in a “kangaroo court” manner, but the Venezuelans were ecstatic and so should we be.
30 June 2023
Every day a new nonsense. The Question Time audience in Exeter had a majority of Tory voters, but when challenged by Fiona, not one of them supported the government’s Rwanda policy. Helen Whately, a Government Minister was saddled with the job of selling the party line and had just told us Rwanda was what the people wanted when Fiona intervened to make her and her Government look foolish.
5 July 2023
Some NHS big guns on Laura Kuenssberg. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Stephen Barclay was full of the NHS Workforce Plan for getting the Health Service up to snuff by 2037. On the critical issues of today he trundled out some cherry picked statistics about what they were planning as distinct from what they had achieved. Around the integration of Health and Social Care he was aspirational but had no road map. Amanda Pritchard is the Chief Executive of NHS England and was also full of the NHS Workforce Plan. When it came to critical issues like resolving disputes with Junior Doctors and Consultants she told us “nothing to do with me guv.” And the Social Care catastrophe was also not in her remit. She reminded me of Sybil Fawlty on the phone “I know, I know”.
Nevertheless she is working tirelessly on something or other.
Am I alone in thinking that nobody is owning the problem?
