We may have been lucky

I watched the Arsenal highlights.  We were unlucky in that we did not score more, but we were lucky that Nottingham Forest did not take the chances that they had in the first half.  But, we are top of the league again after being knocked off it for one day.  Fingers crossed we keep winning.

Meeting a brother

One of my brothers came this weekend with his lovely partner for a wedding and stayed over. It has been a while since we saw the pair and it was great catching up before they went to the wedding yesterday and today before and after lunch at the Layer Fox. I am not sure when they are to come this way again, but we would happily put them up again. 

The children have been busy decorating the house for Halloween. They had wanted to do this before, but I finally brought down things this evening. Sadly, this has included a bow tie for Leia which she wears with dignity. My wife says it makes her look like a boy, but I think that her beard gives her that appearance! 

Trevor Noah on racism and Rishi Sunak

There has been controversy over the comments that Trevor Noah has made about Rishi Sunak and racism in the UK.  The simple fact is that racism is still an issue for too many people in the UK.  Things are much better than they have been in the past in that we now have a non-white PM who Conservative MP's have voted on who they think is the best person for the job.  There was a time that the Conservatives were the party of racism, and while many would argue that not much has changed with the policies on refugees, Rishi Sunak shows that a lot has changed.  

The video of Jerry from Lowestoft actually shows how a racist changes the expressed views on Rishi Sunak from outright racism, to finding other reasons as to why they are against our first non-white Prime Minister. Many will not like him due to his skin colour, but this may be a sub-conscious issue, i.e. unconscious bias. It will be hard to discern which people who are against him are against him due to his policies, or if his skin colour is a factor because for them, they will cite the arguments that Jerry from Lowestoft finally resorted to almost eight minutes into the video of his call to LBC.  

A way of looking at how our nation is still racist is not how we treat our Prime Minister, but how we treat refugees coming from Ukraine to those coming from other nations.  We may have to exclude Albania from this as it does seem to appear that those fleeing Albania are more likely to be economic migrants than genuine asylum seekers.  Put simply, refugees from Ukraine, despite being in safe nations have rightly been granted asylum, but many in our nation do not want to offer the same to refugees fleeing Afghanistan, Iran Eritrea, Chad, Yemen, Sudan, Syria etc.     

Thursday morning update

The children appear to be enjoying half term.  My wife has taken time off to look after them, though she may need a holiday after this.  On Tuesday they had gone shopping with her, which meant that Leia was at the dog sitters until yesterday when my son and wife collected her.  Needless to say, the dog was very happy to be back home.  I did go to the shops with my son so that he could cook dinner.  Normally he is very good at making Katsu Curry, but his efforts yesterday were sadly not up to his normal standard.  I have bought pumpkins for them to paint, but the condition of him having it is that his room is tidy, which has meant that his pumpkin is still in the back of my car!  Hopefully that will change.

The picture is from my morning walk today with Leia.  Finally, remember that in the run up to Halloween, a witch is not just for that one day, but is meant to be scary all year long!

PMQ’s and accountability

Rishi Sunak pledged that his government will have “accountability” in his first speech as prime minister yesterday.  After that, he reappointed Suella Braverman as Home Secretary.  Bernard Jenkin had quite rightly pointed out that The Dark Lord, Peter Mandelson was brought back into the government after having to resign, twice, but while his reappointment was morally indefensible, it was not the week after he was forced to resign. 

Also he did not resign talking about accountability, was not taken back the day after talking about being accountable and I am not aware of him hiding from Yvette Cooper asking an urgent question to hold them to account.  Sunak defended her appointment before then in PMQ’s when asked about her appointment. I was not able to watch it live due to my work, but my daughter watched it and said that Starmer did well.  I did watch it later and have to agree with her.

Steve Barclay and the NHS

Earlier on this year, Steve Barclay, the man now in charge of the NHS, was heckled by a lady who said that he had done nothing about the ambulance service.  She was wrong.  Under the Conservatives our ambulance response times have got worse.  This is nothing to do with those working for the ambulance service, this is to do with paramedics having to wait at hospitals to hand over patients to hospital staff because there is no room in the hospitals for new patients to be admitted. 

What a goal!

Granit Xhaka scored an amazing goal yesterday. Watching the highlights, we should have had a penalty in the first half and should have had more goals, but Southampton appeared to have had more input in the second half and put us under pressure and while Southampton scored a great goal, better defending as a team could have stopped that. Still, we are top of the league, but we could and should have come away with three points.

Rishi Sunak, racism and the Conservative party

My wife has just told me that Boris Johnson is not to stand for Conservative leader.  That is bad news for Labour as him being in charge of the Conservatives would result in a return to the numerous lies that caused him to resign before.  

This means that the options are Penny Mordaunt or Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister.  As a Labour voter, the one I fear the most is Penny Mordaunt, she is a brilliant communicator.  While not as good as Boris Johnson in communication, she carries an air of competence.  

The one I fear the least is Rishi Sunak and the reason for this is simple, it is racism.  Not everyone who is against him will be driven by this, but a significant number will be driven by unconscious bias or outright racism.  Earlier today we watched this clip on YouTube when the reason for this voter not voting for Rishi Sunak is racism, though later, they managed to find other excuses not to back him.  No matter how good Rishi Sunak is, there is a large number of people who will not vote for him due to the colour of his skin.  

For the record, Rishi Sunak is British.  I would like to remind anyone who reads this that our King is the son of an immigrant, one who served our nation along with many others. We have members of Team GB who are not white and if Rishi Sunak is not British, those athletes such as Denise Lewis who have won medals for the United Kingdom have actually won it for other nations.

Could my blog embarrass my children?

Apparently another of my daughters friends has found my blog. Will it change what I post? No.  Friends of hers have found it before and that did not change anything. As people have noticed it is anonymous and when comments have been made that provide too much information about me or my family, they end up not published. The difference of course is the bond between her friend and me, but that is a different story for another day.

We have been out to celebrate her birthday and have been to Lucca in Manningtree which we all loved.  We have celebrated many an occasion there and there is no doubt that we will return.

Today has been a day of relaxing. Leia had diarrhoea in her crate yesterday which my fantastic wife had to clear up as I had to get to work. Today she seemed to be fine and enjoyed herself but sadly threw up later in the afternoon. She appears to be back to normal and fingers crossed this stays like this.

Kherson

The Russians are leaving. There are concerns about this when they retreat from Kherson. Is the evacuation of civilians a use of a human shield to enable Russian soldiers to flee? Is it because they are to use nuclear weapons to defend it? Is it because they are to destroy the Kakhovka dam? 

At present the Russian mobilisation appears to be using up Ukrainian ammunition as men are sent forwards to die. The human wave policy may work, I hope not.

Is Liz Truss the Lady Jane Grey of British politics?

Well, today was more interesting than yesterday was, well, more interesting than what I thought yesterday was. It appears that there was chaos in the vote in Parliament last night and now the premiership of the third female Prime Minister has become the shortest of all Prime Ministers in British history. 

 

While many are calling for a General Election, my daughter is hoping that this does not happen while my son does. He knows that if an early election is called, the odds are that he will get to vote in a General Election for the first time along with his sister. She is hoping that the election takes place after she can vote, and the Conservatives have until January 2025 to call one. Apparently she worked out when she would be able to vote in year 8 and has been looking forwards to this since. Also she wants to cast her first vote before her brother is able to do so.

If an early General Election does take place, Labour are favourites to win and many like me think that they would run the nation much better than the Conservatives.  But then I have said that since 2010! The problem would be that with the nation being in such bad shape, a Labour victory in an election held now may mean that they have to make harsh decisions which may result on the Conservatives returning to power in the election afterwards.  What is best for the nation, which is a Labour government now, may not be what is best for the Labour party.

The Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati

What a day in politics! Soon after ammending my profile on Twitter to say I am part of the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati, the person who said it is gone. I naively thought that this might relate to the savaging she faced at the hands of Yvette Cooper the day before, 

Before I get onto that, PMQ’s. I felt sorry for Liz Truss considering the savaging she faced. Starmer performed well and was right in his comment about how Labour is the government in waiting (hopefully). I felt even more sorry for her when the resignation letter of Suella Braverman was published. I doubt tomorrow will be as interesting.

In The Loop

I loved this film. But I loved The Thick of It as well. Put simply, if you loved one, you will love the other, but I would not bother watching one if you did not enjoy the other. Similarities will be drawn with the run up to the invasion of Iraq with the dodgy dossier and the resignations that the invasion brought about. But ignoring the fact that this has been based on reality, and a tragic one at that, the film is hilarious.

We are still top of the league!

I watched the game with an Arsenal and a Leeds fan (and later an American lady). Which meant that I had to moderate my language! While we dominated the first half, we were lucky to win this as Leeds played better than us for most of the second half. When the game was delayed due to a problem with VAR, I said that it should go ahead anyway without it. I am very glad that it did not as VAR saved us with one penalty decision, a red card a goal. I know that we will not win the league, but being top of the league is amazing, even though it will not last.

Our new chancellor Jeremy Hunt

Jeremy Hunt is back in mainstream politics. My children remember him from me shouting at the radio when he was health secretary and would lie repeatedly about the NHS. I could spend hours talking about his failures but I shall limit myself to just a few.

One of his lesser crimes was to use A&E inappropriately when he took one of his children there because he could not get help from a GP.  Back then, the out of hours GP service was not as stretched as it is now.  Also, at the time, just as now, the advice given was and still is not to attend Accident and Emergency just because you could not see a GP and to only attend if you have a genuine accident or emergency.

As noted by Nadine Dorries, he ignored the findings of Exercise Alice and Exercise Cygnus which would have prepared the nation more against COVID if the recommendations had been carried out. Considering the numbers in the UK who have been killed by COVID-19, those two omissions are the worst crimes. 

While Jeremy Hunt does come across well on the media, that is helped by the way the media do not challenge him.  The business community may trust him, but I would advise against doing so considering the way he broke his promise to recruit 5000 more GP's for the NHS and the way the NHS was in a worse state when he handed it over to Matt Hancock than it was when he started to look after it.  

PMQs and Mermaids

PMQ's today was interesting.  There were claims that the NHS is getting record funding, which if it is, is very short of what it needs.  The economy was mentioned, though it is not doing too well.  

Another U-turn has taken place, the Conservatives backing a windfall tax on energy, this only being on companies that do not contribute to global warming though.  Our new Prime Minister did not tell outright lies though, other than a question on sewage, an issue that I would love the Conservatives to take legal action against The Guardian on.     

On the topic of legal action, this brings me to an issue with Mermaids.  A question about them was raised in PMQ's, one which has been raised by JK Rowling.  It is hard to tell what is true but what is interesting is that Mermaids has not been able to get someone to represent them in this matter.  We know from McLibel, that those with money can be taken down by those with lesser funds and I am sure that just like Keir Starmer did when it came to taking down McDonalds.  Needless to say, there was a storm about this before today.  It will be interesting to see what happens, but whatever happens, I do hope the truth comes out and clears either Mermaids or JK Rowling on this. 

It was World Mental Health Day yesterday

It was world mental health day yesterday. I thought I would share some videos.  I also thought that this image of our provision for mental health in our nation was important to share as well. Remember that when Conservatives bring up this day. 

We are top of the league

I know that we are not going to be top for long, and we were not top after Saturday, but it is great to be back on top of the league.  I watched the game with Tony at his and while he was optimistic, I was nervous. He did point out that last season, we would have been hoping not to be beaten by too much and instead we were wondering if we could win this which is a change compared to the last seasons.  I am not sure if we would have beaten the Liverpool of last season, but we can only play who we play.  While the Match of the Day (2) commentators were raving about our forward line, the game was an open end to end one which allowed the players to express themselves, as opposed to the more defensive game the weekend before.  Fingers crossed, we may even stay top until we get beaten by Manchester City.  If we are really lucky, other teams will take points off them allowing us to be beaten by them and still do well.  But that only works so long as we do not drop points against other teams and those teams will now fear us.  

Energy bills

One of my children appears to think that energy bills are something we can ignore. I did ask them if they wanted my to get them Truth Social so that they could read the words of Trump directly, but they declined. Needless to say, they said all the right things about how they feel Trump is wrong about Global Warming and how action is needed about Climate Change, but let us see it change begins at home. I need to get them to appreciate the issues with fuel poverty that are present now, and will worsen this winter.  

To be fair to Liz Truss, she has acted on this, though in a manner that benefits the energy companies, not the tax payer.  When I say acted, I mean stopping things from getting much worse, though things are going to still be bad for far too many people.

A Bridge to Crimea

The bridge connecting Russia to Crimea has been rendered inoperable. There is no doubt that was an act by Ukraine. While Russia considers this an act of terrorism, the bridge connecting Russia to Russian occupied Crimea was constructed without Ukrainian permission and is a legitimate military target. I just hope that they can ensure that it is not used at all! 

Family

I have been to visit my mother. The children made a choice not to go over the issues with Leia from before, though my mother now says that she did not let Leia off the lead and instead put the lead down for 30 seconds.  Not sure what she meant by that though.  She did get to see Leia though whom she has missed as well.

We did visit my in-laws as it is around the birthday of my father-in-law.  Have watched Strictly as well.  It is good to see Tony Adams improve, loved his dance, even with the Arnold Rimmer sock suspenders!  Hopefully Arsenal will perform better tomorrow.  

Jesus was an undocumented child refugee. Should he have been deported?

I want failed asylum seekers to be quicky deported to Rwanda and I want anyone who crosses the channel illegally to be deported, but there is a caveat. I also want safe, speedy and legal routes for refugees to come here first. 

I have treated asylum seekers. Too many have no safe and legal route to come here and thanks to government cuts, the waits to process their applications, be they here or in the nation they flee from, take too long. I am not going to say that all the cases should be taken in as some of the stories, in my view, do not justify asylum here, but loads do. We have a speedy safe and legal route for refugees from Ukraine, many of whom were in a safe country before coming here), we can and should have one for those seeking asylum from other nations such as Afghanistan and others. I do not want a system where Jesus (who was an undocumented child refugee when his parents fled the Massacre Of The Innocents) would have been deported to Rwanda, if he was able to overcome the barriers to get here!

The argument that we cannot afford to take them in, from a government who wishes to help the rich to get richer when others are getting poorer is wrong.  Worse, it is an argument that is designed to spread hatred and division while distracting from the real reasons that we have increasing levels of poverty and hardship.

If we can get a speedy safe and legal framework to take in refugees from Ukraine, there is no reason why we cannot have one for refugees from other, non-white, nations.

Safeguarding democracy

Earlier this month, or possibly last month, I had a discussion with my daughter about trying to safeguard democracy.  She thought that I was being melodramatic when I mentioned that Hitler was democratically elected. I forgot to mention that Putin was elected in a system far fairer than is present in Russia now.

Democracy is only as safe as we allow it to be.

Ambulance waiting times

On Friday, I tried to arrange an ambulance for a patient who was in pain following a fracture to their back. I was initially told that the wait for the ambulance would be 28 hours but later was told there was no ambulance that could be sent out.

This never happened in 2010 when the Tories took over the NHS, this is down to the way they have mismanaged it. 

Leia is two

Our dog is now aged two. My daughter bought her a present, which Leia loved, but the rest of us just spent time with her. My wife however was not present over most of the weekend so missed the actual birthday, and Leia woke up outside our home on her big day. 

 

On that topic, I am not sure what is going to happen with my mother and the children. She had rung up yesterday asking if the kids would speak to her, but they have been quite busy. She did say that she was sorry she upset them, but when I talked about her letting Leia off the lead in an area where she may not have been able to get her back, she snapped at me and hung up. It may be that when I next see her, I will need to go alone, but I will see if the kids are happy to visit her later this month.

North London is red

Yesterday, I watched the match with my mate Tony.  My wife is at a course so was not able to join us.  What a match.  I am biased with Arsenal winning but the confidence with which they played at the start was amazing. Spurs managed to dent that confidence once they started to play and the game could have ended in a draw or even a loss for us.  However, we were fortunate with our opponents going down to ten men in a challenge that was probably one that required a caution rather than a sending off.  Hopefully this will fill us with confidence before our next two games, the one against Liverpool being the game that I am most concerned about.

Victoria's Secret

Listened to this song last week and loved it.  I actually listened to a cover first of all, but I have been sold on that and the original.