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.