Other people's oddities

So here we are.

The eve of the United Kingdom's departure from the EU, with a recent poll reporting that 58% of Tory voters want to retain Freedom of Movement with the EU.

The Tory government, meanwhile, are renationalising a section of our railway network despite the howls of outrage that accompanied any suggestion in the Labour election manifesto of renationalising the railways.

The US are on the brink of acquitting a corrupt, criminal president without even the pretence of a fair trial: no witnesses and a defence that goes beyond Nixonian with the claim that if the President acts in the interests of his own re-election then no matter what that act is, it's justified as being in the national interest.

I find myself staring at the world and honestly thinking, "What the fuck?"

What were people voting for in leaving the EU? Is it really as simple as wanting to "take back control" as an emotive concept, while in practice retaining the status quo? Did that many people really not see that voting to leave the EU was going to result in losing Freedom of Movement, and in the creation of customs borders again? Has it really all been about blue passports and the right to have a bent cucumber?

I have a sinking feeling that for many (and I can sympathise with this), "Get Brexit Done" translated to "Make Brexit go away as soon as possible so I don't have to see, hear or think about any more of this nonsense." The fact that we were already well past that point, and there was no way to put the lid back on Pandora's box didn't matter.

So here we are.

Pursuing a path that quite clearly contains many things that the vast majority of people don't actually want, on the grounds that there's a nebulous sense of nationhood that a small majority of people hanker after.

Most people also want to protect the NHS, and fear that a trade deal with the US threatens that*. Most people want to see the railways brought back under state control. And yet those same people voted for a government that promised the opposite. And voted for a government that wants to pursue the hardest of Brexits. Obviously, our recent general election wasn't a single issue election, on either or those particular issues. And obviously there were a multitude of reasons, some of them named Jeremy Corbyn and some of them name Rupert Murdoch and Lord Rothermere, why we ended up with the government we did.

So here we are.

With a government whose policies are the opposite of the views of the majority of the country, though more people voted for them than any other single party.

And on the opposite side of the Atlantic, 53 Republican Senators, who have sworn an oath of impartiality, appear to be doing their very best to acquit Trump at all costs, in the face of all evidence, in the face of the vast majority of their electorate wanting a fair trial, with witnesses called. I know they cling to power. I know they fear Trump, and his retribution, but their honour, their integrity, their constitution and their country surely have greater weight than the term of a single, power-crazed President. Surely? Apparently not.

So here we are.

I don't understand other people.

I don't understand their motivations.

I don't understand what they think when they vote.

I feel disconnected from the world around me, in a way I rarely remember feeling before. I don't know these people. I don't know this country. Maybe I never did, but it was never so blindingly obvious to me before now. Is this how those who wanted to leave the EU felt? Divorced and alienated from their own country to such an extent that they're not even sure it's a country they want to be part of any more? Is this the sense of loss that drove my compatriots to vote to burn it all down?

I don't know.

I don't understand.



* In a recent poll, 81% believe a trade deal with the US threatens the NHS, with over a third believing it represents a "severe" threat.

One of those days

Today I discovered that I made a minor design change in June 2015 that means we've been making one of our products wrong for the past four and a half years. The product in question works, but only just, and there are therefore a whole raft of these things out in the wild, teetering on the brink of disaster.

Today I discovered a damp patch in the ceiling of the extension (you remember the extension don't you? This almost certainly means that a mere nine months after being finished, the extension roof is now leaking.

Today I managed to snap clean through the plastic pipe of the vacuum cleaner while vacuuming the carpet. The house is therefore going to remain just as filthy as it was this morning as I no longer have a functioning vacuum cleaner.

Can today be over yet?

A positive spin on politics

Being, as you may have spotted over the years, at least a tad left-of-centre in my political views, not to mention quite fond of remaining in the EU, it might come as a surprise to regular readers to know that I'm feeling considerably better about the current political situation than I was at this time last year.

"How can that be?" I hear you cry.

We have just elected what appears to a hard-line Conservative government who are showing every sign of wanting to ride roughshod over workers' rights and protection for child refugees, not to mention locking Parliament out of scrutiny of the Brexit negotiations whilst also enshrining in law an almost-inevitable no-deal Brexit. Whilst banning the use of the word Brexit. What's to feel calm about?

The calmness comes not from any happiness, or confidence that all will be well. It comes from a resignation that there is nothing left to hope for, nothing to change, nothing to influence.

To re-use a phrase that is an inherent part of being a Burnley FC fan...

It's the hope that kills.

While there was a hung Parliament, and a cross-party consensus could operate to hold the government to account, every vote held out the possibility that we could divert from the most calamitous path that the ERG were slavering over. Now that hope is gone. Now I feel no compulsion to watch the Parliament channel, or follow the hour-by-hour reporting of votes in the House of Commons. The Tories will have their way, and I can read a summary of what they are inflicting upon us after the fact. I no longer hope; so I no longer suffer from the obsessive anxiety that characterised my interactions with the news last year.

The good news for you all is that this means I'm much less likely to launch forth political rants here.

Apathy has won the day.