February 24 th
Wednesday 3.20pm. Captain Horatio Nelson’s famous ship the HMS Victory was built in 1765, and commissioned for active service in 1778. Its crew was made up of 821 men 30 being boys. In the U.K. Parliament, there are 650 M.P.s, and in my opinion MAY BE, MAY BE, only 70 out of the whole number in Parliament would perhaps get a chance to be part of the crew to such a ship. Its Captain was the COURAGEOUS Horatio Nelson. Today in the U.K., we hear continually of our Prime Minister Boris Johnson having the word CAUTIOUS attached and ingrained through his whole body from his toe to his head. Now he carries the name CAPTAIN CAUTIOUS. Before I go further, I’d like to know of a strong and good leader in history who was called cautious. I will continue with my analogy. An ordinary Captain would have wrote in his log of the present days storm of the virus, politics, and an ensuing debt problem and having no map showing the direction of where their ship was going. He would have wrote, The storm continues, great uncertainty remains, the crew are getting rebellious, I’ve had no clear direction from our government where we are going, and hope is something I lost a good while ago. This summary of the state of the U.K., in my opinion, is of having a Captain like Boris, and officers with no enlightened thinking, these past fifteen months as we muddle and fuddle along, continuing to spread uncertainty.
Fear is a dark shadow, following those in business still hanging on by their finger tips with ever increasing debts, carrying worries of how long before they are being forced to capitulate and desperately say, I can’t go on anymore. I will go back to last week where in the U.K. news with this word cautious was stuck to Boris like a barnacle on a old sailing ship in its last days before heading to a ship yard to be dismantled. His strategy for his plan to unlock, and possibly give everyone great hope that businesses will not go bust, and the figure of six million on furlough will not grow, or the under twenty fives unemployed will not go past two million.This is without giving rest to parents that their children will able to start school again with certainty that everything is safe, and further austerity will not follow after next weeks budget. UNCERTAINTY is not just a word, it’s like a virus that is contagious, it spreads with fear and thoughts that don’t carry any hope. There is hope on the numbers being vaccinated, but that is a long way off before everyone has had its two jabs which will follow with another annual vaccine in the winter. The promise of holidays after March is pie in the sky as much as we would all like to think so.
We, in the U.K., have an opposition party who would be more home, if we gave them so many Lego parts to play with, and hope they could find some imagination, and ideas for a better future for everyone. Their leader Keir Starmer laid plans for the next parliament saying they have a government bond which people could purchase to help grow certain parts of the country. If I stay with this maritime analogy, I’d mutiny his ship, and send him and all his nodding donkeys in a small boat and sent them all adrift, just like Captain Bligh experienced on his ship the Bounty. Boris wrote a book of his thoughts on his hero Winston Churchill, and I will try to imagine what his hero would say and think of him today. He would say, Boris do you know what the word bold means? Boris would shake his head in a dumb fashion. Winston would then say, You cannot win favour with everyone when you are in a deep crisis as you presently are, and you cannot believe because you were educated at Oxford that’s an entitlement to leadership. You can take advise Winston said, But you must realise most of these advisors have no experience to lead or to fight when everything is against you. Do you understand Boris. The British Isles Boris, is made up of bulldogs, Lions and Tigers and they will fight and win if you can set an example by leadership. Winston went on to say, he was a stubborn individual, but he had imagination and daring and then said to Boris, you have not read my book on my young years. Winston said, he was never a popular individual, but he never gave a toss WHATEVER OTHERS THOUGHT. He continued to tell Boris, when you are a leader you must take gambles, and if you are greatly wrong you may have to resign. Boris was lost hearing such talk, then Winston said, you should have been with me on my own making life or death decisions almost every hour during the Second World War. Those bloody advisors if I’d listened to them the Nazis would have had a Swastika flag flying at Buckingham Palace. Boris stayed quiet through this lesson of leadership. Winston then said, Go and read about Alexander the Great, he was like all other great leaders slightly mad. Winston laughed and said, My wife always knew I was slightly mad, but she truly loved me as I did her. A silence fell, then all those ghost great leaders of the past appeared, and touched the shoulder of Boris saying gently, It’s not your time.
I can see why and where we are in the U.K. at the present time, as there is no one yet bold and brave enough, and not giving a toss what others think just like Winston Churchill said. Someone only has to stand up and voice a better and alternative way forward. Just like Churchill did, and was booed when voicing his opinion of Hitler. The U.K. is at a dangerous cross roads having no true map of where fully the future is to give everyone a better and happier life. I view the U.K. Parliament as a big rabbit hole. You venture into this dark almost cosy rabbit warren, and see many rabbit burrows, each having their own little door. One door would say, Please, be quiet we have been asleep these last hundred years. Another door would say, “The don’t Know Rabbits. Next a door which was twice the size which said, A class about learning to answer a question the first time truthfully. More doors were showing signs saying, We are the wet rabbits afraid to have any thoughts. This surreal world though is a real world, and soon great changes must occur in the U.K. as we step out into a global trading world. Being cautious is for those who fear getting out of bed and being replaced by those with imagination, and daring to think, and do where others only dream and say it’s impossible. I will tell you part of a quote, TO HOPE IS TO RISK DISAPPOINTMENT, BUT RISKS MUST BE TAKEN BECAUSE THE GREATEST RISK IN LIFE IS TO RISK NOTHING.
On Monday of this week I went to the post Office, and a queue of fifteen stood the two metre distance apart from one another. I’d been in a relative large shop, right in the centre of our historical market square, who gained its charter in 1214. This shop saw people entering freely wearing masks as the shop sold everything from birthday cards, clothing, all what you could imagine. No food, no real Essentials, like a bigger chain store around the corner. I walked through the narrow streets of many small individual shops who cater for visitors or tourists passing through this quaint historical country town. I thought, why are all these dinky shops shut? If there are three people in these shops, it would be crowded. I thought, these shops could be open like a barbers, hair salons who many have spent money safe guarding the virus but they are still shut. They could have people forming a queue just like the only one post office we have now. We are operating in a crazy fashion with a cautious Prime Minister and advisers and scientists, all who have their own thoughts and opinions.
I read in Europe especially Germany who love and like to be at the top of the class for industry, and good planning, and being a forward thinking government. But it’s the opposite, they too are presently lost where they are going and their main newspaper proclaims they wish they were vaccinating like the U.K. They too fail to see the reality of U.K. politics that can squander literally hundreds of billions of tax payers Money, and hide the facts under their usual metaphorical carpet. Yes, we would all like to sail in a ship that had a vision for the future, rescuing those souls who cannot secure their own home, and each year sees their position in life does not improve but deteriorates.
That last thing I will talk of made me dam angry, like thousands of others, who witnessed on TV starving children in Southern Yemen. I have three of my daughters with very young children, one with a girl of just over two and baby of four months old. These, one year old children in Yemen showed, they had small fragile bodies of a weight with a baby at birth. Everyone who has had a child or had healthy young babies would compare these poor young souls with their own. Anger, yes, in the year we live in. Saudi - Arabia are conducting a war against part of Yemen, and Iran are fighting their own proxy war supplying arms to the other half of Yemen. TEN MILLION CHILDREN FACE STARVATION WITH SUFFERING TO GET WORSE. UNICEF describe the Yemen, the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. Eighty per cent of the 24 million population are in need of humanitarian assistance. Saudi- Arabia with all their oil wealth, and Iran with their indifference to millions starving. Why cannot they sit down put their differences to one side and put children lives at the top of their list to do something to help the suffering? Don’t let them talk of their religious beliefs. The world itself is not doing enough to stop this genocide of so many young lives. How can we go to bed, and close our eyes to what is happening? How can those with wealth believe they are rich when their souls cannot move them to give and help such causes? Some may say, I talk of dark thoughts. I say, I talk of the realities of life and we all have something no matter how small to give and help someone. Those, who seek love in their lives, only have to give a small part of what they have. ANY FORM OF GIVING IS LOVE. The churches have great wealth. Monarchs and billionaires have great wealth. Football, sport stars, pop stars, celebrities, all who consider, they have material wealth,but non can take such things with them, when they leave this world. If we continue to accept so much inner equality around the world and see where millions have no food for a day, we are living in a world with little future. Climate Change is on our list but so his humankind in how they do or don’t treat one another. I will end with, great and almost divine leadership is required now.