Failed!

Look, I've tried to keep politics off the blog during the pandemic. 

I've tried to make it a place where you can come and have a break; 

see some nice photos of where I've been on my bike rides and walks; 

hear some of the stuff Dave comes out with (the latest - 'I don't want you to fall through the window pane and have to rush you to hospital, and think of all the blood that will need cleaning up); 

show you some of my beginner's art; 

document my tiny attempts at vegetable gardening: progress report - I have a tub full of lettuce plants, three vigorous bean plants, several potatoes, and a row each of jaunty cabbages and willing spring onions. If I'd been depending on the mail order lettuce seedlings I'd have been pretty fed up.

All the time I have been writing these sunny posts I have been angry about the UK government's incompetent and shocking handling of the pandemic crisis, but after reading the news this morning I was boiling with rage. 

I came down to write a blog post about it, and then email my MP, but have been interrupted by various domestic duties, including a skirmish in the kitchen with big D over my unhygienic work surfaces, having to ring the bank at 8 a.m. to make sure I could get through straightaway, responding to an email from the Trussell Trust food bank charity to write to the government to urge them to introduce a Coronavirus Emergency Income Support scheme for the millions of people in the UK who cannot feed their families or pay the rent because of the lockdown restrictions.

The thing that made me finally explode is the MPs ditching a fully functioning remote voting system to queue up to vote in parliament yesterday while 100 or more MPs who are shielding or self-isolating because of age, disability, health conditions or pregnancy had to stay at home and not vote. The latter are disenfranchised and so are the millions of the public whom they represent. This is a sinister blow to democracy, quite apart from being totally bonkers.

You know what? I am actually too angry about this to write coherently. Read John Crace in the Guardian - the satirist for our age. Here.

I'm signing off and having a nice cup of tea, though I actually feel like having a drink of something stronger. Then I shall write to my MP about it, along with a complaint about the government's ditching of a promise of safe passage to child refugees abroad who have family in this country. If you also want to write about this latter issue, you can find the details here.

I hope that when you read me again I shall be calm and coherent.