Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Letters from home

"Are you OK this morning?" Dave just said.

"I’m fine, apart from the news." 

I think I’m finally better now. It’s taken two weeks. And the old patchwork quilt is better too. It took me a full week to mend, doing about three hours a day. Phew. And although The Repair Shop might have inspired me to fix it, I can’t say I did a Repair Shop quality job. I was so sick of it by the end I was what my mother would have called ‘cobbling it together.’ 

What else has been happening here?

Cece won an award for the banner she designed, and that is hanging up on the main shopping street in Boulder. Go Cece!




I did a crappy abstract painting called “Disappointment” one day, and painted over it the next. Now I’ve started a challenging painting based on this photo that Isaac took of me in November 2021. 



Get a load of those grasses!

Since I wrote my last post I have had several interchanges with my MP, who may not agree with me about anything at all, but who does respond to my letters with missives that are well thought out, if chilling.

I came across a tweet from Mr Sunak on Sunday which appalled me

!

and I wrote to my MP to say - this can’t be right can it? It doesn’t mean that someone escaping from modern slavery in a cannabis farm or a brothel and going to the police will be deported, does it? Please tell me I have got the wrong end of the stick. I got a reply the next day confirming the worst. 

We must speak out about this cruel policy which breaches our commitment to the 1951 United Nations convention. The Bill passed its second reading in the Commons last night. How can people vote for it and not be ashamed?

It is now the case that unless you are a Ukrainian or a very lucky Afghan, you cannot come to the U.K. as a refugee. And if you are an Afghan arriving by small boat, no chance. You will be deported, along with Syrians, and all the other desperate people who are fleeing war and persecution, the majority of whom would have a successful claim to asylum if the new law did not mean all bets are cancelled, all succour denied.

There are no safe legal routes. 

As the tattered postcard on our fridge says:





2 comments:

marmee said...

Lovely photo! Look forward to see your painted version...That is a truly chilling statement re the slavery protections. I have tried to stop thinking about how the refugees from Ukraine are treated versus those from my poor continent, and so much of the trouble and horror in Africa was caused by colonial interventions and re drawing of borders. And even having to think in terms of comparisons is somehow indecent.

Sue Hepworth said...

Yes, Marmee, it’s all very troubling.