A week is a short time in politics!

 

It's not easy to post on a Friday when election day is a Thursday. I think the French situation looked a bit dire for a while election wise but common sense seems to have prevailed. And I think at the moment the French are trying to form a government based upon a left of centre coalition of parties.

The French, of course use Proportional Representation whereas we Brits use First Past the Post. The former gives maybe a more representational type of parliament, maybe more reflective of the populace. Whereas the latter tends to give a less representative but more definitive type of government. And from my modern studies, the latter tends to be more stable. Even with FPTP there should be enough opposition for policies to be  strongly debated and scrutinized. But then, if the judgement of the people is that the previous lot were such a lot of devious, opportunist, self serving parasites then who’s to blame when the opposition gets in with such a huge majority.

On the Tuesday before the election I put someone out my car when the announced they voted SNP (Scottish Nationalist Party). They voted on the grounds that they wanted independence and that Scotland can do better on its own. Actually, that's not quite true, I put them out the car because I was very close to where they were going. They were voting SNP because  Scotland did us proud in the European Football Championship. 

Yes, we didn't win a game.

                                                

The SNP went from 50 plus seats to 9 at Westminster. And to be fair not all that was lack of SNP support. A lot of it was tactical voting to make sure the Tories were voted out.

Before an election, I do get a feel of how things are going cause patients tend to come in and talk about it. And after 23 years or so a lot of SNP supporters were noticing that nothing was changing. That everything and I mean everything, is blamed on Westminster. 

The Scottish parliament is in charge of the NHS and our education system, both of which are plummeting in standard. And if they  have the power to raise taxes why not do the unpopular thing and raise tax and sort the problem out. There’s a name for the main policies of the SNP and I’m not sure what it is. Maybe 'fiscal neutral', they do things that don’t cost them any money. Like fining people for putting stuff in the wrong bin.

However, waiting in the wings, and not playing the Westminster blame  game is a very clever cookie called Katie Forbes. I hope when the time is right, she picks up the mantle of the SNP and tries to do something positive.

However Keir Starmer, not a photogenic or charismatic human, but a very good QC ( Queen's Counsel? King's counsel now ?... The Sam Waterstone character in Law and Order !) rocked home to victory. He has a Great Dane and his mother runs a donkey sanctuary. Already he’s sorting out things that should have been put right after COVID. Many health care professionals were paid a lot of money to leave the NHS and do the vaccinations, they are now locuming permanently at  double the pay rate of the permanent employees. So instead of using bank nurses they are employing more nurses, which is cheaper. Locuming GPs are being sent back to General Practice, which is cheaper. Ditto with pharmacists. And that will help the NHS from the ground up. Obviously catching osteoporosis before the femur breaks is much cheaper in the long run. As well as being less painful for the patient.

                                                    

Other parties did well too – the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party.

Personally, at my age and the gap I have between stopping work and getting my state pension needs careful financial negotiation and I suspect that Mr Starmer is going to have his hand in my pocket and extract more money in tax. But I’m quite happy with that as long as it's across the board. 

And on another point. His cabinet is very balanced but why, when clever women being promoted to the Cabinet the only thing the media can say about them is that they wore the same dress two days running.

I was going to say something here about American elections but I won’t cause I don’t understand it. We have a joke about Trump in our Carry on Sleuthing Play. The joke has been there now for 5 years and the fact that the joke is still relevant is a slightly frightening prospect.

Talking of sleuthing...

"With a star-studded cast and jokes older than Methuselah, Bute Noir proudly presents Carry On Sleuthing: A Mudder Is Mispronounced. A comedy mystery play for radio performed on the stage. It’s all very complicated…"

The play is going on at Bute Noir and has now got such momentum – fame – notoriety that Sir Ian Rankin, Mark Billingham are clamouring for parts and it's been filmed. So MIE bloggers don’t say you weren’t warned.