I’ve been reflecting on the elections.
BRISTOL ELECTS 24 GREEN COUNCILLORS
I suppose I should not be surprised to learn that the voters in Bristol, albeit mainly in the most affluent and hipster-friendly areas, have elected 24 councillors who support a party that hates motorists, the Green Party. Only a year ago, they were calling for a rise of 25p per litre in the price of fuel, along with a new carbon tax (to include fuel), congestion charges and extra car tax. In a city with the shittiest public transport system in the land, we vote for that. Well, that’s to say people who live in affluent, leafy areas with easy access to town have, anyway.
I doubt that many carers on the minimum wage, who drive old bangers, criss-crossing town all day to look after people who have nothing, will feel about being taxed to death. Probably not very kindly. But what do they matter to our increasingly gentrified city? Not a jot, as today’s votes tell you.
SCOTTISH NATIONALISM HAS A MANDATE FOR A REFERENDUM
Well, it does. The Scottish nationalist SNP has won the elections for the Scottish parliament by some distance and given that the Greens, who did very well, also support Scottish separatism, there’s your mandate.
Nationalism comes in different forms. You wouldn’t compare Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish nationalism with Boris Johnson’s English nationalism because the latter represents hard right populist nationalism. I’d still say they are two cheeks of the same arse, though.
Johnson should give Sturgeon her referendum without delay. My guess is that with the power of the media, the SNP will lose again and if they do it will do them untold damage. What will the point be of the SNP if the one thing they believe in isn’t what the majority of Scots actually want?
And if the nationalists win, so be it. They’ll join the EU and we will have a hard border between England and Scotland.
An independent Scotland condemns England to permanent Tory rule, which is pretty well what we have right now. Labour has nothing to lose by calling Sturgeon’s bluff and then arguing for a progressive, modern union. That’s what I would do if I was Labour leader.
MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK
It’s as good a time as any to reprise an old ‘joke’, so here goes. It’s Mental Health Awareness week this week. Were you aware of it? Probably not. The only reason I knew was because I read that Alastair Campbell, a fellow depressive, is guest host of Good Morning Britain for the whole week. Judging from the front pages of today’s newspapers, all of which seem to lead with ‘Darling Hugs of May’ (one for the teenagers, there), the subject is absent from the front pages.
The BBC, I am pleased to see, features Mental Health Awareness week on its website and hopefully during its programming, although the excellent charities MIND and Heads Together seem not to have noticed. Well, if they haven’t noticed, what price the rest of us?
In any event, next week it will all be forgotten. The advice will be ‘KEEP TAKING THE TABLETS’, just like it always is.
WHO’S WOKE?
There are a number of words and terms that really piss me off. ‘Political correctness’ and its various derivatives, is one; a term used by, for example, racists when called out on their racism. Wikipedia describes the use of the insult ‘snowflake’ as follows: ‘Snowflake” is a 2010s derogatory slang term for a person, implying that they have an inflated sense of uniqueness an unwarranted sense of entitlement or are overly-emotional, easily offended and unable to deal with opposing opinions.’ If you offended by bigotry, you are a snowflake. Then, there’s ‘woke’.
The Guardian says this: ‘Merriam-Webster dictionary’s definition, woke means “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)”. The hard right has weaponised the word to “beat people with such values”, something admirable and decent used as an insult.
I’m happy to be woke given its history with African Americans in the 1960s and I offer you the comedian Mitch Benn’s words on the subject: “Wokeness is largely a word for being a good person used dismissively by bad people because good people make bad people feel uncomfortable.” If the former actor Laurence ‘Looza’ Fox and Nigel Farage refer to you as woke, take it as a massive compliment.
BACK TO THE PUB
Since pubs reopened in April, I’ve enjoyed the odd pint sitting outdoors. Given the British climate, sitting outside a pub is not always the most comfortable experience, nor for that matter the cheapest. Certainly, in town, a pint of pretty well anything often costs a fiver plus. But it’s not so much the price of beer that bugs me: it’s the smoke.
My experience so far is that it’s mainly smokers sitting outside pubs and as both a reformed smoker and an asthmatic, I have not enjoyed the clouds of carcinogenic smoke seeping into my lungs. The thing is that since the smoking ban came in, smokers are used to smoking outside and it’s business as usual for them. Sooner or later, a government, probably not this one, will need to extend the smoking ban to pub gardens and pub outdoor areas. If I’m going to pay five or six quid for a pint I’d prefer not to get home stinking like an old ashtray.
