Tag: Politics

My city

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Should it be steamrollered?

I just wrote this reply to a local Councillor who has explained that a court case against the owner of a listed building in the city has been postponed again. The sections in brackets have been added later to explain the situation.

“Having seen the report on Midlands today (a local TV programme) about zero tolerance to owners that are letting the cities heritage deteriorate (including buildings being set on fire) I find this very disappointing. I’m also concerned about the councils proposal for Spode. (to partly demolish it and build a large amount of apartments on the site). I’ve put in an objection. The idea that places should be partly demolished goes against the cities heritage. Surely there could be sympathetic restoration like along the canal between Shelton and Etruria (two bottle ovens have been restored and incorporated into a housing scheme) or let places be rebuilt like at the black country museum? (a large industrial heritage museum in Dudley, West Midlands) Instead we get the headline of a twelve million pounds black hole in the city finances and the prospect of more cuts. Is this levelling up or just levelling the city? (levelling up is a bidding system where cities try and get funding for specific work granted by central government). I came here over forty years ago and the place just gets worse!”

It seems that industrial heritage is not wanted in thus country. We should use funds to restore buildings, but making sure they are carbon neutral, instead we seem obsessed with ‘growth’ despite the damage that can do in a world of dwindling resources.

History being made.

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The debate over politics continues. Boris Johnson has resigned as leader of the Conservative Party but remains as a caretaker Prime Minister for the next three or four months while his Members of Parliament decide who they want to select as their new leader. Several ex ministers have been suggested and some have even said they will stand. This will be the fourth Conservative Prime minister in six years. They have been in power for twelve.

Why write about this as an artist? Because things are getting worse not better. Cost of living, less rights, more poverty, poorer education. We keep getting told things are getting better? Really, I do wonder?

Ukraine suffers

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Ukraines South-eastern area is now being bombarded by Russian heavy artillery. This includes thermobaric weapons that when they explode create a vacuum to suck all the oxygen out of the air and then burn it in an intense fire. If the Ukrainians are not burnt or blown up they can be asphixiated by them. They are also using something called Thermite. This is a chemical mixture that is sometimes used to weld steel. It burns at high temperatures and destroys what it hits. The images look like massive rains of fireworks but they are deadly. If you pour water on it the stuff burns even more.

Russia, the Russian army, I mean. Is continuing its cruelty to the civilians of Ukraine. The country of Russia is not under threat. They are not being bombed back to the stone age. Russian troops are now facing war crime trials. One soldier has already been found guilty of killing a 62 year old man by shooting him in the back of the head. He has been sentenced to life imprisonment. But it is their leader President Putin who is leading this evil. He should be bought to justice. We will not forget we cannot forgive!

Bandstand restored, and my opinion.

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For years the bandstand in the park had been a sad sight. Money was short and it wasn’t being spent on places like this. Then the politics changed. Our city voted with the ruling government and suddenly money was available. Since then, in the last few years, children’s centres and libraries have closed. Council offices are closed and were eventually knocked down. Police stations throughout the city closed. Now there are only one or two left. Even the Magistrates Court was closed. The argument had been that we didn’t need, or couldn’t afford these things. Although the council changed allegiance the city wasn’t rewarded with much, perhaps a few newly built office buildings in the city centre (some still unoccupied years later). Certainly not much to make up for the losses. Oh the town hall got a makeover with expensive wallpaper, but what of the rest of the city…. Well we got a lovely new bandstand! And I’m not being a grouch, it is lovely, but where is the regeneration we keep getting promised? Stoke-on-Trent was once a centre of industry, steel, coal, and pottery. Now, a city of warehouses. Sad.

Getting things done…

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At last!

For a few months I’ve been putting things off. I used to sort things out regularly and efficiently in my old job, but when I left things changed.

I was always at the beck and call of people, sorting out their problems. My mind would work through possibilities and come up with solutions.

When I finished work I tried to get elected as a Councillor. I still wanted to help people and saw it as a way of using my skills. But the electors chose someone else. My political party had lost support. Then I regrouped and started a college course.

But as the months have gone on I have felt more and more overwhelmed. Putting things off to the end of semesters. Leaving the paperwork sitting on my desk. Why? Prevarication…. I wasn’t trusting myself to get things right. A couple of things had gone wrong and I was scared to try again. Would I succeed? Could I cope? Health issues for both me and hubby have increased my stress levels..

Anyway, today I did half the things on my list (about four of them) I’ve got more to do but I feel better about it.

Fingers crossed I can do more tomorrow.

Apple

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I used to love apples, crisp and crunchy or sweet and soft in a pie with cream. I wonder why I’ve stopped buying them? Stopped seeing them? I see lots of soft fruit, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, bananas galore, oranges, peaches, even limes, but I don’t see many apples? Perhaps there has been a shortage of them? Maybe there were not many harvested in autumn.

Funny how you only miss things in a sudden feeling that there is something gone from life. I wonder if politics, brexit, not allowing as many foreign workers into our country, has had an effect on it. It feels like the old sayings ‘shooting yourself in the foot’ or ‘cutting off your nose to spite your face’? No doubt things will sort themselves out? I hope!

Farewell Europe

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At 11pm tonight Britain moves into the transition period of Brexit, we will still be a member of the European Union until later this year when negotiations are completed, but as far as our government is concerned we are OUT. Not all of us are happy that celebrations are taking place tonight. A crowd funding plea was started to pay £500,000 to arrange for Big Ben to ring 11 times to welcome in the change. That’s about £45,000 a bong!  But it didn’t collect enough money. I wonder who gets to keep it? If the government was so keen why not pay for it themselves. Oh I forgot to say the Conservative party, who recently won the general election, is stuffed with Millionaires.

Fifty Two percent of those that voted in the Brexit referendum chose to leave. But forty eight percent said no. I’m one of them. Brexit is not in my name. I get fed up of being called a ‘remoaner’ and being told ‘get over it’. I can see how all this is affecting my European friends. I’m wondering how it will all turn out. I have also seen tea towels and mugs for sale from the Conservatives, I don’t know why they think people will buy them? Our Prime Minister keeps telling us to be optimistic. He promised and end to austerity before the election, now they have announced at least five percent cuts! They are able to do this because they have a massive majority in parliament.

So what do I think? Brexit is a massive waste of money and irrelevant. We should be concentrating on climate change, not throwing away a treaty that had lasted almost fifty years.

Perhaps if I read this in a year things will be OK, but I doubt it.

Friday the thirteenth

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Out of luck today, the result of our general election didn’t go the way I wanted. I usually stay up all night to watch the results, but as soon as I heard what the exit pole said I decided to give it a miss. No last night I went to bed about 1am, which is actually early for me. I would  have gone earlier, but I was watching a couple of documentaries about Maori art and they were far more enjoyable than election results. I think I knew it was going to be bad when I saw the results would be on Friday the Thirteenth.

I look forward to more austerity and homelessness, worse health care, the sale of the NHS, more crime. But I’m not bitter, just sad.

Voting today

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We are holding our third General election in five years in the UK today. That is Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

I won’t bore you with the politics but our parliament was opposing our prime ministers policies so he decided to try and get more politicians on his side by calling an election despite there being a previous one about two years ago.

What has ensued has been a bit of a farce, with politicians apparently going into hiding so they don’t cause problems by saying inappropriate things. The Prime Minister has hidden from journalists, and refused to be interviewed by senior journalists despite his opponents being interviewed.

The use of social media has also been questionable, with targeted information being pushed at voters. Most of the time you are in your own bubble, you don’t see what other party supporters see, some of this is from Trolls who stir up hate and animosity.

Last night in several constituencies posters of a very disturbing nature were put up. They could be classed as libelous. They were taken back down by the political party that was being attacked, but they must have been paid for by a concerted group of people and they may have breached rules about how much campaign’s are allowed to spend.

Whatever happened, or happens, the results are due to start flooding in later tonight. It’s been a cold wet miserable day, but there have been reports of queues round the block in some places.

I appreciate the right to vote. As a woman I feel privileged to have the right to do so, following the fight by the suffragettes in the 20th Century. To people in the UK, I would say its a miserable evening, but please use your vote and show you care about your fellow citizens.