Give a woman a chance

Somewhere in the world a young woman looks at the Earth and sees what? The fact that over the decades women have risen to the heights of politics. Prime ministers and Presidents. Some have done better than others. It does after all depend on what their politics are and what the team ability to govern is like.

That young woman may not be interested in politics, it may be boring, it may be too dominated by men. But she should have a chance to learn and decide if she wants to get involved

Unfortunately there is a lot of mysogenistic behaviour in the world. I hope if she wants to, she can be involved.

Prime ministers question time

Wednesday at noon. Prime Ministers question time is on again. When the House of Commons is sitting this is the time to question the political situation in Britain.

It is a spectacular event. An argumentative debate. Noise and heckling, shouting, barracking, hundreds of members of Parliament shouting at each other. Conservatives, Labour, Scottish Nationalists, Democratic Unionists and Liberal Democrats put forward their questions about what the government is doing.

Varied questions came up today: private renting costs, the Northern Irish parliament, melanoma, cost of living crisis, accommodating migrants, student debt, steel manufacture amongst other questions.

The Conservatives, who are in power ask mainly soft subject questions, pleased with themselves and smugly denegrating the opposition. The opposition parties try and ask searching questions, but are often sarcastically fobbed off with flippant answers.

This method of questioning is not always enlightening or clarifying. The world might be a better place if the whole procedure was rethought. A lot of it is Members of Parliament trying to get seen by their constituents by asking questions. Some of it does clarify policies. I’ll continue to keep watching this spectacle.

Boris isn’t standing!

A cartoon I did of Boris Johnson while I was doing my Illustration MA. I wanted to discuss the underfunding of arts at school.

Anyway after a couple of days of conjecture and speculation it turns out Boris Johnson has decided not to stand for Conservative leader and Prime Minister again. When I heard the new I actually whooped with joy!

His Conservative backers, including Jacob Rees-Mogg were saying he definitely had 100 MPs supporting him (the threshold was raised from 20, which it was for Liz Truss). So what has happened? Could it be he’s had a change if heart, or maybe he realised that there Ed too many things adding up against him? So it is now likely that Rishi Sunak will become Prime Minister although there is another candidate. We do live in interesting times….

New prime minister (PM)

Our PM is finishing tomorrow. Another PM will replace him. He or she (probably she) is being chosen by 160,000 Conservative party members not the British electorate. We might have a general election until next year or the year after. Our old PM has been found to have lied and broken laws. His popularity meant his party got an 80 seat majority in the 2019 election and are changing electoral boundaries to make it difficult to defeat them. It also seems Scottish voters may try and go for independence making it virtually impossible to get the Conservative government out of power.

I think of our PM as a Trump mini-me. He even thinks he can get back in power! The new PM will probably be Liz Truss. She does not seem to know what she is doing. It seems the rich and entitled rule. The rest suffer.

Cartoon I did last year of our PM as a schoolboy, I was protesting the lack of support from his government of the arts.

History being made.

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?

He’s resigning

Cartoon I drew of Boris Johnson last year as a naughty schoolboy, hearing, seeing and speaking no art. It was about the cuts in art teaching and the creative industries. But I think it sort of works for what has been happening recently. Has he ignored or forgotten reports of one of his senior government members caught in a serious case of misconduct. In fact he has apparently also been caught out in several untruths, and today, finally resigned (sort of) as leader of the Conservative party but he hasn’t stood down as Prime minister. He seems to be staying on as a caretaker for the next three months while his party decide who will replace him.

Whether you love him or hate him he certainly is a character. When he was a child he said he was going to be king of the world. At Eton he apparently was displeased by his tutors displeasure with him. He was a leader of a club of students at University who were antagonistic towards poorer students. If you look up his biography you can find all sorts of things that he was involved in that caused problems but there are too many to list. These seem to have carried on into his prime ministership. Anyway things are changing, but no one knows if it’s for better or worse?

News!

The Conservative Party are in turmoil. Several tory party cabinet members have resigned today. I won’t go into details, but the prime minister has been found to be telling untruths about certain issues. Watching the house of commons at Westminster today it was clear that he is unable to offer sincere apologies that are believable. He just doesn’t seem to care about either his political party or the members of the public who voted for him. When you watch Tory MPs get up in the House of Commons and tell him to resign you know it cannot carry on. What will happen? Who knows?

Yes, Prime minister

Satire, a wonderful thing. I’m watching an old episode of ‘Yes, Prime minister.’ it’s probably forty years old and it still speaks to what’s going on in the UK at the moment. Boris Johnson has been fined for breaking Covid rules, and he will not resign although if he breaks the rules he is expected to do so. Now he’s changed the rules so that he only has to apologise (again). The man is almost more of a ridiculous figure than the Prime minister in the comedy programme!

Cat outside the summerhouse

25.5.20, I drew our then outside cat outside the summerhouse where he used to sleep. Now the bushes have grown up and hubby has stored bikes in there. I’ve hardly been out this year. Too cold and wet, and it’s overgrown around it. We need to prune plants but my arm is not very strong and the muscles ache.

I don’t want the place to fall to rack and ruin. I must make more of an effort. I didn’t realise how much this pandemic could take out of you physically despite not catching the virus (hopefully never) I just wish things were better. Not just here, but everywhere. Goodness knows what atrocities are happening in Ukraine. Trucks are stuck on the motorway going to Dover while ferries are held up for health and safety deficiencies. Crops are rotting in fields, de to various problems including lack of workers because of Covid. Meanwhile our Prime minister and Chancellor have been fined for attending parties, when they had bought in laws to stop the public meeting up at parties – or stopping relatives visiting their loved ones who were dying of Covid. Many bad things, mad things, stupid things. I despair of people!