… different.
Most of the time we are quite comfortable with difference, “it would be a sad old world if we were all the same” we say comfortably to each other. It’s OK as long as it works for us and doesn’t get in our way. This has led to a long long time of not discussing the impact of our immigration policy and sheer numbers on our systems, educational, social, and medical for starters.
And then something happens like last week in Britain – not Bangladesh where roughly the same number have died as we traced and are hauling into court, or Sudan, deep in civil war – but all too close to home. And we have to look hard and think.
When did being liberal
came to mean being soppy ? I though being liberal was being generous, opening your mind to difference, accepting that a decent person is just that, never mind how they vote, the colour of their skin, who they go to bed with or how they worship. But alongside that generosity, you had to find a way to be honest and practical and communicate, even when what you had to say was not popular. And face up the fact there were people you disliked and would dislike, no matter who they were or where they came from
Being liberal is taking a terrible bashing at the moment on both sides of Atlantic – though I long to see the Harris/Walz ticket in the US take Donald Trump’s snide interpretation of “Make America Great Again !” and say “Yes, by all means, great again – by inclusion not exclusion – new blood, new directions, a nation built as it was, on refugees of every kind – political, social, racial, religious.”
Here we are busy being bitchy as only the British can be. Sarky about the police, sarky about the King – should have said and done more, sooner. Sarky about the Prime Minister who doesn’t always get it right .
But the man hit the ground, running – and Mr.Starmer if you are listening, never doubt that this is the time to say as well as do, because there is a real complaint here and it has been coming these 40 years. It should be acknowledged, it won’t go away.
40 years ago or so, I sat in a Tyne Tees Television
studio , while a major player in the then Labour Party (Denis Healey) was presented to the audience and questions were taken. And the first person on her feet was what we now call a perfectly ordinary woman in her forties (because nobody knows what working class means, anymore), who raised her hand and got to her feet. “When” she demanded “are you going to listen to u s ? You never listen, you take us for granted, y ou take the North for granted …” And successive governments did.
This has resulted in the violent expression of rampant prejudice,
inflamed by the internet and lack – real lack – and frustration because you can’t get anybody to listen (annalog/cries unheard) in the established channels. A lack that is not going to be met by a programme for new builds – and anyway we need a census first on what is available. We need access to doctors who don’t just write another prescription. And so on, and so on – you have heard it all before.
I am no kind of analyst, political or social. I just watch and listen and write about what I see and hear, and inevitably, think. But I was struck meeting Tanya (not her name) in the street the other day, my American neighbour, who is highly placed in technology, who commented negatively, unbidden (she and her husband have 2 children) on social media. “And TikTok” she said “is China’s cancerous gift to the West.”
And I am going right on doing what I can do, saying please and thank you and sharing good news wherever I can – hurray for the people who gave a damn, who cleared up and checked up on their neighbours, who hit the street in wholly peaceful protest. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know something is terribly wrong.
Annalog 