Marmite

There’s nothing like a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan to brighten your day. Their beloved operettas make light of various moral dilemmas faced by their characters. Similarly, the satire of Blackadder humorously explores historical social issues, many of them unpleasant. Plato was also a bit like that. He posed questions about morality through Socrates, his Republic protagonist, in a conversational rather than a didactic style, partly because he struggled to perfect any answers. I feel inspired to pose a morality question of my own, but I shall eschew operettas and aim for something between Blackadder and Plato … Now there’s a thought – Rowan Atkinson taking off Plato. If he ever does, I want royalties for the idea!

I can’t put off blogging about Plato any longer. Why? In a nutshell, Plato was all about morality, and everyone these days is obsessed with Jeffrey Epstein, who was all about living a most immoral life, as was Peter Mandelson, the aptly dubbed Prince of Darkness. Once UK Deputy PM, UK Ambassador to the US and (still) a peer of the realm, Mandelson was successively promoted and protected by Blair, Brown and Starmer, who are tainted by association. Yet Boris ate cake, and I can’t find many Boris-critics venting the same level of rage against the Labour hierarchy as they vested on him. For eating cake. I ask you. Get a grip. This madness even stretched in my direction when I voiced support for the blond bombshell for pragmatic, proportionate purposes. On the other hand, for partisan, prejudiced purposes, Private Eye and other red media are still trying to deflect flack, or at least dilute it, away from the lewd Left and towards Nigel Farage, the left’s (and remoaners’) post-Boris nemesis...

A life-long monarchist, chain-stitched into my DNA, brain-washed from birth, ideologically incontrovertible, I’m actually starting to lose patience with some members of our Royal Family. While Randy Andy plays a part in my growing frustration-bordering-on-disillusionment, I might stomach his ‘indiscretions’ (plural) if these were the whole story – after all, every family has a black sheep (even if I’m not supposed to say that). But it’s others’ reactions and handling of the situation that displeases me as much as anything.

I don’t like people being rude and hurtful but sometimes it’s unintentional, and that takes the edge off their ‘sin’. I have to caveat my opening sentence because I’ve been known to put my foot in my mouth without thinking, often when trying to be witty or playful. In fact, ‘Riddles’ was my nickname (one of many) at school because of my propensity to try and say something funny about almost anything, and not because of a physical resemblance to the Batman character. If the latter were the case, then one of my friends should have been called ‘Penguin’. There I go again.

I was thinking about Two-Tier Free-Gear Starmer-Stalin and the perceived inconsistency and disproportionality of policing and sentencing. Here’s one example: 31months for a nasty Tweet (or two) by the wife of a Tory Councillor, which was her first rap. By some accounts, she’s still distressed by the death of her new-born a few years ago; the recent murders of the three Southport angels might have been a trigger for her. 

As reported by some colleagues at the Open University, “The Welsh Labour government (reluctantly but with cross-party support) has committed to legislating to bar elected politicians from the Senedd if they refuse to apologise after having been found to have lied, even if the lie was committed outside the chamber.” Should this be the case in Westminster? On the one hand, off with the Labour politicians’ collective heads, I say. The gallows is too good for them. Lammy claimed the Chagos islanders had been consulted on his surrender to a Chinese ally – Lie. Reeves said the Tories had left her with a £22bn black hole – Lie. Starmer said he was a man of integrity – Oh, don’t make me laugh. And on and on and on, non-stop throughout Starmergeddon’s first 100+ days (Jeez – it feels like a lifetime). Another reason for such legislation is to mirror what the corporate world is subject to. For example, executives can’t lie about the financial state of the business. Further, employees who lie can...

I didn’t say that. Others are saying it: those quick to condemn and slow to join the dots. Usual suspects. Colonialism has had its day. No one in their right mind, which rules out the EU, wants to colonise nations to plunder their resources, goodwill and foist their values on an indigenous peoples who want to make up their own minds and manage their own affairs thank you very much. Von der Liar take note.

After supper with Sis of burger, chips and red wine at a Gordon Ramsay place in London, I settled down in my armchair to blog. I was too tired to PhuD or prep for next week’s meetings, and disinclined to change a light bulb, vacuum the rug or straighten a wonky picture on the wall. In any event, it suited being wonky. It’s a vividly colourised and abstractly contrasted reflection of part of a boat on the water. Cleverly conceived and beautifully executed, it would never win the Turner Prize, no matter how wonkily presented.

A mate of mine emailed me the other day as follows: “I’ve just been notified of two new letters on my son’s High School website - I read them in order of timing, they were a minute or so apart. The first one gave notice of strike action by teachers on 5th and 7th July. The second was two pages long and gave dire warnings about attendance levels and the correlation with academic achievement.” The logical conclusion we both drew from these letters is that wilfully preventing a child from being educated is morally reprehensible, especially when those doing the preventing are the providers of said education and know without doubt that their actions are damaging the children.

I woke up very early this morning, early as in 4.06am. Really wide awake. Feeling a little sad? low? Melancholy. Not because of health or other obvious reasons, but because Boris and Nadine have resigned as MPs, and the world of politics, if not the world itself, just got a bit more boring, a tad less colourful. Stale. For all their faults, I can't help liking both of them and am more tolerant of their failings and wrongdoings than I should be. Contrast that with my knee-jerk criticism of others, who probably don’t deserve it, well not all of it. Just as I’m willing to either disbelieve ill of, or forgive, Boris and Nadine (and Sir Jacob and Dame Priti), so I lap up the malicious gossip in the Daily Mail of the likes of Starmer, Sturgeon, whoever took over from her, the Lib Dem non-descript, and the Green thingy. Why?

I was set a blog-challenge a wee while ago in the context of reparations for slavery: “…unless you are a person of colour or descended from immigrants at that time … you will have somehow benefitted from the proceeds of slavery… At what point in the long chain of benefits do we decide that individuals and organisations should not be held responsible for slavery?” If I were a Christian, I’d simply point to Ezekiel 18:20 (King James’ version, of course): “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father”. Funnily enough, lots of Christians are demanding reparations – a hypocritical circle to square.