Benefits, Books and Brexit

Waking up to a changed world...?

I realised a couple of days ago that it's over a month since my last blog post. It's not that I have writers' block or nothing to say.  On the contrary, there is as much to talk about as ever, whether it's the apparently increasingly unstable and disquieting state of the world or, more happily, the progress of my latest Daphne Randall adventure (working title now Daphne of the Four Counties).  The problem is more that things have been moving so quickly that, no sooner have I started to collect my thoughts into a post, than events seem to have overtaken them. 

The Brexit vote was certainly a shock and not the result I had hoped for.  Whatever the flaws of the EU, the principle of European unity and co-operation is something I have long held dear.  That the Leave campaign succeeded on the back of a staggering weight of untruths is, perhaps, every bit as depressing as the actual result.  'Post truth politics' is, apparently, this season's look.


We'd voted postally several days before and cleared off for a week afloat, mooring at the glorious Bugsworth Basin on the Upper Peak Forest Canal on the day of the Referendum.  After a busy day cleaning and painting our boat we had an evening stroll around the basin, listened to the Radio 4 ten o'clock night-time news, including a report that Nigel Farage had conceded that the Remain camp had probably managed a narrow victory, and settled down contentedly to sleep.  Early the next morning, I put the radio on again, to news was of crashing stock markets.  A crowing Nigel Farage declared it 'Independence Day' but appeared to have not a clue what to do next.  Tim Farron of the LibDems decided it was somehow all Jeremy Corbyn's fault.  Before breakfast, the Prime Minister had signaled his resignation.


In the run-up to the vote, and since, I started to pay more attention to these little blue plaques...

With UK politics still running in Game of Thrones mode, this one seemed a good example to share although I could have used the one from Bugsworth Basin, or one of several scattered along the Ironbridge Gorge or even the one in the Citizens Advice Bureau building where I work.  I'm sure the Brexiteers will be quick to point out that if we aren't paying in to the EU, we'll have more of our own money to spend on projects of this kind.  Really?  They've already admitted there won't actually be £350 million extra per week for the NHS, so where exactly are the funds going to come from now for regional cultural development?

Perhaps I should ask the new Culture Secretary?  After all, she is the MP for our neighbouring Staffordshire Moorlands constituency!