Last night I had just watched the 10.00pm news on BBC1 when it was announced that there was to be an edition of ‘NewsNight‘ on BBC starting at 10.30 and it was to be a special edition as it was to be the very last programme hosted by Kirsty Wark after a continuous run of some thirty years. The first part of the program was a detailed examination of the Joe Biden saga and whether it was opportune for the Democrats to attempt to replace him as a candidate after his recent gaffes. To call the president of the Ukraine, President Putin and his own Vice President, Vice President Trump may just be interpreted as an odd verbal slip but here we are talking about the person who is to lead the most powerful nation on earth for the next four years. As an aside, one wonders what the Chinese must be making of all of this because the top echelons of Chinese society are quite meritocratic – the thought that someone with the mental agility of either Biden or Trump leading China must be unthinkable to the Chinese leadership. The second half of NewsNight was devoted to several tributes paid to Kirsty Wark by ex Prime Ministers and fellow journalists who all paid tribute to her professionalism, calmness ‘under fire’ when things went wrong in the studio and kindnesses shown to younger and less experienced colleagues. Kirsty Wark is retiring at the age of 69 and a run of thirty years which is a remarkable achievement. She is not retiring absolutely completely, though, and she will anchor her first episode of Front Row – which puts creative industries in the spotlight – on 13 August at Edinburgh Fringe and she will then present one edition of the programme weekly from Glasgow. This seems an excellent way to enter semi-retirement, as it were and one has the feeling that NewsNight will never be quite the same again.
Today started off gloomy and cloudy but no actual rain was forecast which is just as well as today was the Bromsgrove Carnival day. Many of the principal roads in the town are coned off for the processions timed to take place between 12.00pm and 4.00pm and a lot of the town do turn out to watch the spectacle. We wondered if our journey down to Waitrose would be impeded at all but as things turned out we made it at our usual time but met up with three of our friends as is customary on a Saturday. Then it was our customary journey up the hill after our elevenses and our journey home was punctuated by two conversations, one with a couple that we used to see regularly in the park in our COVID expedition days and the other being a neighbour who we know principally as the friend of friends. Once we got home, the carers called around for Meg and then I proceeded to make a kind of stir-fry with chicken pieces and a mixture of vegetables served on a bed of rice. As is customary, I prepared slightly too much so have some left over to enhance further meals.
Today is very much the feeling of the ‘day before’ the Euro Cup Finals due to take place tomorrow evening between Spain and England. Many of the population are persuading themselves that England might actually win the competition but I must say that I think this is unlikely in the extreme. The Spanish have consistently shown themselves to be playing excellent football right throughout the competition and they are still basking in the glory of the stupendous goal scored by their 16 year old teenager during the week although he himself will be turned seventeen today. My own prediction is that Spain will win the match 3:1 and on the basis of their form so far, they certainly deserve to do so. Having said all that, strange things can sometimes happen in Finals. It is possible that the Spanish might be more nervous than they should be and make some simple mistakes, although this is unlikely. Based upon English performances so far, it is quite possible for England to put in a mediocre performance and still win by a single goal in an individual act of brilliance. And it is the case that in football matches, the best team do not always win – if the game is still a draw after extra time which is a possibility then the English record of taking penalties might make them a slightly better than evens odds on this occasion. Some of our carers, whose houses are near to a pub, have told us that when England score the pub goes mad with shrieks of delight and the celebrations can be heard even down the road. Before we leave the subject of football altogether, the England manager Gareth Southgate is reported as saying he wants to win Euro 2024 to bring ‘temporary happiness’ to ‘angry country’ which is surely the case.
Keir Starmer is reported as saying that there is a ‘mountain of mess’ left by the preceding government. Up to a point, this always happens, I suppose, because difficult decisions are left by an outgoing administration, particularly one that is well predicted to lose the election because they are not unhappy for a new government to clear up the mess that they have bequeathed. Crucial decisions have not been taken in time which means that we have the current scenario in which prison places have not kept pace with the longer sentences and the ways in which courts are currently sentencing, no doubt under a steer from the Tory government. So any incoming government would have to face this problem and the very short term solution is to release non violent prisoners after they have served 40% rather than 50% of their sentence. This sounds like a ‘sticking plaster’ type of solution but, of course, depends upon there being a probation service to cater for newly released prisoners. But after a period of privatisation which was almost universally acknowledged to be a disaster, after seven years the probation services were returned to public control. A longer term solution to the problem of insufficient prison places might be to empty most of the gaols housing female prisoners who tend to be in gaol for child neglect and addiction types of problems rather than violent crime ‘per se’ and to fill the newly emptied gaols with a male rather than a female population. This suggestion may well have merit but must rank as a medium term rather than a short term solution to the present crisis.