The date of October 7th has passed into political history as the date of the original massacre that initiated the start of the conflict between Hamas and the state of Israel. We are still in the negotiation phase in the resolution of this conflict as talks progress in Egypt but Hamas is facing the united opposition of many of the Arab states as well as Europe and it seems has ‘nowhere to go’ There are some who say that Hamas may might on to the bitter end until it is completely destroyed but Trump is desperate to try to claim a Nobel peace prize for resolving the conflict. It now appears that the attack by the Israelis on Qatar was the last straw for Trump as the Israelis attempted to assassinate those who were trying to negotiate a peace plan and this made Trump force Netanyahu’s hand. But by stage, Gaza was generally reduced to a heap of rubble and the costs of reconstruction must be huge. The reconstruction of Gaza and the occupied West Bank will require an estimated $53.2 billion over the next ten years, according to the latest Damage and Needs Assessment from the UN and partners and one wonders where the funds will ever become available for this.
The day started off very dark this morning and, almost inevitably, I overslept a little. In prospect for the day was my normal Wetherspoon’s coffee meeting with friends followed by Pilates later on in the day. If the weather holds out for a bright afternoon, then we can expect a high of 16° so that ought to be warm enough to get the job done. I always time the very last cut of the season for November 5th so by this reckoning, then after today there should be two more cuts left in the season before we resume again on March 25th, a day which is always remembered because it is my son’s birthday. When we do our Pilates, there is a general reluctance to utter what our tutor calls the ‘C’ word which is actually Christmas. A tradition has developed over the years, not honoured in the last year or so, is one in which I play Father Christmas to the rest of my Pilates group and give them presents of damson gin. I may just have a little left over from previous years waiting to be bottled so that the tradition may be continued for one more year but the damson trees have been severely affected by the building work at the rear of our property so it may be that the damson gin production may have come to an untimely end. This year, though, my son and daughter-in-law have broad plans that we shall spend Christmas day in this house and of course cooking a Christmas dinner is almost second nature to me having done it for decades. But there is a lot of water to flow under the bridge until we can actually start to contemplate Christmas and we still have the American import of Halloween to contemplate yet and pumpkins are starting to appear in the supermarkets.
I spent some time with our domestic help this morning talking over some housekeeping issues and then walked down to meet up with my ‘coffee’ friends in Wetherspoons before I walked back up the hill and started to get things ready for my Pilates class later in the day. I always go to this class by car to save a bit of time as well as my legs and today, as it was the birthday week of one of my class mates we were all treated to a fancy cake which was very welcome. Then I returned home and prepared a meal of mackerel fillets on a bed of salad which requires no cooking and the minimum of preparation which is just as well as it is practically 3.00pm by the time I have returned home. Then in the later part of the afternoon, I spent some time reviewing and helping to refine the personal statement of the son of a friend of mine who is applying to university and the ‘Personal Statement’ can be an important part of the whole document. This was a pretty good statement which required only a very little minor tweaking bit I had to do a certain amount of file manipulation and conversion so that I could work on the document using the software that I had.
The Tory party conference is trundling on with one of the latest revelations being that 20 Conservative councillors are to defect to Reform. Meanwhile, the leader-in-waiting of the Conservative party Robert Jenrick, is having to defend remarks that he made calling Handsworth in Birmingham ‘a slum’ and also declaiming that he did not see a single white face whilst he was in that suburb. That probably says more about Robert Jenrick than about Handsworth but it shows that ‘the race card’ is never far the thought processes and the mindset of Tory politicians. Decades ago, Margaret Thatcher spoke in terms of the country being ‘swamped’ by immigrants and despite having made a lot of progress in promoting and electing black and minority ethnic members (e.g. Rishi Sunak), the modern Conservative party still finds race and immigration an issue to which it will always return when it is desperate for votes.
I have always thought of the Danes s being a very sensible and level-headed people and this was confirmed in the latest news from that country. The Danish government is proposing a ban on several social media apps for under-15s, according to the country’s prime minister. Mette Frederiksen told Denmark’s parliament on Tuesday that ‘Mobile phones and social media are stealing our children’s childhood.’ Research published by Denmark’s wellbeing commission earlier this year found 94% of the country’s young people had a social media profile before they turned 13 – despite that being the minimum age for many social media platforms. It also found nine to 14-year-olds were spending an average of three hours a day on TikTok and YouTube. Australia is also grappling with the problem but I doubt any British politician would dare to grasp this particular nettle. There are some voices advocating a similar policy in the UK but it has failed to make any traction in the political agenda. It is not just the fact of being online but the insidious effects of social media from whence many get their news about the world which does not bode well for the democratic process as mis-information is so widespread on a range of topics.