This morning was a gloomy morning which threatened rain later on in the day. As it was, I walked down on my own to collect our copy of the Sunday Times and then it was time in home for what is now the Laura Kuennsberg show, now that Andrew Marr has retired. The show was memorable for an interview with Liz Truss who will surely get the news at 12.30 tomorrow that she has been elected as the leader of the Conservative Party and therefore Prime Minister. For me, the whole show (apart from the antics of the comedian Joe Lycett who practically derailed the show) was a graph shown to Liz Truss showing how reducing the National Insurance contributions was amazingly regressive – the higher one moved up the income scale, the greater the benefit). Laura Kuennsberg’s question to Liz Truss was ‘that was not fair’ to which Liz Truss replied that it was absolutely fair. This is a jaw-dropping admission – that the richer one is, it is more fair to give them bigger tax reductions than it is to help the poorest who are are hardly helped at all by the reduction in National Insurance. Practically no politician has dared to day this in the last forty years (but I suppose Tories feel it to be true). Liz Truss went on to say that we should not be arguing about redistributing the wealth of the nation but stimulating economic growth by making the rich richer. This is part of a wider theory called ‘trickle down economics’ in which it is assumed (with very little evidence) that making the rich richer makes wealth ‘trickle down’ to reach the poower sections of our society. The renowned economist, John Kenneth Galbraith, described trickle-down theory as ‘the less than elegant metaphor that if one feeds the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.’ This pretty much summarises what has happened in practice over the past forty years as the theory has been rigorously applied by giving tax cuts to rich people and powerful corporations. But the rich have become very much richer, the corporations have become very much more powerful, and the sparrows are getting a whole lot thinner as fewer oats make it through the system. The Twitter-sphere is full of comments about this gaffe (if it was a gaffe) and are arguing that the Labour Party must be rubbing their hands in glee at this statement of philosophy before Truss is even elected. Others have commented that as we have had several years of trickle down economics, why do we have 200+ food banks across the country? I hope that Keir Starmer uses it to good effect at Question Time next Wednesday. The amazing thing is that even some Tories are even now, before she is even confirmed as having been elected, thinking of ways in which she can be removed – after all, only 30% Conservative MPs actually voted for her in the final ballot. If Liz Truss appoints an incredibly right wing cabinet, then this will spell masses of trouble on the back benches who feel that the Tory party is anything but united. On the other hand, if she appoints people who disagree with her, she must hate having them in the cabinet voicing their opinions and eventually being sacked in a blaze of publicity. It is no wonder that Boris Johnson is going to lurk around in the wings, assuming that a Liz Truss premiership will implode as right wing ideology has to meet with the reality of mass hardship and deaths amnongst the elderly. Of course, having appealed to right wing constituency party members with ‘no handouts’ she may have to ditch this ‘promise’ within hours when faced with the depth of the economic crisis coming down the road.

Meg and I took the car to the park as we often do on a Sunday mornimg. We had just drunk our coffee and were preparing to leave when our two friends, University of Birmingham friend and Seasoned World Traveller strode into view, probably seeking us out. We had quite a jolly time joshing with each other about this and that. I had discovered a little child’s toy – a ball that illuminates when it is bounced – so they volunteered to hand it in at the cafe so that it can be donated by them (and not by me)to any passing toddler who can make use of it.

Today, we had a conventional beef dinner and teated ourselves to some Yorkshire puddings to go with it. After lunch, we were delighted to see that we had a really good old-fashioned downpour which did not last very long but is a sight to which we have not been treated for several weeks now. Later. on this afternoon, I am going to prepare some apples which my daughter-in-law picked for me and we can have a good old-fashioned nursery tea of stewed apple with custard. We are also looking forward to a BBC4 presentation later on this evening of the life of Beethoven on the one hand, to be followed by a rendition of the 9th Symphony (Choral Symphony) on the other.

Today there was a decidedly autumnal feel to the air when we got home. It had evidently rained during the night which is surely needed after all of these dry spells – I was pleased that we had got the lawns and the hedges cut before the rains came and we shall probably expect a little more tomorrow. The generally autumnal air was assisted by the choice of music by Alan Titchmarsh on ClassicFM this morning where we had a Mozart Horn concerto closely followed by the Elgar cello concerto. I think these two pieces were well-chosen to reflect the ambience of the day and although it is not exactly the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’ in the words of the poet, the fact that so many trees are losing their leaves in a kind of false autumn means that the seasons are well and truly out-of-kilter with the actual months – after all, we are only just into September. Before we went down to the park, I had a large load of washing to peg out but no sooner had I started but the washing line broke in the very middle.I suspect that this is where our clothes prop that has a very tight clasp had worn away at the clothes line. Needless to say, I was being able assisted in putting out the clothes by Miggles, that cat who had adopted us. Repairing the line meant accessing the lower branches of one of our holly trees to release some spare portions of line. Once the line had been repaired (with a simple knot) the cat ascended the tree to inspect the cleat where the clothes line was affixed and almost got itself stuck. Afterwards, Meg and I went down by car to pick up our Saturday newspaper and after that, we made our way to the park. There we met up with Inveterate Octogenerian Hiker who we we had not seen for well over a week. We exchanged news of our various comings and goings and indeed we will not see our acquaintance again for at least a week as his daughter was going to whisk down to Chicester for a little holiday. I was reminded vividly of how the recent heat wave has thrown the seasons out of kilter because as I was cutting the lawns yesterday, I noticed that our solitary pear tree in the back garden was absolutely laden with fruit, whereas last year I think that it only bore a single pear. I selected the largest pear and sampled it, expecting it to be fairly tart but was pleasantly surprised that the taste was quite tolerable so I may have to think about picking the crop a bit earlier than I would have thought. At the same time, the old damson trees at the end of our garden (part of a hedgerow which I think forms part of the ancient boundary fence) is absolutely teeming with damsons. When I got indoors, I consulted my ‘gardening diary’ in which I record various things and notice that in the past I have picked damsons as early as 5th September. The only problem is that I still have not got around to bottling last years damson gin and damson vodka so I really need to find the time to do this in the next few days in order to release Kilner jars in which the damson gin is made. I should really have got around to this a lot earlier but somehow other things have always tended to intrude. This afternoon, Meg and I were watching ‘Sense and Sensibility‘ whilst simultaneously reading The Times not to mention my current writing. In the late afternoon, I also thought I would get back into soup making mode again as the nights are getting a little colder. I made tonight’s soup out of some fried onions, carrots, swede, celery, half a can of coconut milk and finally a dollop of Marsala sauce which adds just a little bit of piquancy to the whole. I started off this lot just before we set off for church and when we got back, the soup was all ready for us. We just needed a little bit of toast in lieu of croutons and a spoonful of greek yogurt and it feels like old times again. I have some cooked ingredients left over for an additional soup type meal during the week.

Finally,more Tory sleaze has energed. Liam Fox denies wrongdoing after receiving £20,000 from COVID testing firm he recommended but claims that all he did for his money was to make a recommendation to government. As we are in a kind of interregnum between Prime Ministers, I would be surprised if this was taken any further, particularly as so many ministers benefitted in a similar way at the start of the pandemic. Nobody seems to call out this corruption any more as it seems normal in the current state of politics.

We didn’t have anything much planned for today apart from a realisation that a period of wet and windy weather might be upon us over the weekend and so therefore today was a good day to apply the mower to the lawns (I hesitate to say ‘cut’ the lawns because they are still largely yellowy brown but they certainly need some tidying up as some tall weeds seem to be growing along their margins) We set off in the car this morning as we needed to make several calls along the road.The first was Asda because there are some things in that store that I cannot find anywhere else. We were successful in buying two of the three things we needed but could not find any of the brown paper bags designated for composting food waste which we use to store vegetables such as carrots in the fridge. To stop a lot of fruitless chasing around in the future, I have ordered some over the web which should take a few days to arrive. Then we went on to collect our newspaper and make our way to the park. The park’s car park seemed unusually full this morning but we occupied a space only when another visitor vacated it and enjoyed our coffee and biscuits when we were finally occupied our favourite bench. Finally, it was off to a petrol station to collect a gallon of petrol for the lawn mower – ideally, I wanted some ‘super’ petrol as I only buy two gallons of this a year for the lawn mower and I suspect it is ethanol-free. To cut a long story short, I concluded that the supermarket did not stock a ‘Super’ grade but filled up with regular petrol. When I enquired at the pay point, I was told they stock ‘Super’ grades of petrol but I had not found it because all of the pumps supplying it were busy with oher customers. I have a special Briggs and Stratton additive (‘Fuel Fit’)which I can add to my petrol and according to the website, it prevents stale fuel, stabilizes fuel up to 3 years, cleans the fuel system and is the perfect stabiliser for lawn mowers and other equipment. Finally, we got home and had a quick lunch of sea bass on a bed of lettuce. This is our Friday ‘treat’ and as well as being very tasty, it is incredibly quick to prepare and gets our lunch (and the subsequent washing up) over and done with quite quickly. Finally, I got out fairly early in the afternoon to get the lawns cut. The mower started (eventually – I suspect that the really hot weather has caused the fuel in the fuel line to vaporise) and the lawns then got cut in the normal time (40 minutes for the front, 20 minutes for the back).

The campaign to be the next leader of the Conservative party, and therefore Prime Minister, thankfully ended at 5.00pm this afternoon. The result, practically a foregone conclusion, will be announced about midday on Monday morning. There is an almost universal acceptance that the election process, consulting as it does with the ‘grass roots’, has gone on far too long. The MP’s whittled their choice of candidates down to the top two in about 10 days but this consultation with the constituency parties seem to have gone off for weeks, right during the summer. The MP’s had to make their decisions quickly before the Parliamentary session ended, but even so most people are now of the view that MP’s should have been given a little more time and the constituency parties considerably less. A figure of two weeks for the latter has, I think, been mentioned. The last time the Tories activated this procedure, Angela Leadsom quickly withdrew from the contest with Theresa May and hence the whole process of choosing a new leader was considerably shortened. It was unfortunate for the Tories that this period of consultation coincided with the war in Ukraine and one of the worst economic crises to hit us in decades. It may well be that once this election is well and truly over that the Tories learn the lesson and perhaps have different procedures for when the party is in government (which is practically all the time) and when they are in opposition (which is correspondingly quite rare). The Labour party could do well to draw lessons from all of this as well. After the ‘coronation’ of Liz Truss is confirmed next Monday, political attention will turn to the Committee of Privileges of the House of Commons and whether Boris Johnson, in his uttterances, misled the House. The critical phrase is whether this was an ‘intentional’ misleading or not. Boris Johnson has received un an anticipated boost as in a published legal opinion commissioned by the government, Lord Pannick – a crossbench peer who sits in the House of Lords – described the Privileges Committee’s approach to its investigation into whether the PM misled MPs as ‘unfair’ and ‘flawed’. Boris Johnson will always argue that he ‘unintentionally’ misled the House – but was he really totally ignorant of all the partying going on around him, not least in his own flat when Dominic Cummings resigned?

When I woke up this morning, I knew that I had to make an early start to get our weekly shopping done – and then realised, with a sort of sickening thud, that I had neglected to put our wheelie bins at the end of the drive ready for collection by the bin men. As we are a private road, I have to drag the bins about 150 yards along our access road to the end of the drive and, if you forget, this means a wait of a fortnight until that bin can be emptied again or an actual visit to the tip some 5-6 miles distant. Anyway, I got the bins there in time and so was mightily relieved. I then shot off to my shopping after accessing some cash from a nearby ATM and did a fairly full week’s shopping. This all worked out fine and I only forgot one item for my sins. Then it was a case of a slow unpacking after which I prepared our elevenses for the park. It was a beautiful day, albeit a trifle windy, so Meg and I decided that we would walk to the park today and not take to the car at all. We chatted to no-one in particular and therefore got home fairly quickly. Our daughter-in-law had made the very generous offer to come around to our house today and cut the tall growing hedge which surrounds our BioDisc (mini sewage treatment facility) with a pair of electric hedge clippers. Whilst we were outside the house, we had a jolly time with our next door neighbour who works at the big garden centre down the road and they are now reducing the prices of all of their plants by 20%. I suppose children will go back to school next Monday, summer holidays are over for many and perhaps people are turning to thoughts other than gardening. Then we all engaged in tidying up all of the hedge clippings and clippings from other shrubs that had received a haircut. As is typically the case in such circumsstances, it is not the actual clipping but the clearing away of the clippings that takes the time. I realise that the lawn has not received attention for a week or so and although the main body of the grass is still somewhat yellow, there is quite a lot of tidying up for a mower to perform around the edges. I need, though, to go and get a gallon of petrol for the lawnmover – it only takes two gallons a year but I generally buy high quality petrol to avoid the problem of the ethanol with which they bulk out petrol these days absorbing water vapour and causing mower problems. But as it was the height of rush hour, I decided to wait until tomorrow when Meg and I get the petrol whilst we have the car out to go to the park.

The Chancellor of the Excheqeur, Mr Zahawi, promised there would be additional help for struggling families. However, he stuck to the Downing Street line that it will be up to the new prime minister – due to be named on Monday – to decide what shape it takes. The chancellor’s comments come as the Resolution Foundation warns British households are on course for the deepest living standards squeeze in a century, with real household disposable incomes expected to fall by 10% this year and next. The trouble is that none of the present holders of a ministerial office may still be in post next Tuesday, after Liz Truss is confirmed as Prime Mnister next Monday. So there has been a period of complete government paralysis wilst the election campaign has rumbled on through the summer. Incidentally, I hear a ‘vox pop’ with a member of the Tory party in a leafy constituency somewhere in the south of England. When the interviewer pointed out that the next Prime Minister of the country was going to be selected on the basis of conservative constituency members, the lady replied, with no apparent sense of irony, that the next Prime Minister was going to be chosen by the ‘best’ people in the country! Meg and I are looking forward to tomorrow when we do not have to get up early for any pressing reason so we can allow ourselves the luxury of a little lie-in. We have not seen our normal gaggle of friends in the park over the last few days, so we are looking forward to more social intercourse tomorrow. According to the ‘auction’ of energy contracts last month, it now appears that the cost of generating elecrity from windpower is now one quarter of the price of the gas equivent – I did her on the radio a university academic arguing that the ratio is now one seventh (which I have not been able to verify) But I have to ask myself why the price of all energy is so high (and increasing) at the moment?

Today was always going to be quite an interesting day. It started off by greeting our domestic help who had been incredibly busy organising a large 21st birthday party for one of her sons and she had evidently worked extremely hard to achieve a successul event. Of course, she achieved these aims but was now feeling somewhat tired after all of her efforts and exertions over the past few days. Meg and I know that we were going to make a visit with fellow family members to Worcester later on in the day so we had to organise our day to fit in around this event. Meg and I collected our newspaper and then made a fairly fast and brisk visit to the park to drink our coffee before we set off with son and daughter-in-law to visit Worcester by train. We had decided to go to Worcester by train as parking in central Wprcester is a bit of a nightmare whilst one of the suburban Worcester railway stations lies within easy reach of the High Street, which was our ultimate destination. As we arrived in Worcester in plenty of time, we dived into a little coffee-cum-pancake bar where we had a carbohydrate filled lunch with quite an innovative little menu. We got along to a meeting a few minutes before 2.00pm and then spent an hour discussing some mortgage issues with the Bank. The adviser that we saw was very helpful and we were somewhat early in the application process so we have made an appointment for three months later in the year. The meeting today with all four of us was quite fruitful and now we have a name and a contact number for the person who is going to handle our transaction from this point on, so that was very useful. Also we now have an updated list of the documents we need to supply (and, more importantly, what we do not) so we feel fairly sure that we have had a successful day and we hopeful that future transactions can be completed without a hitch. On our walk back to the station, I made a brief diversion down a little arcade that Meg and I used to visit quite often when we came to Worcester using their Park-and-Ride system (now abandoned by the city council as they say they could not afford the scheme) I ascertained that the excellent little cafe that used to prepare dishes like a lasagne or a fish pie was still in operation as we had not visited it since pre-pandemic days. Now that we have re-discovered it yet again, Meg and I may well have some little days out in Worcester by travelling in by train, enjoy the excellent little café with its excellent home made food and have a toddle about the kinds of shops we hope to visit (which probably included Marks and Spencer).

After we had returned home to the customary cup of tea, we made a telephone call to the very close friend of Meg’s aged uncle in Colwyn, North Wales. Meg’s uncle is very aged and is now refusing food and drink and really wants to be reunited with his maker. The residential home in which he is lodged is run by Methodist Homes for the Aged and we know from our last visit, that there is a semi-resident Methodist pastor who is on hand to give aid and support as required. We know that he is in constant contact with Uncle Ken and are therefore reassured that his spiritual needs are being met. The purpose of our phone call is to work out whether it is sensible to make a lightning visit to North Wales tomorrow as Ken’s days left on earth must surely be numbered. His close friend who sees him every day gave us the good advice that if were to make a journey up to North Wales, we would achieve very little as Uncle Ken’s powers of communication after several days not partaking of all food and drink are severely limited and indeed he may be semi-comatose. After a great deal of thought and taking advice from family and friends we have decided not to make one final visit but to let nature take its course. In any case, we would certainly attend any forthcoming funeral so that we could participate in a celebration of his life and for this we are ready to go at the drop of the proverbial hat. As we were away in Yorkshire last Thursday, we do need to go shopping for a conventional ‘weekly’ shop up and so I intend to do just that at 8.00am tomorrow morning.

The Tory leadership campaign is surely coming to its conclusion this evening with final hustings taking place. The voting in the election will cease on Friday and the final result will be announced on Monday. After that, there will be a break in tradition when the winner (Liz Truss by a huge margin) will travel to Balmoral to see the Queen and accept an offer to form a government. Then it is back to London, the announcement of a new cabinet and Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday. Ho Hum!

And so Tuesday dawns, the start of a ‘normal’ week given that yesterday was a Bank Holiday and therefore a day when nothing much could get done. Tuesday is the day when we normally go down to Waitrose and see a regular group of our pre-pandemic ‘buddies’. After this, I generally go off to my Pilates class but not today as my teacher is away on an extended weekend break. In Waitrose, we met with four of our little gaggle of friends and I tried to split my time between all of them – we had an stimulating chat and act as a ‘de facto’ support to each other as three of us are acting as carers to husbands/wives with long standing health conditions. After this interesting morning, we got home quite early and had a good read of The Times before striking out again this afternoon. Meg has received a communication from the opticians to make an appointment so we got to the High Street by car in the afernoon to make an appointment in two weeks time. Meanwhile, I got a letter from my own long-term monitoring of eye condition to let me know that all appeared well so this is useful to get behind me for another twelve months or so. Whilst on the High Street, I popped into one of the charity shops and relieved them of a shirt which is just my size and preferred colour and also went to a stationers to get an academic year diary which they were selling off cheaply and which I am intending to use for some little medical notes day by day. At lunchtime, we received a pre-meeting phone call from a representative of the bank to which we are going to pay a visit tomorrow after which I needed to make a call to the solicitors who conveyanced our house some fifteen years ago. It is a long story but the bank should have communicated somewwhat better to me what thing we needed to get our ‘ducks in a row’ before our planned meeting tomorrow. This afternoon, I waited patiently by my phone for a call that came (eventually) but after waiting all afternoon.

Until we get a ‘new’ government in place, the media is full of stories indicating what the consequences are going to be of energy prices that by next spring could be three and a half times what they are today. In particular, it is gradually dawning that many small businesses in the entire country will almost be completely wiped out by the dual effect of the fuel increases for themselves (and there are no announced plans to alleviate these measures for them) and the absence of purchasing power in the population at large to buy the goods and services that they offer. An observation heard more and more over the airways that the damages caused by the lockdown to counteract the pandemic may be like a ‘walk in the park’ compared with the enormity of the economic crisis that is due to hit them. More and more correspondents are indicating that we need a government of some talent and intelligence and not one that panders to all of the prejudices of the extreme right wing which is what the present conservative party has been driven to. There is also some talk of reving a ‘Goat’ government (‘government of all the talents’) and of course in days of supreme national danger, such as WWII we even had coalition governments where normal ‘opoosition’ politics are abandoned. I cannot think of a similar situation when an incoming government has been faced with so many diverse problems and of such a magnitude that simple ideological slogans (such as Liz Truss’s ‘cutting taxes’) will not solve. Talking of Liz Truss, she is advised by an eccentric, not to say wacky, right wing economist called Patrick Minford who is an advocate of ‘supply side economics’ in which it is believed that economic growth will only follow tax cuts to release the potential of enterpreneurs who can kick-start an economy. Most economists believe that this is sometimes the case but not invariably the case and certainly not in present conditions. Even Patrick Minford argues that interest rates may well rise to over 7% in his modelling – but Liz Truss has indicated that she believes all the rest of his economic analysis but not this bit (a bit like believing in God but not in Heavan). In the meanwhile, Liz Truss was lined up for a half hour examination of her economic policies by Nick Robinson on BBC1 tonight where she probably would have been crucified and exposed as a total economic illierate – so Rishi Sunak has undergone such an examination but not Liz Truss. This is incredibly dangerous for our political system in which politicans of extreme views are not challenged. Paul Johnson, Director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies, has written in The Times that: ‘You clearly can’t do all of this without completely crashing the public finances. This simplistic mantra that you cut taxes and the economy grows more, that you cut taxes when you have a big deficit and high inflation, and you don’t do it with any other part of the plan, is quite worrying‘. What could be more damning than that?

Today is August Bank Holiday and I always find these days are a little strange as some shops are open and some are not, most assuming a Sunday pattern in any case. As we did not do a normal shopping last Thursday, we were running short of one or two things so Meg and I went to collect our newspaper by car and then popped into Waitrose to top up our supplies somewhat. Last night our next door neighbour had popped round with some recently warmed apple pie and custard (this, by the way, is not an unusual occurrence) but also gave us the sad news that a sister who had been ill for many years has died. So whilst I was at the newsagent, I bought a ‘Sympathy’ card and then we popped that in to our next door complete with a tray upon which she had brought us our sweet last night. Our trip to the park today was unremarkable as being a Bank Holiday, none of the regulars with whom we generally have little chats were present. The park seemed to lack its normal complement of dogs and toddlers on their scooters so we struck off for home without any of our normal connversations. When we got home, we prepared a fairly conventional midday meal before wondering entertainments we might fancy on a Bank Holiday afternoon. We could not bring ourselves to watch ‘Murder on the Orient Express‘ for the umpteenth time and instead tried to discern whatch we could on Prime TV as we have a Firestick that is plugged in to the back of our TV. I did not know any of the film titles but eventually did a search for ‘Warhorse‘ which indeed they had. We watched this for about an hour and then the programme packed up wih an internet buffering error, about which we seemed to be able to do nothing. We watched the news channel for a certain length of time and then I tried Prime again, but this time managing somehow to get onto our latest network connection from BT. We managed to pick up the film from just about the point at which it had stopped about which we were mightily pleased. Meg and I have seen ‘Warhorse‘ once before several years ago but I was quite happy to give it a second watch. I must say that I found it a very compelling film to watch emotionally and the emotional high spots came quite fast and furious throughout the film and not just in the later stages. Having successfully used Prime for the first time, I must see that if there are any more ‘must see’ films for later occasions when we run into a dead patch on the TV.

There is an interesting headline in The Times this morning which I did not think that I would ever see. A recent poll has found that half of the people who voted Conservative at the last election would support the public ownership of the energy utilities. When you see how the French government exerts control over Electricite de France (EDF) this is hardly a surprise but presumably support throughout the whole of the voting population will greatly exceed 50%. At the same, the water companies are increasingly subject to consumer dissatisfaction as the water companies have continued to make discharges of raw sewage into our seas and rivers. Water companies discharged raw sewage into rivers and coastal waters in England more than 400,000 times in the past year or so, Environment Agency (EA) data has revealed. Untreated human effluent poured into rivers and seas for a total of 3.1m hours via storm overflow pipes that are supposed to be used only in extreme weather to relieve pressure in the sewage system. So whilst the rationale for privatisation the water industry was to secure sufficient investment in a largely Victorian sewage system, this has taken place but dividends to share holders has also been enormous. Our railway system is in a sort of semi-public ownership as the government have taken back various rail franchises which have not performed as well as anticipated. So the fact that there is public appetite, and even enthusiasm, for public ownership of some of our core utilities is a source of some surprise, particularly as the Labour party seems to be very lukewarm to public ownership in their most recent policy announcements. Of course the language used in these debates evokes quite strong passions as surveys in the past have revealed a strong public antipathy to ‘nationalisation’ but much more supportive attitudes to ‘public ownership’. In the 1950’s, if my memory serves me correctly, Conservative governments deployed a policy of buying 51% of the shares of BP and perhaps other large compaies as well. In fact, the British government’s stake in BP has been gradually reduced since 1977 to just under a third from 68.4% through four prior stock offerings, three by Thatcher’s Conservative government. A policy of aiming to own 51% of the shares of a company, particularly if one has a large stockholding already, is fairly easy to achive if shares are bought up gradually whenever they become available. I am looking to see why such an approach to public ownership might not be tried again in the years ahead?

I won’t bore you with the details of how the folder containing all of nearly 900 text files which constitute the text version of this blog seemed to disappear from my laptop on which I typically type whilst Meg is watching TV. I used some backup files and a bit of native cunning to get everything back the way that it ought to have been but it took me until 3.00am in the morning. However, I have ensured that I have backed up my files on two different types of flash memory so if disaster should strike again in the same place, I can get things restored fairly quickly. The only thing that I can think of is that I accidentally deleted the whole folder in a moment of lack of concentration but all is well that ends well. After too little sleep, I got up and collected our Sunday morning newspapers and then Meg and I had a leisurely Sunday morning breakfast. Then it was down to the park on a really beautiful day – it was pleasantly warm but just with a degree of freshness that made the whole day delightful. In the park we met up with Seasoned World Traveller who we have evidently not seen for several days. We updated him about our various comings and goings in Yorkshire and eventually turned our attention to more serious philosophical topics. What excited us this morning was the observation that many Asian societies seem to massively outperform their UK counterparts particularly in the fields of mathematics and many of the technologies. We were thinking aloud how many of these differences are cultural (avoiding the idea that they are genetic difference) but we evidently did not come to any particular conclusions. We do know in the field of mathematics, according to an OECD analysis conducted some years ago that Singapore is the smartest country in the world, followed by Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Finland, Estonia, Switzerland, Netherlands and Canada rounding out the top 10. A more dated research study though is interesting – Ken Todd of York University’s electronics department analysed the performance of hundreds of first year students over 15 years, and found a ‘severe decline’ over time in the proficiency in mathematics of undergraduates who had the same grades of A-level pass. Writing in the magazine Mathematics Today, he reports a collapse in scores on the 50-question multiple choice maths test students sit on their second day at university. In 1985, the average score was 39, well above the ‘worry line’ of 30. Today, the average is 19. ‘It is deeply worrying that an average student with grade B maths is only able to obtain a score marginally better than could be obtained by random guessing,’ said Dr Todd. ‘Algebraic skills are generally poor. The manipulation of powers and logarithms is a dark mystery to many.’

After lunch, we had a nice relaxing time enjoying the in-depth news from the Sunday newspapers. In the ‘Sunday Times‘ apart from the discussion of the cost-of-living crisis which is dominating the news bulletins whilst we await the probable election of Liz Truss as the new Tory Prime Minister, there were two particularly interesting stories. The first of these is the agenda facing Liz Truss the moment she is elected as two thirds of the parliamentary party have never supported her and there is some evidence, even now, of seller’s remorse as Boris Johnson is still preferred by many out in the country. There is a small but not to be discounted possibility, that Liz Truss may even face a leadership crisis the minute she is elected as some may try to win back ‘Boris’ as a likely vote winner. The second story which is of some interest is an analysis of why voters in general have lost so much faith in their politicians. Of course, Brexit is a part of this but it is not the whole story and there is very little confidence that any of our political leaders have the answers to the problems facing the nation. As expected, though, the Liz Truss ‘line’ has changed from ‘no handouts’ to a considerable package of (unspecified) support once she is elected. The full consequences of these astronomical rises in fuel costs is gradually dawning. The proportion of the population living in ‘fuel poverty’ (more than 10% of one’s income spent on fuel) is likely to rise to 50% of the population and perhaps most of the populaation if bills rise to as much as £7,000+ a year which is one current prediction. At the same time, many people’s entire savings will be wiped out. Hardly receiving any analysis until now is the survival of many small businesses particularly in drinks, hospitality and catering – as businesses, they themselves will be faced with massively increasing costs whilst at the same time, many of their potential clients will not have the disposable income to afford what the firms have to offer.

Today is the day when we are due to depart – unfortunately. We got up at 7.30am and finished off most of our packing fairly quickly. We had packed the wardrobe and ‘main’ suitcase the evening before and I always find packing to go home so much easier than the other way round. After all, everything in the room has to be either thrown away or packed but we took several of the smaller packages into the car when we went down for breakfast and that made the final exit from the hotel bedroom so much the easier. We paid our bill and were ready to set off at 9.45. It was the most glorious of days and the motoring was really pleasant. We stopped at the normal service station on the way back which we know is exactly half of the distance between Bromsgrove and Yorkshire and then proceeded on our way. Half way through this second half of the journey, we were nearly involved in a really nasty accident on the motorway. We were motoring at a straight 70mph in the ‘slow’ i.e. inside lane when suddenly a car seemed to slide sideways almost into us. For our part I veered leftwards so that I was half on the hard shoulder and this avoided any contact between us. What had happened was that an aggressive driver behind us had hassled the car in front who had evidently drifted left to get out of the aggressive driver’s way but without checking his mirror and hence nearly collided with us. Fortunately, no harm came to any of us but the aggressive driver shot off into the distance never to be seen again. We celebrated our good fortune by treating ourselves to a boiled sweet and continued with the rest of the journy being just a little more alert than normal.

We received some rather bad news from a close friends of Meg’s Uncle Ken late last night. He is very elderly (about 93 I think) but has suddenly seemed to have lost the will to live and is refusing any food and drink in his residential home in Colwyn, North Wales. How long an elderly frail person can survive without sustenance is very hard to say but we fear that Uncle Ken may not have many more days left to live. Meg and I have tried to work out our options are and we think that a flying visit is not really possible tomorrow (Sunday) and we would not want to be on a motorway on Bank Holiday Monday. Because of other commitments we have during the week, we think that Thursday may be the first day that we can actually motor up to see Uncle Ken (if he is well enough to see us, in any case). We are keeping in close touch with other relatives and friends although Meg is Uncle Ken’s closest living relative and will have to resolve what we are going to do when we get some firmer news. So as things stand we shall see if get an update sometime tomorrow morning and on Monday and then we can make plans accordingly. I got into contact with my daughter-in-law who promptly came round so that we could discuss our best course of action face-to-face and, as always, she was a fund of useful and practical advice. She herself has had to cope with the deaths of some of her own close relatives and so is in a good position to help us to work out our options. In the late afternoon, we went to church as we normally do on Saturday afternoons and then settled down for a leisurely evening once we have consumed a bit of supper.

The current chancellor of the Exhequeur, Nadhim Zahawi, is in a massive dilemma today. Firstly, he may not still be in his current post in about 8 days time as the new Prime Minister is elected and a new ministerial team subsequently appointed. But he has now admitted that in the current ‘cost of living’ crisis, Britons on £45,000 (50% more than the average wage) will probably need help in paying for energy bills as experts warn that the price cap could rise to £7,700. Meanwhile, he has also told the Daily Telegraph that households must try and reduce their energy consumption, and that he fears gas prices could remain elevated for another two years. The ‘official line’ coming from the government is that options for a variety of support packages is being prepared in the background but nothing can actually happen until a new ministerial team is actually in place. In the meantime, the amount of stress in the general population that the rising fuel crisis is generating cannot be underestimated but nothing seems to be happening as the whole governmental machine is effectively in suspension. I am still trying to comprehend the actually reasons why British fuel dprices should have to rise to such an extraordinary extent. For example, EDF energy prices rise by 4% in France compared to 54% in UK but EDF (Electricitie de France) is a State-owned firm was was forced to take a £7 billion pound hit to protect French households.

Today was the day when we were due to hold our little tea party for my sister’s 80th birthday in the hotel this afternoon. We started off by having a leisurely breakfast and then went for a little tour of the Valley Gardens which are a magnificent and much appreciated part of the Harrogate scene. On my way into the Valley Gardens, I remembered a memorial plaque to a US hospital unit that was stationed in Harrogate and whose leaving date happened to be the absolute day on which I was born in 1945. Then we made a leisurely stroll through some of the familiar Harrogate streets, hoping to end up at the little unpretentious little restaurant that we used frequently when in Harrogate. But this desire was thwarted when we found that the cafe was closed for their annual holidays so we made our way to the Italian style cafe bar (run by a variety of nationalities but mainly Greek) which we visited yesterday. We thought we would try an iced coffee for a change but were not overly impressed. Then we made our way slowly back to the hotel to dump some of our stuff and then sauntered out to another cafe near to the hotel that we used to visit quite freqently but which has now changed hands. We ordered two soups which were all we needed at this hour in the day and also begged a couple of elderflower cordial bottles which will be tremendously useful when we eventually get round to bottling last year’s damson gin. Then we repaired back to the hotel and enjoyed a bit of quiet time before our celebrations were due to start this afternoon.

The hotel had done us proud and set out a nice little area to seat the seven of us and included a cake stand. At the suggestion of the staff who had organised the event for us this afternoon, we did indulge in one bottle of prosecco between the six adults of us. For their part, the hotel had also presented my sister with a signed card of the hotel and a little key ring token of the hotel. We set in the middle of the table the vase which we had lovingly transported from Bromsgrove. Whilst we were in Wetherby the other day, we had bought a small collection of wild dried flowers which complemented the vase well and we had this displayed as a centrepiece of our tea table. Then after the prosecco, I gave my sister the vouchers that we had bought in the special Wetherby flower shop as well as two birthday cards, one from Meg and myself and the other from Martin and Mandy. The card from Martin and Mandy was particularly interesting as it featured 1942 (the year in which my sister was born as she is 80 this year) The card contains a host of interesting little ‘facts’ which illustrated the year of 1942 and really made for the most interesting of cards – one that you would not want to throw away when the celebrations are over. Once the prosecco was drunk, tea was served to us consisting of a variety of daintily cut sandwiches and some little cakes in great variety. Finally, we came to the cutting of the cake and sharing it round us and it was delicious and sufficient for the seven of us. The hotel kindly wrapped up the remainder for us and so we all made for for our way home. My sister messaged me with some heartfelt thanks and we exchanged messages, pleased with the way that the whole afternoon had gone and that a wonderful and memorable afternoon had been enjoyed by all. I was so pleased that everything had worked as intended and, in truth, it was very easy to organise and the hotel played their part magnificiently. Given that ‘formal’ afternoon teas are not the kind of thing that you do every day, I think that a warm glow of satisfaction was enjoyed by all and the afternoon had just flown by.

The news about the rising of the fuel cap to an astounding £3,549 from its previous approx. £2k is generally frightening, particularly as there are more projections of even more horrendous increases in the spring months. The media is full of news indicating that so many people are already finding it increasingly difficult to survive on their present resources and where are the extra £1,000s going to come from? Many people are cutting heating down to the minimum including, of course, any heating for food and it looks as though millions of us are going to grow not only cold but also hungry. The politicians are making vague promises that when the Tory election campaign is over, many more resources will be made available but this is rather a case of ‘jam tomorrow – perhaps’. The difficulty is that people’s bills are going up now but any action is promised weeks later and this will almost certainly be too little, too late. As we have a ‘zombie government’ active at the moment,no political spokesmen are available from any of the relevant government departments. Will the population eventually take to the streets, I ask myself?