Today was the day before we made our little trip down to Oxfordshire tomorrow so we picked up our newspaper and then called in at Waitrose to take along one or two little offerings for our friends. We settled upon a bottle of liquid sunshine and some interesting succulents in a very original (heart-shaped) container. Then we journeyed on to the park where we were determined not to stay too long, even though the weather was not particularly unpleasant. We stayed on our usual bench just long enough to have a swift cup of coffee from our flask and then immediately struck for home. We know that today was Questions to the Prime Minister immediately followed by the Budget statement so we ensured that we were sitting in our places, warmed by a cup of chicken noodle soup, before proceedings kicked off at 12.00. PMQ was fairly unexceptional with the usual knock-about with the sequelae of the Gary Lineker affair still rumbling on. The Budget statement had been well trailed and so did not contain many surprises as the provisions for extra support with child care costs had been by and large released to the media for a day or so now. In years gone by, it used to be the case that the Budget was kept well and truly under wraps until it was delivered on Budget day. But a practice seems to have grown up over the years whereby any news that was considered to be ‘good’ is comprehensively leaked a day or so beforehand. I suspect that all of this is part of a deliberate strategy to make a budget more attractive by making the same announcement in effect more than once so that the government can get the credit several times over. One of the features of Budget day is that a very full and detailed document, full of graphs, diagrams and statistical tables, is made available online as soon as the Chancellor of the Exchequeur gets on his feet and starts to deliver the Budget. There are some MPs, and an army of other analysts, who are well used to burrowing away into the ‘small print’ and the fine detail of Budget statements and there are often little time bombs ticking away that somehow did not get included in the full speech delivered to Parliament. Sometimes this news can take hours, or even days, to trickle out when MPs and others have had the chance to read and digest the full import of the Budget statement. For example, the Chancellor had made great play of some of the measure deployed to get people back ino work. But the OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility) has published figures that show that over five years, some 110,000 people may be encouraged to rejoin the labour force. But given the amunts of money that are to be spent, this policy may prove to be a case of spending quite a lot to achieve only a little and there may well be similar instances of this type that get slowly revealed. As you might expect, there was one provision which is already exciting some attention. By abolishing the limit on the size of pension pots (the current limit being £1 million!), then there will certainly be a benefit to quite well paid hospital consultants. On the other hand, the extremely wealthy will benefit enormously from this as the numbers of people who can accrue more than £1 million in their private pension pots must be extremely small.

Meanwhile, there are some economic storm clouds that are gathering as a result of the failure of the American bank, Silicon Valley Bank. It looks as though a certain amount of contagion is spreading across the Atlntic already. The FTSE 100 and other major European stock markets have taken a beating as concern over the health of US banks crosses the Atlantic. London’s blue chip index lost £75bn in combined market value by the close after suffering its deepest fall, on a points basis, since the early days of the COVID crisis. One would hope that our banking system should be sufficiently resilient to withstand these shocks, but we can never be quite sure given the interconnectedness of financial institutions these days.

I see from a display stand in the newsagents that next Sunday is the day when the nation is to celebrate ‘Mothers Day’. Over the years, I have thought that the whole impetus behind this day was largely driven by an unholy alliance of greetings card manufacturers, chocolate makers and florists. However, if I think back to my childhood in the 1950’s, we lived in a largely uncommercial environment but our primary schools encouraged us to make our own Mother’s Day cards. Also we were encouraged, particularly if we lived in or near the countryside, to pluck some early spring flowers (if there are any) and to make a small bouquet and this I am sure we did. Towards the end of the month, though, we have the Eastertime sporting events which tells us that the year has turned. I think that on very rare occasions, it was quite possible for the Boat Race and the Grand National to fall on the same day but this a pretty rare occurence.

Tuesdays come around like the proverbial clockwork and we always look forward to our Tuesday mornings. Meg and I were a little delayed this morning but nonetheless we had our breakfast, picked up our newspaper and then got ourselves into Waitrose at our usual time. There we met up with two of our Tuesday morning regulars and quickly engaged in our normal chat. One of our friends has a Dutch sister-in-law. We asked if she would ask her sister-in-law about ‘Black Peter’ who is a traditional companion to St. Nicholas, but the Dutch feel a little ambiguous about him these days. According to Wikipedia ‘The Zwarte Piet character is part of the annual Feast of St. Nicholas that is celebrated on the evening of 5 December (Sinterklaasavond, which is known as St. Nicholas Eve in English) in the Netherlands and elsewhere. This is when presents and sweets are traditionally distributed to children. The holiday is celebrated on 6 December in Belgium. The Zwarte Piet characters appear only in the weeks before the Feast of Saint Nicholas, first when the saint is welcomed with a parade as he arrives in the country (generally by boat, having travelled from Madrid, Spain).‘ In the past, characters used to dress up as ‘Black Peter’ donning medieval garb and blacking their faces but, as with the Black and White Minstrels show in the UK, probably the Dutch feel that this tradition has had its day in these times when we celebrate diversity and is best forgotten. After our normal jolly chat, though, we went on our way around the store, each of having little bits of shopping to get done. Then it was a case of getting home and, in our case, getting prepared for my Pilates class which takes place at midday on Tuesdays. As I walked down into town, it was a delightful, almost spring-like day and I noticed that several of the flowering cherry trees were just on the point of bursting into bloom. I suppose that in biological terms, when there is a mild spell following a much colder and frostier period, this stimulates part of the plant to start the blooming process. The most likely time to reach peak bloom is between the last week of March and the first week of April so I suppose the second week of March for flowering cherries to start to bloom is about right. In any case, it is a real harbinger of spring. Being interested in the origins of words, I wondered about the origins of ‘harbinger’ and I discovered that ‘harbinger’ has been used in English since at least the 1100s. It comes from Middle English, from a variant of the Old French herberg(i)ere, which meant ‘host’ and was equivalent to the verb herberg(ier), ‘to shelter.’ Harbinger was originally used in English to refer to a host or someone who provides lodgings.

We are due for a couple of interesting Wednesdays. Firstly, we have the budget tomorrow in which it has been trailed that the pension pot limit of £1 million may be raised to £1.8 million. If this pre-release of information is correct, then it may have a considerable impact upon the relatively well-paid consultants within the NHS. These may be persuaded not to take a premature retirement from the NHS as,if they were not to retire early, they may well have been adversely impacted by the pension cap limit of £1 million (reduced in a George Osborne budget from £1.25 million in 2015). But the following Wednesday may be the real date in our calendar. Boris Johnson is due to appear in person before the Privileges Committee at 2.0pm in the afternoon and the committee hearings will be broadcast live. The Committee already has sufficiently documentary, witness and photographic evidence to come to a conclusion that Boris Johnson probably misled the House of Commons but it may be a fight for his political life. The Committee have to decide, though, whether Johnson ‘knowingly’ misled the Commons and this is a very hard thing to prove. Even if the decision goes against him, the MPs will to have to decide on the penalty. In most cases this would be an apology to the whole House of Commons, held in silence and with no interruptions. But in severe cases, the committee can decide an expulsion for a number of days from the Commons. If the days are 10 or more, then the electors in a constituency will have the right to demand a ‘recall’ elction, and given his smallish majority, he is likely to lose this in the present climate. If I had to make a prediction at this point of time, it would be that the Privileges Committee find him ‘guilty’ but pull their punches somewhat by suspending him from the Commons but for a number of days less than ten when a recall might be triggered. There are some further technicalities in that the Privileges Committee will have to report back to the whole House of Commons for ratification. All MPs will then vote to ratify or disagree with their conclusions and any recommended sanctions. Now this might be gripping television in just a week’s time but the Committee itself may take some to argue amongst themselves before a conclusion is reached.

This morning dawned wet and windy and it was not the kind of day that naturally welcomed you outside, but the weather was surprisingly mild once we eventually did venture out. After a leisurely breakfast, Meg and I went in the car to pick up our newspaper and then ventured onwards to a ‘Home and Garden’ type store. Here I was hoping to find something that would act as little miniature speaker stands and I did find some small, clear perspex-type containers that would suit the purpose for which I had them in mind. My first thought was to add a level of tape to them but eventually I thought they would look all right in their natural condition so I have put them in place and can now forget about them. Just before we left the house, the news came through that Gary Lineker and the BBC came to a ‘modus vivendi’ which seemed to be very sensible. On the one hand, the BBC committed itelf to reviewing its guidelines and how the issue of non-salaried, freelance presenters should be handled. Gary Lineker, for his part, indicated that he would refrain from any tweet that might be seen as controversial until the BBC review is completed and new understandings were in place. Incidentally, this might be extraordinarily difficult to draft but the BBC has to make the effort. Meg and I started to watch the Politics program chaired just after midday by Jo Coburn. I have the greatest respect for her as a journalist and as a presenter because she does not allow her own personality to become part of the debate (a common failing, it has to be said). But the whole panel discussion started off with the question ‘Did the BBC cave in to Gary Lineker?’ which question was no doubt framed to be a good discussion point but to my mind completely reduced a complex issue to a sort of boxing match in which there had to be winners and losers. I felt that the BBC for its part was taking the view that guidelines cannot be set in stone but have to be adapted to changing environments (not least one in which the social media is so much more prominent). On the other hand, I am sure that Gary Lineker may have felt that he could have had a wiser choice of words and had not fully appreciated how the thrust of his tweet against the rhetoric that was being deployed (not least by our own Home Secrtary) could be weaponised. Long term opponents of the BBC (and some who are not) feel that Lineker might have been making a direct comparison between the present Goverment and the Nazi regime of 1930’s Germany. So each side to this particular dilemma probably realise that they need to move closer to each other and to find a common, negotiated position and this is what has transpired. The attention may now shift away from Lineker and towards Richard Sharp, the chairperson of the BBC who is currently under investigation for his role in securing a huge £800,000 loan to Boris Johnson and whose future may now be in doubt – and we may be talking says here rather than weeks or months. Keir Starmer describes Sharp’s position as ‘increasingly untenable’ as Rishi Sunak offers lukewarm defence of BBC chair so the omens do not look good.

This afternoon, we had a quiet afternoon watching a wild-life film on BBC2 (which makes a welcome change to the ‘Dream Home in the Country’ type programs that seem to be on every single day) One of our congregation called round from the church to collect our box in which we are meant to collect contributions for the missions but which we make sure has some contribitions inside before it is emptied. Then we had a good read of the Sunday newspapers which we did not have time for yesterday as well as today’s Times. The problem is, though, that a lot of current concerns have been rather taken over by events as the Lineker affair becomes resolved.

We may just have averted another bank collapse. This time, it is a small bank specialising in loans to hi-tech companies (Silicon Valley Bank) whose parent company has just gone belly up in the United States. For the short term, a buyer has been found (HSBC who are buying the bank for £1). The Bank of England has given certain assurances i.e. that it would not face onerous anti-money laundering checks for its new customers and that it would not have to take responsibility for any previous misconduct at SVB UK. However, these are the public assurances, but I wonder how much secret money has sloshed through the system but disguised from public view. This is not difficult for the Bank of England to disguise in that HSBC will be the technical owners but the Bank of England might have given HSBC hidden assurnces that helps to finance the whole deal. Also, the question must be asked as to how many more ‘unexploded bombs’ are lying around in the financial system, because whereas one bank may have got into difficulties, it is a fair bet that other banks in these troubled financial times might be experiencing similar problems.

After a delayed breakfast, Meg and I watched the Lorna Kuennssberg show to glean the latest from the BBC/Lineker affair. It seems to us as though the BBC is moving rapidly to repair whatever damage has been caused and hopfully we shall see ‘normal service will be resumed as soon as possible’ which is always the message put about when the BBC had a break in transmission. Incidentally, it is interesting how rarely that takes place these days. We had a quick mobile call from our University of Birmingham friend to confirm our meeting in Waitrose just before 11.00pm. Altogether, we spent the best part of two hours in each other’s company which cannot be bad. There was quite a lot of going down memory lane, I am afraid, but our friend and ourselves tended to have similar experience and the resolution of issues when we were at work – which was 15½ years ago in my case. Then he asked me various details about this blog such as ‘Why do you do it?’ to which there was no definitive answer. I think that the short answer is that I started this blog at the very start of the pandemic lock-down (as I thought it might be an interesting social history) but when the pandemic ended, I just carried on. Anyway, after our pleasant bit of socialising, it was case of getting home and cooking the Sunday lunch which today was relatively straightforward as we used the other half of a cooked gammon joint which I had frozen about a month ago and just needed thawing, slicing and adding to some of my onion gravy.

This afternoon was rather taken up by watching the Ireland-Scotland 6-Nations rugby match. This match was surprising close and very hard fought in the first half with only one point separating the two sides at half time. But then as you might expect from the top team in the world at the moment, the Irish gradually extended their lead despite some injuries and forced substitutions but as a match it was entertaining and far from the foregone conclusion that you might have thought before the match started. We have a good evening of entertainment lined up for this evening and we always enjoy the Andrew Neil show which is normally on about 6.00ish as the level of questionning and analysis tends to exceed that on some of the political shows over the weekend. In this evening’s show, for example, I saw Andrew Neil comprehensively take apart Victoria Atkins who is a Tory Treasury Minister. Neil kept pressing his question why it was that the UK economy had failed to reach pre-pandemic levels and we were alone amongst the G7 economies in not being able to recover lost ground. When asked a series of more technical questions (e.g. debt to GDP rtio) she did not know the answer and had to confess to not knowing. Eventually in sheer desperation,she volunteered that we had the NHS to pay for and this was why the UK was doing so badly. Andrew Neil reminded her that Italy, too, had a national health service to which answer was there none. I should imagine that the politicos at Conservative Central Office must have been squirming in their seats at Atkin’s absysmal performance and I predict that she will never be allowed near a TV studio ever again this side of an election. As we have been so busy what with one thing or another this Sunday, I have scarcely got round to reading any of the Sunday Times but no doubt this will wait a little, unless overtaken by events.

This week we have the budget on Wednesday which does not have the level of interest that it used to do. It is interesting that two particular issues have crept up the political agenda about which ‘something needs to be done’ but it is not really a question of dispute between the political parties. The first of these is childcare costs in the UK which are the highest in Europe and twice the European average. These costs are now so enormous that childcare is completely unaffordable for many couples. The average cost of sending a child under two to a nursery for 25 hours per week (part-time) has risen to £7,729 per year (52 weeks) and this figure would wipe out the part-time earnings of many young women. The deterrent effect of this is hard to overstate and is acting as quite a drag on the UK economy. Another major factor is the fact that many older workers have disappeared from the labour force even though they are not yet of retirement age. It looks as though half a million workers, predominantly in their 50’s and early 60’s, have now left the labour force. Some of this is due to redundancy of older workers who then fail to find unemployment. But a major factor is a sharp increase in health-related conditions, some of them associated with the pandemic, as a result of which work is increasingly difficult. Budget watchers will no doubt see that the Chancellor may announce some measures to alleviate these two problems but they are very likely to be of the ‘sticking plaster’ solution rather than anything more fundamental.

It looks as though the current really cold snap may well be petering out. So this morning, after breakfast, Meg and I decided that we would brave the park today but not stay too long sitting down so that we did not get too cold. We decided on a slightly different strategy this morning and took a flask of coffee with us but in a smallish little bag instead of the more normal rucksack. There was a slightly icy wind but we sat down just long enough to have our customary coffee and then decided to return home fairly rapidly. Then we got home and we treated ourselves to a packet tomato soup and then read the paper quietly until it was time for lunch. As a treat, I had bought ourselves some venison meatballs and these were delicious, heated up initially and then complemented by some fried onions and a little gravy left over from past meals. We were anxious to get all fed and washed up before the rugby match (Italy vs. Wales, the two bottom teams both striving to avoid coming bottom of the table) but Wales won this match with ease. This afternoon, we shall watch the first half of the England vs France match, then go for church and, upon our return, we may be able to pickup the second half of the match on our PVR. This we did upon our return from church only to witness a massive win for the French, 53-10, and complete humilation for England.

I think it is fair to say that the Lineker/BBC row absolutely exploded this morning. It loks as though the BBC suspended Lineker at least for this week (using words like ‘stepping back’ from Match of the Day). Once this news had percolated through, all of his co-commentators immediately withdrew, as well as the presenters of other sports programmes this afternoon. I do not think for a moment that the BBC had anticipated this mass show of support from Lineker’s fellow commentators and what had started off with a dispute with one (admittedly well paid) presenter has become a major problem for the BBC. In this situation, the BBC may feel that they cannot possibly ‘back down’ and will not be in a mood for compromise as it looks as though they are abandoning the policy of impartiality. For his part, Lineker has no intention of backing down either, has the support of his fellow commentators and can probably increase his remuneration by going off to another network. It may be that the BBC and Lineker part company in which the BBC as a whole will be the ultimate loser. The wider picture of all of this is that the BBC is trying to operate impartiality in a political climate where the language used even by Government ministers is both extreme and inflammatory. Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, accused her own civil service of trying to thwart her cross-channel migrant policy which even the Bill that she is sponsoring admits may break the convention on Human Rights. Then Gary Lineker steps into the breach and complains that the language being used is redolent of 1930’s Germany which can be proven to be correct. However, the Lineker contribution to social media could well be (and has been) assumed to be a direct comparison of the present government with Nazi Germany, which, if this was the intention of the tweet, would be quite dispropotionate. There is a great difficuly in the climate in which the BBC is operating. Much of the press is exhibiting a marked right wing flavour and, as such, Brexit is lauded and hostile language against migrants coming to these shores is the order of the day (encouraged and sustained by a right wing government) The BBC finds itself in a position where right wing influences on the BBC are allowed or even condoned. Gary Lineker’s suspension for expressing political views set off an avalanche of comparisons with other BBC stars who have not been similarly sanctioned for lacking impartiality. Some of these were obvious: Lord Sugar of The Apprentice, whose 18 years of firing people have been punctuated by political outbursts, from newspaper interviews calling on people to vote Conservative to tweeting a mocked-up image of Jeremy Corbyn sitting next to Adolf Hitler. But Lineker has been suspnded whilst the recently appointed Chairman of the BBC is only under investigation (and not sanctioned) for his part in organising an £800,000 loan facility for Bris Johnson. So the BBC has regrettably got itself into a situation here it is loathe to criticise those on the right of politics but immediately jumps upon anybody who expresses opposition to present government policy on migration – largely because it fears the wrath of the right wing media (and calls for its disbandment)if it takes no action on the views expressed by Lineker. The backdrop to all of this is a massive threat to the independence of the BBC which has often in its history not seen eye-to-eye with the government of the day of whatever political persuasion. There are hints this evening that the BBC realises this, belatedly, and is rowing back on its previous decision and may be seeking an early resolution of the Lineker affair.

The weather this morning still showed flurries of snow but not quite the intensity of yesterday. Our domestic help had to switch her day this week to be with us this morning so I messaged her to offer to pick up up in our car if that would make her journey to us any easier. But she showed up at the appointed time so evidently the snow had not been sufficiently severe to make her think twice about the journey. As always, it was nice to see her and she had brought along a little present of a uniquely shaped colander that she had seen in a kitchen shop. For my part, I tend to buy cooking oil in bulk from a little company that grows its own rapeseed and then processes it and sells it on bulk containers which I then bottle and put into my own bottles on arrival. I then encourage our domestic help to take a bottle from our stock whenever she needs it. Today being a Friday, we anticipated that we would see our University of Birmingham friend in Waitrose which is becoming a Friday morning tradition for the two of us. Our friend is particularly fond of the ‘Moral Maze‘ programme broadcast every week on Radio 4 and one issue that emerged this week was whether it was legitimte to ‘break a confidence’ and report serious nefarious activity to the police. I wondered out loud whether a Catholic priest hearing something in confession could refuse to divulge something heard in the confessional to the police in serious cases. I always understood that what was heard in the confessional was in absolute confidence and should never be disclosed even under the pain of imprisonment or death in the most extreme of cases. But it may well be that things have ‘moved on’ since I was at school and taught the rudiments of theology because the more modern position seems much more sensible. On consulting the web, it appears that the church’s guidelines say that if someone discloses in confession that he or she has committed a serious crime such as child abuse, ‘the priest must require the penitent to report his or her conduct to the police or other statutory authority. If the penitent refuses to do so, the priest should withhold absolution.’ After a brief while, we were joined by one of our pre-pandemic acquaintances who has a lively sense of humour. I reminded her of the response that she made to one of my observations a month or so ago. I asked her whether she would like to live in a society where she was married to three or four husbands at the same time (technically known as ‘polyandry’ which is still to be found in Bhutan, Nepal and parts of Tibet) Our friend thought about this for a moment and concluded that she did not think she would enjoy living in a society such as this. When I enquired why, her reply has resonated with me for a long time as she stated that she did not think that she could ‘handle more than two men at once’. The part of this reply which tackled my fancy was the implications of the phrase ‘more than’ and the imagination can only boggle. Eventually, the elderly lady had to leave us to engage in sone chauffering duties and after she had left, another lady who we did not know passed us by and observed to us that we had evidently had a good time as so much laughter was emanating from our table. So then we left for home and cooked some Basa fillets for lunch. As Basa has only the mildest of flavours, I made a mixture of some seafood sauce and 1000 Island dressing which I heated in a glass to provide a hot sauce to accompany the fish and this worked out as intended.

An argument has broken out this afternoon over the ‘Gary Lineker’ affair. Lineker opined on social media that the tone of pronouncements from government ministers (particularly Suella Braverman) were redolent of the type of language which reminded one of Germany in the 1930s (in other words, the Nazi era). Opinion is quite sharply divided on this issue but the BBC feels that it cannot have a very prominent broadcaster (although on a freelance and not an employee status) to issue opinions that appear to compromise the duty of the BBC to strive for complete impartiality. Actually, I think that the BBC are handling this quite well and are saying that Gary Lineker is to step back from his role as presenter on ‘Match of the Day’ until such time as there is an agreed and clear position of Lineker’s use of social media. Actually, I think that both parties can learn from this episode. Lineker had used language that was capable of misinterpretation and was probably unwise. On the other hand, the BBC probably needs to refine its policies to make it clear to even freelance presenters that they have to ‘have regard’ to the BBC quidelines on impartiality. The wider point here is that Lineker is a sports presenter but should not be using the prominence afforded by his position to let his views be known (however morally correct or praiseworthy such opinions might be)

We knew from the weather forecast that we could expect a fall of snow overnight. Sure enough we did have a few centimetres but it was not quite bad enough to deter me from doing the weekly shopping. Admittedly, I did not feel inclined to get at the supermarket door on the dot of 8.00am so I delayed everything by about half an hour. The main roads were fine but the traffic was horrendous with lots of delays on a journey of a couple of miles. Whizzing around the supermarket when I know where everything is was straightforward and then it came to the journey home. For whatever reason, the journey back seemed choked up with traffic although the other lane of the dual carriage way seemed almost deserted. But this was one of those occasions when I was really pleased to get home with a carload of provisions for the forthcoming week. Before I attempted to unpack, I immediately got busy preparing a bowl of porridge after which I unpacked all of the shopping. When I picked up the nest of tables from the Age Concern furniture shop yesterday afternoon, I did a very quick perusal of their CD section and picked the six classical CDs that they had displayed. This is primarily because I really wanted the empty cases rather than their contents but eventually I finished up with six CDs for the princely sum of £1.25. One of these was a recording of the most well-known of the Beethoven piano sonatas and we really enjoyed playing this and savouring it whilst we were doing the unpacking. Then we got Meg ready to face the world and we got busy with our little project for the rest of the morning. By this stage of the morning, the snow flurries had finished for the day and there was some pale winter sun in evidence. I sat Meg down in our Music Room and put on a CD disk which we both enjoy tremendously entitled: ‘Ave Verum’ This is a CD of sacred choral favourites and was recorded at St. John’s College, Cambridge. It contains some of our especial favourites with pieces by Fauré and Brahms so whilst I had Meg (and myself) at peace with the world, I set to work putting the finishing touches to my restoration of the suite of nested tables. This consisted of a judicious polishing of the yew woodwork and a final cleaning of the glass inserts with some wipes especially formulated for the cleaning of glassware. Once this was all done, I had a bit of a brainwave and positioned the tables in the corner of the room recently occupied by my last renovation but one, which was the mahogany table whose bad ‘white ring’ stain I had all but eliminated. The effect was incredibly pleasing because now all of the furniture in lighter colours (maple, yew, perhaps walnut I would guess) are now on the same side of the room and the tonalities are nicely consistent with each other. Meanwhile, the mahogany table now looks quite handsome on the other side of the room where it sits besides one of the two comfortable armchairs. I raided the bottom drawers of a large unit in our dining room to see what bits of linen and ‘table dressing’ we could liberate and whilst this was largely Christmassy type things, we did remind ourselves where we kept a supply of scented candles and I liberated one small table decoration that we can immediately bring into use.

As is often the case when the government tries to avoid the fallout from making an unpleasant announcement, the Transport minister has announced a sigificant delay to a section of the HS2 line by making a written statement. The section from Birmingham to Crewe and then onwards to Manchester is to be delayed for two years in what appears to be a desperate attempt by the Treasury to save money. Long term critics of the HS2 project will be emboldened by this announcement and will still attempt to get the whole project dropped. In the meanwhile, it looks as though the concept of ‘levelling up’ will have received a severe knock by this announcement. But we know that similar projects e.g. in Spain, tend to benefit the capital city rather than the more distant cities served by the line. But in the London area, we have had both CrossRail and also the Elizabeth Line. Although these two projects were subject to significant cost overruns, the prospect of cancellation or deliberate delays was never on the cards. Meanwhile, in the murky world of Westminster politics, it has emerged recently that Boris Johnson is understood to have privately warned deputy prime minister Dominic Raab about his conduct. This long running investigation into allegations of bullying may well report fairly soon and Raab has suggested that he will resign if the complaints against him are said to be substantially correct. At the risk of a bit of ‘pop’ psychology, I wonder whether Ministers who feel intellectually inadequate are liable to resort to bullying behaviour in a desperate attempt to appear to be in charge of events. Senior civil servants tend to be highly educated and long standing in their positions and it is no wonder that ministers who may, in the famous words of Sir Robin Day, be ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ privately feel their inadequacy.

You never quite know what a day is going to bring. This morning it looked as though there were flurries of snow and that these might intensify. What a good day to have a good bowl of porridge with which to start the day, I thought to myself, and looked in the cupboard for my supplies of oats. To my dismay we were quite out of them so I decided that I would leave Meg in bed whilst I threw some clothes on and hurried down in the car both to collect the newspaper and also to avail myself of a goodly supply of oats. Waitrose had a special offer on oats which is just as well because I do not want to be without them when the weather is cold. By the time we had had some breakfast and got ourselves ready, we had a look outside and although we intended to pop down into town to pick up a purchase, we decided to abandon that particular activity at least for the morning. By the time we had some delayed elevenses in the comfort of our own home, it was not too far off 12.00 and Questions to the Prime Minister which was the usual knockabout stuff. The impression is quite strong abroad that Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman (Home Secretary) are actually relishing a fight over the Illegal Migration Bill. The Tories are arguing they are in touch with popular public opinion, not to mention thir own right wing, and whilst they privately may think that none of their provisions will actually work (and hence the absence of detail),nonetheless thay are more than happy to electioneer on a populist stance. I often think that when the Tories are up against it, they always fall back on the outright xenophobic dog whistles to act as a vote winner for them. Hence there were jibes against ‘Lefty lawyers’ and Suella Braverman even went as far as to argue that the opposition was assisted not only by lefty lawyers but the civil service as well. Naturally, this has incensed some of the civil service unions and when challenged, there was a certain amount of backing off. The Labour party for its part is arguing about the sheer unworkability of the new proposals and the track record that shows that ‘illegal’ migration has soared whilst more and more restrictive legislation is proposed. A loophole has already been spotted in the published Bill because although migrants should be returned to their country of origin or Rwanda, the provision of ‘habeas corpus’ still applies. This is a tremendously old and well established legal principal as Habeas Corpus – which means ‘you may have the body’ – is the right not to be unlawfully detained. This principle is regarded as so important that the High Court will hear an application of ‘habeas corpus’ immediately and the idea that the state can just detain people without charge is regarded as abhorrent, and rightly so. So this particular argument will run and run as the Tories will milk it for all it is worth whilst practically everybody else protests againsts its immorality, illegality and impractability.

In the late morning, I read my emails and was particularly interested in news from one of my University of Winchester friends whose wife was having an operation last Monday. I was relieved to be sent a photo of his wife smiling and waving once she had come round from the operation. On the spur of the moment, I decided to give him a phone call because it looked as though the hospital were quite keen to discharge his wife as soon as they could after the operation and would have done so except for a phyiotherapist who considered it was too early to consider a discharge. I communicated with my friend some of the experiences that I had had after a spell in hospital nearly five years ago by now. In particular, I stressed the importance of communicating with his doctor as all of the support services that he would need to assist in his wife’s recuperation are actually under the control of the doctor. But primary care services are under strain in all parts of the country and the patient, and the carers for whom the services are intended, have to be active in making sure that the intended services and care packages are actually delivered.

As the weather improved somewhat after lunch, Meg and I made a lightning visit into Bromsgrove town in order to pick up my purchase of a suite of three nesting tables, purchased recently at the Age Concern furniture shop on the High Street. These proved to be a more difficult to transport to the car than I anticipated as they are glass-topped tables which, of course, adds to the weight. I did the first stage of the restoration process including a little touching up of worn elements with a cotton wool bud soaked in scratch cover stain. I think I have effected quite an improvement as the furniture itself is a pleasant shade manufactured in yew. However, it will need a good examination in tomorrow’s daylight to ascertain whether I need to undertake a few finishing touches and, at the end of the day, I can live with a few blemishes so long as the furniture seems restored.

Today is always a day to which we look forward because it is the day when we tend to meet up with old friends in the Waitrose coffee bar. We were delighted to meet up with two of our pre-pandemic friends and, as usual, have a fair amount to chatter about. We always take the opportunity to buy some bits and pieces whilst in Waitrose and to that extent, we treat it rather like a corner shop instead of using it for our main weekly shop. After our weekly get-together, it was time for us to get home and I needed to get myself turned around for my Pilates session later on in the day. It was quite a pleasant walk down into town and I found the time to dive into a little charity shop and avail myself of a little insulated flask which I found on the shelves. The idea here is that in these cold days that when Meg and I venture out into the park we do not sit down for a prolonged rest as we have become accustomed over the months. Rather, we might have a smidgeon of tea/coffee in our little flask and then have a quick snifter of this coupled with a banana or similar whilst we have the briefest of rests but carry on walking. This way we hope we can get the fresh air and exercise but generally keep walking to keep ourselves from getting frozen.

I went down to Pilates as usual and the numbers were depleted by one today so there were only three of us. However, I do remember to turn my phone off these days which is only courtesy to my teacher and fellow class members. As I was walking home, I was surprised to see that our Italian friend had her front door open and was waiting for me to walk past. I was even more amazed to see that Meg was with her – she had apparently taken it on her own iniative to walk out of the house (with her outdoor shoes on but without a coat) and half a mile down the road where she recognised our friend’s house and presented herself at the back door. Apparently all kinds of frantic telephone calls had been made between our Italian friend and our son and my phone should have been red-hot with messages as well but I had failed to turn it on again afer my Pilates class. We stayed with our friend and her companion for about three quarters of an hour, accepting a very welcome cup of tea and biscuits before I walked Meg back to the house. When I know how unsteady Meg is on her feet these days and so prone to stumbles and trips, all I could do was to offer a silent prayer that she had not come to any harm in her venture down the road. Naturally, I gave profusive thanks to our friends and am now exercising my mind how I can keep Meg a little more safe and secure in the future. As soon as we got home, we started to think about a delayed lunch of fishcakes but suddenly realised by looking at our planning board upon which we record all our imminent engagements that our hairdresser was due round at 4.00 and it was already past that time. We realised that she is often a bit delayed and wondered if she had tried to call around when the house was empty. At 5.00pm, our hairdresser turned up to our very evident relief. One or other os us had made a mistake with the appointment which was at 5.00pm and not 4.00pm. We were evidently very pleased that we had not missed each other so we had both of our heads shorn before we cooked a somewhat delayed evening meal which was the meal that we intended to have at lunchtime.

With the events of the day, we have evidently not been following the TV news but it is the day when the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary are proudly announcing the latest measures to deter the migration in small boats from across the Englsih Channel. The new policy is to declare everybody who arrives by boat an illegal immigrant and then to deport them as swiftly as possible (and we are talking here of a week or so and not months) back to their country from whence they came or else to a ‘friendly’ third country such as Rwanda. Once here, any person so deported would be automatically denied any further attempt at immigration whether it be ‘legal’ or not. The legislation is being dated from today to ensure that a huge backlog does not build up, as has happened in the past, whilst the new legislation is being put in place. The government, when publishing the bill, admits that international law may well be tested to the limit and the Human Rights Act will in all probability be violated. The response from the opposition parties and a variety of bodies concerned with immigration is that the new proposals have not been thought through and are unworkable. Where is the accommodation to be found for those who do arrive? And the migrants cannot lawfully be detained indefinitely where there is simply no prospect of removing them. So after the specified 28 days is it suggested that they may well have to be released and then left destitute on the streets?

Today was the first day in what may be a particularly cold snap and the weather forecasts show the cold air descending from the north and the east. A cold weather alert has been issued for all of England as much of the country braces for snow and icy conditions. The Met Office has already issued a yellow warning for snow and ice which is set to come into force tonight for Midlands, much of Wales and the Southeast, including London. Being a Monday, we never expect to bump into any of our park friends nor did we fancy exposing ourselves to some icy blasts. Nonetheless, we decided to make the best of a bad job and, having picked up our newspaper, we did journey to the park. There we decided to walk towards our normal bench but we had not provided any coffee to take with us. So we sat on the bench just long enough for Meg to eat her customary banana whilst I had a small orange. Then we retraced our steps back to the car and our little strategy has worked, in that we had taken some fresh air and exercise but not tarried too long to get chilled by a long sit down. Then we got home, had a packet soup to warm ourselves up and then I proceeded to make lunch.

Yesterday, the news came through that the United Nations has finally, after some fifteen years, decided on a new law of the sea which will protect some 30% of the earth’s oceans from predation by fishing, mining, or other polluting activities. I think I heard it correctly that the migration routes of whales are similarly protected. This is extraordinarily good news for the planet and the UN delegations seemed filled with justifiable emotion at their success. When this new UN resolution was discussed in the media, I saw a contribution from Dr Hannah Fry who is a British mathematician, author and radio/TV presenter and well known to most TV viewers by now. She used a phrase which struck me as being amazingly prescient when she mused that ‘Life is lived forwards but understood backwards’ I was intrigued by this expression and wondered whether she was the author of it or whether she was quoting another authority. The exact quote is this: ‘Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.’ and the author is the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. I must admit that I prefer the juxtaposition of the two sentiments that Hannah Fry gave voice to yesterday. In a similar vein, I remember once being told that ‘you always try and take the correct decision at the time’ which, again, is a bit of a truism. We none of us attempt to take incorrect decisions at important junctures in our lives but some decisions (e.g. shall I move house this year and to where?)may turn out to be extremly fortuitious and on the face of it a ‘good’ decision whereas it is possible that you make a leap out of the (proverbial) frying pan and into the fire. So sometimes our decisions turn out to have been very good ones, others may turn out not as would have liked but none of us ever tries and wants to make an incorrect decision.

This afternoon, we spent a certain amount of time listening to music on Radio 3 and ClassicFM whilst doing some routine tasks, such as making sure our accounts are up to date and going through some saved copies of newspapers to make sure that interesting items are cut out and filed away. These are often health-related issues and one that I came across was the recent research on how to keep your concentration levels and focus high throughout the day. Not surprisingly, it was a judicious combination of diet and exercise which constitute the recommendations here.

There seems to be a bit of a bitter row going on within the ranks of the Tory party this afternoon (but I suppose this is hardly news any more). The scale of the rancour and emotion over Boris Johnson and the decision by top official Sue Gray to work for Labour was on display today in a WhatsApp exchange obtained by Sky News. In a series of messages on a group chat this morning, allies of Johnson clashed with other Tories who warned against criticising the decision by Sir Keir Starmer to hire the author of the partygate report. The leaked WhatsApps show the depth of division between allies of Johnson and the rest. In case one might have thought that British politics could not get more disreputable, a story is emanating that in his resignation Honours list (the right of every ex-PM) Boris Johnson is nominating his own father for a peerage. He has already done the same for his own brother who was briefly in the cabinet but who then resigned. Apparently Johnson has submitted a huge list with about 200 names upon it and this is still bein ‘considered’ within the Cabinet Office. Rishi Sunak may have a word in it as well – but this is certainly on the ‘murkier’ side of our political life as pure nepotism would appear to be the order of the day.