{"id":8273,"date":"2026-05-19T16:55:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T16:55:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/?p=8273"},"modified":"2026-05-19T16:55:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T16:55:27","slug":"tuesday-19th-may-2026-day-2255","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/2026\/05\/19\/tuesday-19th-may-2026-day-2255\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday, 19th May, 2026 [Day 2255]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yesterday being the start of the week, I always ensure that I have detached the week’s worth of vouchers for my copy of ‘The Times<\/em>‘ which I then put into my wallet for the forthcoming week. I was a bit dismayed, though, that one of my precious artefacts associated with Meg – a card signed by all of the members of a European linguists group \u00a0of which Meg was a member as part of her ERASMUS (European Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students) role, was missing and not in its usual place where I always keep it in my study. Then I remembered that I must have put it in a file to take down to the birthday celebrations a week ago and indeed that is exactly where it was. So it was rescued and out back into its rightful place together with a large photograph of the Lincoln memorial in Washington with Meg and I photographed (as fairly minute figures) standing at the base of it. We must have asked a passerby to take the photo for us which dates back 20 years and was probably at a time when smart phones were not part of our everyday scene. I re-discovered this photo when I was tidying up the study shortly before Meg’s death and this too is one of those ‘We were there!’ type photographs well worth preserving. The week ahead promises to be one of quite intense social activity so I am going to have to ensure that I have a domestic day in which jobs have to be done (clothes to be washed, grass to be cut) whilst I have the opportunity at the start of the week. My American friend and I were scoping out some of the activities which we might undertake jointly \u00a0and one of these is to ensure that I make a visit to Yorkshire for my sister’s birthday at the end of August. This, of course, sounds a long way away but the months seem to be rolling by at a great pace these days so I need to think about making a hotel booking before summer holidays overtake us. I was thinking that we might spend more time than normal in Yorkshire and as well as showing my friend Harrogate (not to mention seeing the members of my family) there are also interesting places to visit such as Ripon to the North and York to the East. Although my friend is very well travelled across the globe I think that Yorkshire is a relative unknown to her so this might be a little mini-holiday for us both well worth anticipating. In domestic politics, Wes Streeting has reopened the European issue making it the subject of a major campaign speech and this has the potential of opening up great rifts in the Labour-voting electorate many of whom voted for Brexit and have been siphoned off by Reform. I happen to think that it is right that we should develop closer inks with the EU and develop much better relationships but I think this is one of those issues best done not under the spotlight of politics and certainly not in the middle of a quasi-election campaign. So, the question arises whether Streeting was consciously trying to destabilise the Andy Burnham campaign at its very start and this is hard to discern. Naturally, some opponents of Wes Streeting are discerning malevolent motives but I think the whole issue of relationships with Europe has to handled with sensitivity and tact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later I the morning after quite a slow start to the day, I popped down the hill by car to pick up a loaf of sourdough bread and my daily newspaper and then ensured that I was back n the house by 12.00 to watch the daily Politics show. Evidently there is a lot of speculation about the likelihood of Andy Burnham being successful in the Makerfied by election in which the seat has been been vacated specifically to allow him to reenter Parliament. The optimistic voices think that Burnham may count upon his popularity and visibility as Manchester mayor to storm the seat whereas more pessimistic vices point to the success of Reform in the local elections held within the last ten days and the charge that Burnham is deploying political opportunism and may neglect the seat if he is elected as  Labour leader. Some Labour sources are putting Burnham’s chances at less than 50:50 but this itself may be part of a political strategy to ensure that complacency does not take over. No doubt an opinion poll may be taken in the next day or so and the results of this when published will be illuminating.  I made myself a lunch of chicken, broccoli and roast potato and then became quite absorbed in some Congressional hearings where several of Epstein’s victims gave evidence. Democrats tore into government\u2019s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein abuse scandal last Tuesday \u2013 revealing new details of the scale of his international sex-trafficking ring, and warning Donald Trump not to grant a presidential pardon to the late sex offender\u2019s sidekick Ghislaine Maxwell. Several survivors of Epstein\u2019s abuse also gave tearful testimony at a congressional field hearing in Florida of their experiences as teenagers in his orbit. Some spoke of being re-traumatised after they were ‘outed’ by the justice department\u2019s failure to redact their names from the so-called Epstein files. These hearings were quite dramatic and particularly in the cases when a victim’s identify had been revealed (contrary to the legislation) and thus personal details including address and telephone numbers were revealed to members of the public including members of the victim’s own family and, in some cases, spouses and children. But with Trump occupying the White House and the Department of Justice hollowed out to be nothing more than an extension of the Trump political regime, it is unlikely that these traumatised victims will ever get any redress until the Republicans are swept from power, The whole of this scandal reveals that how the rich ad powerful can continue to protect themselves in contemporary America. Tonight, I have scheduled myself to watch a Lucy Worsley programme which investigates the turning points that led to America\u2019s declaration of independence from Britain in 1776 and asks whether this explosive split could have been avoided. These programmes are always a good watch, and I suspect that Lucy Worsley quite enjoys being iconoclastic and presenting some slightly divergent perspectives upon historical events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday being the start of the week, I always ensure that I have detached the week’s worth of vouchers for my copy of ‘The Times‘ which I then put into my wallet for the forthcoming week. I was a bit dismayed, though, that one of my precious artefacts associated with Meg – a card signed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8274,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8273\/revisions\/8274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}