Almost there

So, here we are at the last Sunday before the big election. Next week-end, we will have all the pundits writing why they got ir right – or wrong. Future scenario will be sketched out. Accusations will fly. And then, brothers and sisters, we will have our newspapers back to deal sensibly with what comes into their maw. Or will we? Those who may have got things wrong regarding their interpretation of pre-Election trends will have lost some of my respect. Not that there was a lot to start with. I have correspondents that I trust, correspondents whose work I check elsewhere and then there are those who do not get past a cornflake-impregnated snort and dismissal.

The main interest this week seems to be on Howard’s ideas about immigration. His theme “It is not racist to talk about immigration” doubtless scans well in the higher echelons of his party. It would not be published otherwise. I give him respect for trying to get such a debate going but he was on a loser from the start. Even the apparently well-moderated discussions I have seen on serious TV descend into vitriolic yah-boo within a very short while. The – let us for now call them immigrants already here – have extreme views. The entrenched Ancient Brits continuously rerun the ‘too many already’ endless tape. The question of ‘why asylum here and not somewhere else nearer their homeland’ is replayed ad-nausea.

Opinions are so polarised and embedded that there seems no way that this topic can be debated with any likely compromise or settlement. My theory is that the basic root cause is the distribution of the immigrants already here. Anyone from my neck of the woods where apparent immigrants are rare will not understand the fear – yes, it is fear – of an Ancient Brit from, say, Brixton or Leicester where it is the AB that is in a very insignificant minority. Reports claim that Blair/B Liar intends to bring back the sperm donor into his cabinet as some sort of enforcer. This might not be a bad thing – he may have inadvertently shown his colours when he spoke of immigrants ‘swamping’ the country. For myself, I favour a quota system where eligibility is determined on JFK’s criteria of ‘Ask not what your country can do for you but rather what you can do for your country’

Obviously the seaweed that is at the heart of the nation’s weather forecasting computers was somehow sabotaged. What was said to be a sunny holiday period gave us many cms. of rain today. I hope those who had things organised as open air events had good insurance. They got it right yesterday though. I drove over the tops to the Farmers’ Market at Haddington and it was just perfect. Today has been an orgy of venison with vegetables grown in proper muck. Our recent meat intake has finally balanced out the fish we consumed whilst on our holiday. And, of course, with such meat one has to drink red wine……………