Dear Matt Bishop

Dear Matt Bishop,

Congratulations on your election as my MP. 

In

I am writing to express my deepest disappointment in the Chancellor’s economically illiterate decision to subject the economy to unnecessary fiscal rules, and to compound the error by threatening cuts that will inevitably impoverish those already struggling: pensioners, families with children, and people in receipt of social security benefits. This is Osborne economics, not social democracy, and will inevitably lead to further hardship amongst your constituents. 

Unsurprisingly, the cabinet are blocking the publication of data on the effect of austerity, but fortunately there is data already in the public domain collected by the Hiuse of Lords. 

https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/mortality-rates-among-men-and-women-impact-of-austerity/

There have been over 300,000 excess deaths since 2009 as a direct result of a deliberate choice by the Tory government  to impose austerity. It is scandalous that a Labour Government, with access to a fiat currency, and therefore the freedom to finance any choices it decides to make, should continue along this path: a government killing its own citizens. 

Was an impact assessment done on the changes to the Winter Fuel Payment? Will there one be done on the proposed cuts in the October budget?

Might your constituents at least expect that you will monitor these impacts in the Forest of Dean? 

Yours sincerely,

Mary Francis 

Former Chair 

Newent Branch of The Labour Party 

A Moment In Eternity

 My first thought on picking this title was to laugh at the pretention. Who am I to freeze the eternal, and leave it here, obscurely, where no one but you will discover it, raise an eyebrow, and move right along, living your own succession of moments: a crescendo of little things exploding eventually into nothingness? 

Sorry I couldn’t imagine more. 

I’m at a kitchen table, not mine. I’m attending to my grandchildren, Frank aged eight, Alfie, six, who do not need me. They’re playing games on their electronic devices, very happily, interacting with their virtual worlds and with each other.

The cottage pie in the oven isn’t demanding anything of me either:I estimate I’ll not need to attend to it until I’ve finished this blog post. 

The washing is entering into its spin cycle:what’s left of this blazing day will dry it.

I’ve just noticed the tractor in the adjacent field has stopped. I caught a glimpse through the bushy laurel, it appeared to be grass cutting. I suspected earthmoving in preparation for the next acre of homes, but it appears not. Yet.

There you are, I’m finished. A perfect moment in its inanity, it’s glorious ordinariness. Looking forward, were I gifted a second moment here in fifteen years’ time, I will smile I think, as I remember an afternoon with ordinary chores in a white kitchen, in a new house, when two grown men were little boys.