Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.
Well at time of writing European nations are banning UK goods and travellers from entering their countries because of fears the new strain of Covid will spread there. France is also banning travel/goods to the UK for at least a 48 hour period.
Nothing like taking control of our borders is there? Actually to be clear it's exactly that. Nothing like it. But here we are. An isolated Disunited Kingdom. The Wuhan of Europe. The Asian model that we have become.
2021 becomes a race between the implementation of the antidote and the spreading of the virus. I suspect that it will be a long while before we can feel easier for a while. After all if you entered a shop with a mask just a year ago you would have thought you were robbing the place. Now it's the law.
And let's be clear as I've said before in this post the Welsh Unionist government has not been faultless. But it's buffon Boris Johnson's Westminster government that bares the ultimate responsibility for this mess. After all it's he who has during the past year given dates when everything will be resolved when this hasn't happened. Promises undelivered. Probably sounds like his personal life. Also at time of writing should this closing of borders continue the effects on the fabric of British society can only be guessed at.
The lack of competence, the willingness until the last moment to listen to people trying to moan about face masks for example, is breath taking. The air might be cleaner because of the lack of traffic but that will make no difference if you're breathing it through a mask.
Westminster has failed when it was needed most. Let's assume the worse case scenario. Rationing with even greater unemployment. This in a place where food parcels for the poor are commonplace. In such a scenario you can see riots in the streets. 2021 has the potential of making you look with wistful nostalgia on the quiet lockdown nights of 2020.
What will happen to the shops when all of this have lifted? Some of them have gone to wall already. I know that we have bought everything online barring fuel and groceries. It also occurred to me that if I want to buy normal everyday clothes the nearest place to get them physically is now the supermarket.
And all of the above does not include Brexit.
I have, as previous posts explained, had the virus and I consider myself lucky to have had it relatively mildly. But even so I'm not 100%. The recovery period has been slower than at any time I can recall in my life. I'm at work because the consequences would be disastrous for me and my family and as long as I take it relatively easily I'm OK. Others have not been so fortunate.
I'm 56 soon to be 57. My daughter is 18. Her future is at this moment unclear simply because the powers that be don't know what the future will be. Our youth have been betrayed by the mismanagement of (mainly) old men.
People are tired. Do you notice there's no "clap for carers" anymore on a Thursday at 8pm. People are still very grateful for the work of doctors and nurses, But they are also weary, Weary of governmental promises that have not delivered. Weary not of living I suspect but just of the way life in 2020 and beyond have turned out. People can after all cannot see immediate loved ones unless it's outside, through a window or by a PC,
What does Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have to gain from staying in the Union? Unlike England independence (reunification in the case of Northern Ireland) will give the Celtic nations a sense of clear purpose unlike the clown leadership provided by Conservative rule for England.
So as I've intimated before. And feel even strongly as the months have gone on and I contracted the virus. Westminster has failed. It has failed Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as English regions. Let's wake up and smell the vaccine of independence. Or else Westminster will continue to fail to the detriment to the lives of the millions to which independence is the clear alternative.
Until the next time.