Monday 20th Tumour update
Good morning,
If you don’t want to see any more of my ramblings please email me and I’ll take your address off the distribution.
I met with Michelle this morning. She’s the Palliative care specialist who’ll see me through the process of departure and she’s good. All is as predicted in that the rate of change will predict my future path. Symptoms will be compared week by week and activity or lack off it planned accordingly. At the moment I am losing the use of my left arm but my cognitive powers are still undiminished. Drugs will be adjusted regularly and Margaret will be supported by the District nurses as well as eventually by care assistants who will with luck enable me to die at home. it all sounds very well thought through although perhaps ultimately a little macabre. Dear Labi Siffre wrote this morning that I was “always the grown up in the room” - i’m trying to be that now
The only upside of knowing that I’m dying is the huge number of messages I’ve received through my inbox, letterbox and via Twitter. I spend my days wrapped in the warm glow of appreciation and praise that really is quite extraordinary. I feel loved by so many, and that includes folk I never knew I’d affected - it feels good and I am grateful for it.
In spite of what’s happening to me, I’m still finding it impossible to ignore current affairs. I sense that our present government is seriously deranged. Nothing they are doing either makes sense or is even close to working. Brexit is not done and Britain is being undone by the total dishonesty of Johnson’s “got Brexit done” claim. Everything about Brexit has been dishonest, from the false promises of ‘Vote Leave’ with Johnson and UKIP with Farage, through to the statements by pompous idiots such as Lord Daniel “no one is talking about leaving the single market” Hannan.
The Labour Party has totally forgotten why we have an opposition. Brexit is the biggest disaster to hit the UK since Adolph Hitler, yet Labour has nothing to say about it. Former intelligent woman Yvette Cooper made herself sound ridiculous on TV the other day claiming that Brexit was done and that was that. What tosh, Brexit is not done but it needs to be and done quickly. I recognise that a reversal is not possible, but a reworking should be. The deal needs to be redone - but done not through the pathetic lens of Johnson and Lord Frost’s shameless English exceptionalism (The man wears Union Jack socks for god’s sake) we need to treat our European neighbours as we would any others - folk with whom we need to get on and with whom (until Brexit blew it) we have got on well for decades.
For Northern Ireland, the Belfast Agreement has been working well since it was enacted in 1998 - but this lazy government decided to upend it in order just to stick their ugly tongues out at our European friends. The whole thing has been accompanied by much stuff and nonsense - issuing black (allegedly blue) passports that offer so many fewer freedoms than the old maroon ones did - celebrations of a sovereignty from which nobody knows how to benefit - allegation of discrimination by the EU when the truth is so much simpler: belonging to an organisation brings many benefits and when you chose to leave that organisation you might well miss them. The restrictions of which we complain apply to all third countries and the government knew that the limitations were an inevitable consequence of departure - they simply chose to lie to us about it.
In truth many businesses in Northern Ireland are doing very well indeed, benefitting from the unique way in which they enjoy freedom of trade with both The EU and the UK. It’s just that the Neanderthals who run the DUP are incapable of looking anywhere but backwards at their own sad history of oppression against everyone else. Apparently we left the single market simply so that we could do deals with markets more significant than the EU, only it transpires none of the biggies (India or the USA for instance) are interested in playing ball - we shot ourselves in the foot for no appreciable gain - a pretty good summary of what this government has so far achieved and there’s no sign that things can improve whilst they stay in office
No weaker cabinet of ministers has ever been assembled to serve their country. Just think about them and the crass statements they’ve been making: Dominic Raab, Liz Truss, Suella Braverman, Pritti Patel, Nadine Dorries, Sajid Javid - nothing more than a Prime Ministerial fan club of inadequacy ignorance and dishonesty. The kind of people who could never hope for inclusion in anyone else’s cabinet.
Boris Johnson is beyond doubt the most dishonest man ever to occupy number 10. He lied as a schoolboy, as a journalist and now as Prime Minister. He’s made at least four women pregnant and left them all, okay at the moment I’m wrong about the latest but no doubt she’ll be dumped just like the rest. There is nothing about him that can be admired: he’s shifty, shameless, and he was prepared to assist in the beating up of an erstwhile friend. He knows no loyalty to individuals, to commitments or to anything resembling a principle. as former colleagues such as Tory MP Rory Stewart have observed “he’s a terrible human being and a terrible Prime Minister”. Our tragedy is that his compulsive lying continues to deceive millions of our fellow country folk and makes the country itself almost ungovernable - the truth is that to much of the world Britain is now a joke or even a rogue state. My regret is that I can no longer work to aid this government’s rejection into the dustbin of history. More on that if I write again.
as ever,
Tim
