Lottsathoughts

Is it safe to “let it go” yet? The Brexit debate still rages, despite The Government doggedly trying to take it forward. Isn't resistance-fatigue setting in? Is it time to acknowledge defeat and get on with life? For those who were, for the most part, politically apathetic pre June 2016, the relief of giving-up would be huge. Go back to checking headlines once a week or thinking about party policy only once every five years. Recover time for hobbies. Repair friendships with those who disagreed on this one decision. Get a decent night's sleep. In life, there is an overwhelming imperative for reconcilliation, forgiveness and moving on. But it is a travesty of this process to reshape it as obedient yielding to injustice. Reconcilliation can only occur when all parties in a conflict agree to talk and listen to each other. Willingness on both sides to acknowledge the root of the disagreement and damage caused is essential as is a mutual search for a way forward that respe...

I have just returned from my fourth visit to Calais to volunteer with the charities that are helping the refugees who are stuck there. The problem seems as intractable as ever and I don't pretend to know the answer. Indeed, I would argue that there is no answer, if by “answer” we want a magic wand that can remove both current and future refugees from Calais without excessive state-sponsored force, give the town over entirely to white, French-born citizens and not take unlimited and unexamined numbers of refugees into the UK for an indefinite period. That said, I am concerned that our society in general and our Government in particular takes an odd approach to problems where simple answers are elusive. There is an old saying that the definition of insanity is to keep repeating the same action again and again, expecting a different outcome, yet that seems to sum up the attitude of the French and British Governments on this problem. The French seem convinced that 24/7 harrass...

We have to avoid a witch-hunt. That's what I keep reading. It's been said by many about the sex-scandal in Westminster. It's been said in response to the Toby Young fiasco. Catherine Deneuve and Liam Neeson have both used the term this week about the Hollywood allegations. No doubt the indignants will be saying it already about John Humphrys. And it makes me madder than ever. Ironically, the term itself - “witch-hunt” - has links with misogyny in this country. It may historically be the case that worldwide, men as well as women, have been persecuted as witches, but in the British Isles it was traditionally women. Difficult women. Argumentative women. Intelligent women. Women who refused to submit to normal sterotypes. Women healers. Call them a witch and burn them. How the tables have turned. Now women are gaining the confidence of solidarity , largely through the power of social media, to draw attention to the various forms of sexis...

A New Year. An old problem. Uppermost in my mind at the moment is the ongoing refugee disaster in Calais. This has been out of the mainstream media for some time now, since the closure of The Jungle in October 2016. Maybe everyone believes that the plan worked – closing the camp, we were told, would make the refugees themselves vanish. You have to wonder where these ideas come from – do the politicians themselves believe these things? Or do they just cynically say them anyway, knowing that the press has the attention span of a gnat and will be gone before you can say “safe drinking water”? As everyone who was previously involved foresaw and warned, the refugees are still there – only now there is nowehere safe for them. Nowhere to pitch a tent. Nowhere to have a shower or use a toilet. Nowhere to cook or to get legal assistance. Nowhere to get warm or dry. No way for charities to keep formal track of who is who, and therefore, much greater difficutly in protecting unaccompanied chil...

Yesterday's Budget from Philip Hammond is dismaying - £3bn allocated to pay for Brexit. Even as spending on the NHS, schools and other public services is kept tight, he can nevertheless find £3bn to pay for this absurd project. And it's not just £3bn - that's on top of the rumoured £40bn which may, or may not, be the final cost of the divorce settlement. So that's £43bn then. Or maybe more – who knows? And still, we don't know why. Running through the tired pseudo-arguments, one in particular jars today - the idea of “getting our sovereignty back”. Never mind that we never lost it (as confirmed by The Government's own white paper earlier in the year). Some Brexit-champions still like to reiterate how we'll be able to make our own laws again. (The obvious has been pointed out repeatedly – that we will continue to be bound by EU regulation just so long as we want to sell anything to EU members.) But it's another aspect of this that is so striki...

Something very sad has happened to our country over the last 15 months or so and I think it's time we thought about it rather seriously. We seem to have experienced a major character-change in the way we relate to each other. Known traditionally for our welcoming and tolerant outlook, we are suddenly a nation of critics, arguing with each other, name-calling and suspicious of anyone and everyone with a different background or political opinion. Earlier this week, I had cause to stop and wonder about that shift. I attended a funeral for someone I had never met or known – something I do quite often in my capacity as a singer. I found myself deeply moved by the love expressed for the deceased and the grief felt by those left behind. It's always the same – hearing someone remembered and mourned in the words of those who loved them and seeing the tears of the bereft is a powerful reminder that we are all eminently and overwhelmingly loving and loveable. From what I picked...

The search goes on for a politician of stature and gravitas. Of true integrity, following a call to serve his or her country. There are some but they remain on the back-benches or in minor parties. The ones making all the noise at the front continue to disappoint and enrage. Really though? Can I really find myself so surprised and appalled yet again? After all the nonsense of the last 14 months, surely my eyebrows have stretched so high there is nowhere further to go? Apparently not. Because Jacob Rees-Mogg has announced that the silencing of Big Ben is “the greatest tragedy of our times”. No, sorry. The greatest tragedy of our times is that conniving misogynists like this man are not only thriving in government but are making a realistic play for running the country. How is it that in 2017 a man can proudly proclaim that he is father to six children but has never changed a nappy? That's not funny. It's not old-fashioned in a whimsical way. It is astoundingly...