MY task was to be in charge of 40 teenagers and get them to present a musical play that they had written, to their parents, at the end of a summer school.
They did pretty well, there was a great musician, sadly deceased, who helped them with the music, you would know of him if I wrote his name but I will not. The parents were very impressed by the actual performance as were the powers who were in charge of the course.
However, there had been a hiccup after the dress rehearsal. The course director sat in and watched that afternoon. He said nothing as he left the theatre but in the evening I received a note summoning me, the musician, and helpers to his office.
Around the large table and he tore into me, the “director”, and told me how he loathed the whole play and how disappointed he was and that he could not allow the show to be performed the following evening. He was very angry.
This though was not my first day in the job and I had learned from my previous experiences that often when someone rejects “The Whole Thing” it was actually only one little part of it that they did not like.
So having paused for breath I started to ask him questions about each scene of the play. It was not long before we came to the nub of his problem. There was a scene where using the large trap door in the floor of the stage the youngsters had buried a coffin as in a funeral.
As the mourners walked away one of them was heard to say of the deceased: “I did not like him anyway.”
Well 40 years ago we had not heard of “woke” and I suspect today such a line would might be ill viewed. The thing was that the whole play fell down upon six words. Once identified it was easy to remove them and later my boss told me it was the best of my productions. The takeaway is “if you have a problem, identify the cause”.
I am sure like many others who hold the cause of Scottish independence deep in our hearts we watch the Liz Truss/Rishi Sunak debacle with a certain amount of glee thinking “they said Boris Johnson was a recruiting sergeant for independence – look at these two’!
“I WILL”, “I WILL”, “I WANT”, “I WANT”, I, I, I, I. There is a Neil Diamond song We….
“Love is all about chemistry
“Isn’t something you go off to school to learn
“It isn’t math or ancient history
“It’s the kind of thing that comes down to simple terms
“It’s not about you “It’s not about me “Love is all about WE.”
The Tory party leadership is not about “We, the four nations of the UK” it is all about “I want to be Prime Minister, because I know what is best for everyone!”.
From all I have seen these past days Truss of Sunak have yet to identify the problem and even if they do the inhabitants of the UK are doomed to a downgrade in their living standards and a winding back of the clocks to far greater numbers of the population living in destitution.
I read that the Swiss were concerned that their inflation rate had risen 3.4% over the year to July. According to Trading Economics the UK is 9.4% lower than Turkey at 79.6% and lower than some other European countries.
The projection from the Bank of England is 13% with interest rates rising along side.
The UK has other problems which are not easily cured.
The Tory government have managed to choke off the supply of labour and goods. There has been a good deal of cash wafting around from furlough. Despite Scottish seas still being full of oil and our hills being full of wind the global energy market is under pressure from the war.
I am still a devotee of Adam Smith of Kirkcaldy, I have written this before, “Too much money chasing too few goods brings inflation”.
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Yes the war and the pandemic are factors in the story but cutting the UK off from the European Single Market is the problem that will keep on giving.
Some 43 years ago I had a mortgage on a house and the interest rate rose to 15%, it was not easy but I survived.
The problem for the UK is that Brexit will not go away, neither the Tory or the Labour Party want it to go away and that is going to be the continuing problem. Even Brexit Opportunities Minister Rees-Mogg has said that we might have to wait 50 years to see the benefits of Brexit.
The prospect of me being here in 50 years is zero. So here are three words “Get independence done”.
Cher Bonfis
via email
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