“The time has come” Christina said, “To talk of other things -
Of music, sleep and food and drink and what each new day brings;
Of love and life and family and more eternal things.
But seriously the time has now come for me to cease the daily grind because it is proving too exhausting to continue.
In various formats I have been commenting on the scene for 12 years, not starting until I was well into my 70s. Looking back I appear to have had no influence for the good on events at all.
I started with a newsletter for UKIP candidates before the hijacking of that party by an unsavoury crew. I moved to a monthly printed newsletter available free to all who asked (“Facts, Figures & Phantasies”) which became such a publishing leviathan, with mountains of paper, that I withdrew after 6 years, to publishing via the internet in 2003 with an FFPh website (no blogs then) but as the sophistication of the net grew this changed into the daily news service that exists up to now.
These 12 years have as background a continuous diet of New Labour with its disgraceful and irresponsible leadership. Nothing I have written has impinged on this at all so it’s time to call it a day.
My intention had been to continue to the election but this never seems to get any nearer and I am becoming seriously overtired. “Cut it down” some say but that is not really practical. This was an ‘all-or-nothing’ undertaking and that undertaking has been a virtual full-time job - most weekdays it takes me up to 7 hours quite hard slog.
So I’m saying farewell and the lead up to the Christmas break seems a good time. I will keep readers informed of the actual dates. The only immediate thing is that I am stopping the 5-day-a-week annotation of Open Europe’s press summary. I will, however, for now continue to forward it as it comes in unannotated.
Doing what I’ve done has been heartening as I’ve made some very good friends along the road, including the many who left UKIP with me at the time of its hijack and when we could glimpse the real motives of its new leaders. That was a shattering betrayal of all of us, There are UKIP members today with whom I remain on friendly terms even when disagreeing over political tactics!! I shall miss all the contacts and thank you all for your encouragement.
On a political note I regard the economic disaster facing our country as by far the most pressing issue. This situation - much worse than for any other major country -has been brought on by the incompetence and arrogance of Gordon Brown who for most of the time was given complete freedom by Blair. Brown started his calamitous stewardship with probably the best economic legacy of any incoming chancellor , following the excellent work done by Ken Clarke. This means that at the coming election getting out of this hole requires the total elimination from power of the last vestiges of New Labour. Now the Tories may not impress readers on this but they are trusted in international circles and are the only way of purging the system of all traces of Brown.
Which brings us to Europe. It is far too soon to know how things will develop by May next year. One thing seems clear to me and that is that the Franco-German axis is making an unashamed power-bid and that we will be squeezed to the sidelines. The only way we can avoid that is to join the axis ourselves and enthusiastically embrace the New Europe Sarkozy and Merkel are planning. This is an untenable situation and it cannot last. And it won’t last!
So that’s it for now folks. I will send out next week some links and sources that I have found useful and meanwhile continue into November with the rest of this service for the immediate future.
Christina
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