Changes, Lockdown and Chaos Part 1

 Well it certainly been some time since I last posted here and it much be nearly 10 year or something like that, and boy have I some post to write. I just hope that its not to long or boring and also explains in common terms what has been happening here in the UK.

So what’s been happening you may ask? and I would reply saying Loads!

Well here in the UK there has been lots of events and we had a run of elections and re- elections, and not forgetting BREXIT. What is Brexit? I hear you say. Well lets take a deep breath and start my post proper!

Well lets start in 2015 when Prime Minister David Cameron called a General Election and apart of the election campaign was that he promised that the UK population could have their say on the European Union (EU) and if we should remain or leave it. 

Anyway David Cameron and the Conservative party won the election and gained a majority so ending the hung parliament which we had since 2010. The election also lead to Liberal Democratic Party who agreed to support the Conservative Party and form a government from 2010 to 2015, had been nearly totally wiped out and lost the majority of their seats. I believe that this happened because the public felt that the Liberal Democratic Party had totally gone against what they were standing for so things like re-establishing student grants and scrapping the student loan system just to name one item (this was not the sole reason for their downfall).

So in 2016 the UK had the vote on leaving the European Union (EU). Which just over 50% of the UK population who were able to vote opted for leaving the EU While about 47% voted to remain. To be honest I believe that David Cameron had thought that the UK would have voted to remain within the EU, and he really used the referendum to shut up the backbench MP's who were anti-European and always a pain in the neck to any conservative leaders, so was shocked at loosing.  

During the weeks building up towards the Referendum I often went online to try and find websites that would list the reasons For and Against staying or leaving the EU, but doing these searches did not bring up any useful information, and I felt that the web searches actually reviled lots of dis-information or non neutral one sided arguments for leaving the EU, and not anything/reasons why we should remain, so I fully understand the British Public voted to leave.   

The following day chaos took control of the U.K. as David Cameron resigns as leader of the Conservative Party and as Prime Minister despite on the day of the referendum saying that he would not resign and that the countries of the UK needed a strong leader and stability.

This lead to the battle for who was to be the new leader of the U.K. this battle was won by Teresa May after there was some back stabbing, as Boris Johnston had said that he would run for the leadership and then his friend Michael Gove on the evening before Boris's announcement puts himself forward so Boris then said he would not put his own name forward. Of course we will never ever know what was really happening behind in the background as this could have been planned by both Gove and Boris.

So Teresa May became the second woman Prime Minister in British history, and Brexit Begins!

(Teresa May - To be honest I did not really like her, she seemed weak and when asked questions by the media she was prone to avoid answering what she had been asked and would speak about something totally different. Also during Teresa May's time of being Home Secretary she was responsible for the department during the Windrush Scandal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windrush_scandal) This was where paperwork for people from the West Indies  who had emigrated to the UK in the 1950's was lost or destroyed. These were people who had lived in the UK for 50 years and their children were suddenly thrown out of the UK and sent back to Jamaica and classed as illegal. Currently there are court cases being raised against the government over this, and some people have already won their cases. The MP Amber Rudd gets appointed as Home Secretary when Teresa May becomes Prime Minister as later on Amber Rudd resigns due to the Windush Scandal. Teresa May also sent letters to illegal immigrants telling them to go home, and a lot of other things which you would think as being racist).

So on the 13th July  2016 Teresa May officially becomes Britain's Prime Minister, and given a poisoned chalice of Brexit. One of the first Jobs for Teresa May had to do, was set up a new cabinet to run the country, (and to my surprise Boris Johnson get the role of Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. I don't know if it was Teresa's plan and hope that would muck up doing the job and politically hang himself.) the second job was to set up a Brexit Negotiation department answering to the new Cabinet role that David Davies was given called: Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. Boris Johnston did not stay in his job for too long and July 2018 he resigns along with David Davies as they don't like Teresa May's plans.

All seemed fair at first but then Teresa decided to take the country to the 2nd General Election in 3 years. Initially Teresa has said that the UK would not have an election after she became Prime Minister on the same grounds as what David Cameron had said where Britain needed stability. So on Thursday 8th June 2017 off we go to the Voting Stations and we make our vote. Unfortunately for the Conservative Party they loose their majority and yet again the UK has a hung parliament. The meant that Teresa May then had to find another party to make an alliance with. Now Personally at this point I thought it would have been a perfect time to form an All Party Alliance (and I posted this on my Twitter posts at the time) to deal with Brexit so getting every party involved and setting up teams to work together for the best of the country.   But No Teresa May did not want that and really wanted to make a name for herself and been seen as the new Margret Thatcher. So from that point onwards the government did not have the power it really needed to deal with Brexit and on key Brexit policy votes Teresa's Government kept on loosing so leading to stalemate where nothing seemed to be happening. 

On the 4th of December history was made when Teresa May's Government was found in Contempt of Parliament because  the government had 'failed to lay before Parliament any legal advice on the proposed withdrawal agreement relating the terms of the UK's departure from the European Union '

On the 15th January Teresa May had the largest defeat in the UK's Parliament history where the MP's (Member of Parliament)  voted against her European Brexit Plan which she had agreed with the European Parliament and there was 432 votes against the plan compared to 202 votes supporting it. Now as i Previously have said this would have never have happened if Teresa May had formed a Brexit Alliance between all the parties to have looked at the policies and had worked together to make the plan work!

Teresa then had 2 more defeat on EU Brexit Policies which then in turn would lead to her resigning on the 24th May 2019 officially she carried on in her post to the 24th July, during which time the Conservative Party pick a new leader who turned out to be Boris Johnston.  

The Circus arrives!

So the Clown called Boris Johnston becomes the British Prime Minister. Its strange to see that Britain went down the same path as the USA by the MP's picking Boris to be their leader. Now Boris Johnston from what i pick up like to be seen as a bit of a bumbling clown, who seems in a way a bit like Lieutenant Colombo the American detective. Behind the scenes though may well be a different story as every-so-often we hear from the press of how Boris is removing staff who have been in particular posts for 20 or 30 years and putting in his own people who may/may not have had experience in that particular area before. But really the man with the power is not Boris Johnston but a 'Grey Man' called Dominic Cummings who was originally an adviser to Michael Gove and now Boris Johnston's Chief Adviser. Almost all the Brexit Plans since the change of leadership has been directed by Mr Cummings. Anyway Dominic Cummings is a different story which i will come back to later!

Anyway as I was saying once Boris became Prime Minister his first job was selecting his Cabinet and virtually everyone who worked for Teresa May lost their job's. There was also a surprise as Boris gave Micheal Gove a role as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster which i no idea what that job is about, and had never heard of the post before!

Boris then chose to prorogue parliament  on the 28th August 2019 as this was to try and block MP's from voting in a new law to block a No Brexit deal where the UK would just leave the EU. He/Boris's Government was then taken to court in Scotland where his actions were deemed to be illegal/Unlawful on the 11th September 2019. 

The 3rd September was a big day though in the UK Parliament as an MP called Philip Lee crossed the floor of parliament and took his seat with the Liberal Democrats meaning that Boris and His Government had lost their power and they did not have a 'Working Majority' meaning that if the Government put forward any ideas there would be less people in the government to vote it through than in the opposition.

Also on the 3rd September 2019 the other key thing that happened was that Boris ordered the 'Party Whip' (which means in common terms that they were thrown out of the Conservative Party) Removed from 21 Conservative MP's who had refused to support the government and supported a proposal by the opposition to the government, which in my 50 years of life I have never seen ever happen, and in my eyes if you are an MP you should have the right to vote against a policy or policies that you don't think is right and not to follow the crowd! That's the whole basis for Democracy!

October 19th 2019 OH No Not another Election? Ohh Yes there is!

After the fun and games of Boris becoming Prime Minister and his first few months of government. Boris decides and goes to the Queen and requests the dissolving of Parliament, and for the country to go yet again to the polls and for a new General Election. The intention was for the Government to retake power and to get a majority government elected. Its a risk and at the time a big gamble as Boris could have lost everything, but election day is announced. This takes place on the 12th December 2019 (which at the time i can kind of remember hearing was the first Christmas election in the UK for about 60 years), and The Conservative's win the biggest majority since the late 1980's!

I think that the real reason that the Conservatives won such a big majority is that the British Public has got really fed up with the impasse on BREXIT that was happening with the government, and they just wanted people to get on with the job!

I have not mentioned the Labour Party much in this post or their leader Jeremy Corbin nor did I mention much the Liberal Democratic party. But in both cases they lost votes because of their policies. For Instance Jeremy Corbin announced that he wanted to re-nationalise the Railways, and the power industries, so lining us up with some other countries for instance EDF Energy is owned by the French government and a bit like the BBC here in the UK, and SNCF the French railway operator is also owned by the French Government. Italy and Germany have a similarly set-up with both DB Rail and RailItalia. 

But Mr Corbin went a bit to far when he said he wanted to nationalise all the internet companies and telecom companies to be brought in-house and the internet to be totally free to everyone. I think the people of the UK also felt it would have cost the country far too much money (little did we know that within 6 months the government would be borrowing billions of £'s to try and protect the country from a 'Bug') 

The Liberals who had gained politicians who were previously members of both Labour and the Conservative Parties were to be hit hard, and loose even more seats in Parliament and were left with just 11 MP's. They also lost their leader who had lost her seat in Scotland. 

Meanwhile over in China Something was stirring. It was not anything to do with trade deals or the normal disagreements between the east and the west. It was something more, and it was to affect the world as we know it and to turn things on their heads! this thing was a microscopic entity and related to the cold a flue virus and was given the name Covid 19. 

 I don't know how historians will look back at this part of British history and I wish I could jump into the future to see how they will write about what happened, but it will certainly be interesting to see.