If you place a government in a sealed box - let's call it the UK - together with something that could kill it - let's call it the unions - you would not know if the government was dead or alive until the UK was opened. Until that happens, one could say that the government was both dead and alive.
Johnson is allegedly on holiday in Slovenia, where he arrived from a round of parties at Chequers. Zahawi, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is also on holiday. Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, has disappeared off the face of the tabloids. Dominic Raab, the Deputy Prime Minister, is at the time of writing in Thames Ditton. Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, is engaged full-time in her spat with Rishi Sunak. Oh, and the Leader of the Opposition is also on holiday.
There is clearly nothing for them to do at the moment. There is of course a cost of living crisis, which is casting millions into fuel and fuel poverty and which is forecast to get worse and worse in the coming months. But that can wait until September. Or maybe October or November.
So too can the climate emergency.
So too can the parlous state of the NHS.
So too can education, the housing crisis, the problems for trade in the aftermath of Brexit.
None of these, in the view of the governing and opposition parties, require immediate attention.
We used to call this the 'silly season'. Nothing happens, so newspaper headlines focus on frivolous inanities, the less serious stories.
The problem this year is that we have a succession of issues which are very serious indeed, which are profoundly important and fundamental to all of us.
Is the government alive to them? They are certainly dead to me.
Today from the everysmith vaults: TS Eliot once said (admitted? confessed?) that The Waste Land was "just a piece of rhythmical grumbling". Hearing his reading of it, I was inclined to agree. But to 'celebrate' the centenary of the poem, Drama on 3 put out He Do The Waste Land in Different Voices, a reading which while faithful to the text, shows us the different characters and different voices of what is not merely a poem but the first radio play. Quite brilliant.
Johnson is allegedly on holiday in Slovenia, where he arrived from a round of parties at Chequers. Zahawi, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is also on holiday. Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, has disappeared off the face of the tabloids. Dominic Raab, the Deputy Prime Minister, is at the time of writing in Thames Ditton. Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, is engaged full-time in her spat with Rishi Sunak. Oh, and the Leader of the Opposition is also on holiday.
There is clearly nothing for them to do at the moment. There is of course a cost of living crisis, which is casting millions into fuel and fuel poverty and which is forecast to get worse and worse in the coming months. But that can wait until September. Or maybe October or November.
So too can the climate emergency.
So too can the parlous state of the NHS.
So too can education, the housing crisis, the problems for trade in the aftermath of Brexit.
None of these, in the view of the governing and opposition parties, require immediate attention.
We used to call this the 'silly season'. Nothing happens, so newspaper headlines focus on frivolous inanities, the less serious stories.
The problem this year is that we have a succession of issues which are very serious indeed, which are profoundly important and fundamental to all of us.
Is the government alive to them? They are certainly dead to me.
Today from the everysmith vaults: TS Eliot once said (admitted? confessed?) that The Waste Land was "just a piece of rhythmical grumbling". Hearing his reading of it, I was inclined to agree. But to 'celebrate' the centenary of the poem, Drama on 3 put out He Do The Waste Land in Different Voices, a reading which while faithful to the text, shows us the different characters and different voices of what is not merely a poem but the first radio play. Quite brilliant.
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