03/29/2024

Wales News Online

Local & National News for Wales

We have a new Prime Minister. A new brush sweeps clean so the saying goes. We can expect a few old cobwebs to disappear but that dust under the carpet will be harder to remove. It takes real effort and a lot of bashing with a heavy stick to truly rid one’s home of the dust and those nasty mites lurking within.

We have some old rugs here at the HQ, which are taken out a couple of times each year and beaten the heck out of with a sturdy stick. It is surprising just how much dust the old thing gathers with all the activity, the comings and goings. If only rugs could talk eh.

We can all judge on first appearances and Liz did not score well on hers as the new leader. The speech was bland and staggered with the audience waiting like obedient dogs to clap, not that dogs clap. The tribute to dear Boris will go down well from Kiev to Carlisle but one imagines far and few in between would have agreed with Liz in her glowing tribute to the blonde bombshell about to explode onto the pages of a best selling book complete with comedic tour of the world capitalising on his erm, I say this with sincerity, erm, successes. That will be Europe out then if you pardon the pun.

Boris will listen and watch from the sidelines much like Mrs May who presents a fearsome presence, much like your old school headmistress coming to see you in action teaching the worse class in the school. Rowdy, unruly, rude and arrogant and that is just the back benchers in the class.

The PM’s first appearance was impressive and a mile away from BoJo’s comedy antics. Perhaps the best moment of the day was when former PM Theresa May asked Liz Truss why it is she thought that all three female Prime Ministers have been Conservative. In Answer Liz Truss said that it is quite extraordinary that there doesn’t seem to be the ability for the Labour party to find a female leader or one that does not come from North London. Now that was class.

Liz will have to work on the volume of voice and project it as loudly as possible if she wants the dear old speaker to hear. There will be frantic work going on in the background with her newly appointed cabinet to ensure she gets of on the right foot on the first day back. I well remember my first day at school as a teacher. Walking in to the large hall where around 250 teacher had gathered for a lunch before the official first day back with the headmaster at the head of the table. It was a long walk but within a few minutes I was chatting to seasoned teachers and being reassured that I would be O.K.

The eyes of the world will be on Liz Truss as she takes to the floor and engages with Sir Kier Starmer. Will his tone differ now he is dealing with a female Prime Minister? Will he attack at the first opportunity and rake up her failings? It is likely that warm congratulations will be offered by all with the odd reference to her predecessor and hoping she might avoid as many gaffs.

The First Minister of Wales has already offered his congratulations and asked her to get on with the job and help those in need during the energy and cost of living crisis. Note it is growing and soon will have a bullet point list of crises. The food shortage crisis, the bin-persons crisis, the fuel crisis, it will surely grow.

Perhaps the redecoration of no 10 Downing Street will include a number of those signs for one’s wall, which contain inspirational or comical quotes like,’here I sit broken hearted went to the loo and only, you get the idea.

If I were to offer Liz a gift of one of these objectionable plaques that bedeck so many places these days it would be one from across the pond, perhaps the birthplace of the sickly wall plaque quote.

“There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction’

John F. Kennedy

Pic. Chris McAndrew, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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