Meeting held on Monday 20th February 2023
11 people were present. Seven gave their apologies.
Unusually, we started with Good News. It was reported that the Labour Party would be fielding good candidates in local elections. This led us to consider other things to be happy about.
President Erdogan of Turkey was likely to loose his presidency.
The Welsh road building programme has been cancelled due to concerns for climate change. Public attitudes towards climate change were becoming more positive and had changed remarkably over the last ten years. The Just Stop Oil campaign may be having a positive effect here. Fossil fuels were beginning to be seen as a less profitable investment over the long term, However, one the short term, the war in Ukraine has greatly increased the profitability of fossil fuel investment.
The decrease in EU dependency upon Russian oil is to be welcomed, although this is leading to increased used of dirty power (eg brown coal in Germany) and increased support for nuclear energy. Only the Green Party currently opposes nuclear.
Public opinion appears to be more progressive than the main political parties which have moved further to the right and there is some evidence that people in their mid life are less likely to move towards the Tories as they age. Furthermore, Trades Union membership is on the rise although we have yet to see whether they succeed in securing improved pay and conditions for their members.
Reflecting upon Labour leadership, it was hoped that once in place as prime minister, Starmer would develop policies which were more progressive regarding NHS, Social Care, etc. We’ll see. The need for such aspects as Social Care to be addressed through cross party agreement, led us to return to the issue of something like PR (which is itself problematic) in parliament.
The disillusionment of many towards politics has been increased by the prominence of lying in parliament. Brexit was a prime example. Underpinned by Cummings’ deliberate promotion of lies, it has infected discourse in Parliament. But we also noted Starmer’s total volte-face on Corbyn’s policies which he had agreed to support. There was some argument about the importance of political pragmatism versus the idealism of always adhering to the truth.
Voter ID will also restrict voting amongst younger and poorer people who are less likely to support Tories.
While it appears that everything is ‘broke’ (NHS, transport, etc) there is a hope that Starmer, as PM, will bring some restoration. But in the meantime it was suggested that we should be happy to consider ourselves to be Woke Snowflakes!
Next meeting, 20th March.