In the Bleak Midwinter

There’s not a lot of good news around now.

I don’t mean the cold snap in Britain; that will be over soon and, remember, there was a hot snap in the summer. I mean the state of the economy – not in good shape. Government borrowing to hand out Covid furlough could have been responsibly repaid until inflation and Ukraine blew in and now workers in public service have announced a snow drift of strikes. These workers have all been offered pay rises but less than inflation. Nobody wants their real income to fall, especially if they have trade unions to argue for them. Why should the strikers try to hold the country to ransom? I support the government’s compassionate policy of robbing from the rich and giving to the poor.

There’s no trade union to represent pensioners living on a pittance compared to a train driver. Some of us have been prudent and saved money for our old age. Now we have a short-term problem. The value of investments have gone down and in some cases dividends have been suspended. I believe this is a short-term problem but it should be seen as taking perhaps two years to get back on track. I just wish the train drivers could be as philosophic and get back on track.

I don’t think much of Christina Rossetti’s kitsch, Victorian poem by the way.

“In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.