Regular readers might have wondered where I’ve been for the past month or so (and for those of you who didn’t, I’m afraid that you going to get the answer anyway).
It is perhaps a marker that I’m growing older that I’ve been away on grandparent duty. Given that I have no children of my own, it’s an interesting reflection of how family life has changed with the advent of the right to divorce, or the emergence of non-traditional family structures, that allows someone like me (childless by choice) to step into the role of “Grandpa” to a small child. And, whilst I approach the role with a combination of love and trepidation, it’s been fun thus far.
I’m also undergoing some upheaval here at home, which I might explain at some point, but the key word at the moment is change.
Sadly, our politics isn’t doing much of that. A new face or two, yes, but the Government seems determined to faceplant itself at every opportunity – whether it’s legionnaire’s disease on the Bibby Stockholm, crumbling concrete in our schools, hospitals and other public buildings, or the lack of funding certainty for that bedrock of historic Conservative support, farmers.
It’s an indication of two of the key flaws that this Government exhibits, a lack of long term thinking and a failure to understand how things work in real life.