At the risk of breaking my rule of keeping this blog strictly apolitical, I feel the need to point out that these images date from December 10th – just two days before the recent UK general election.
It isn’t giving much away (especially to those who know me), to state that the weeks and days leading up to the election were among the most nerve-wracking and traumatic I have experienced in my life. Conversely, the moment the exit poll was announced, was one of such joyous and euphoric relief as I can recall.
Yet, at the time of the walk in my local Oxford park when I encountered these sublime scenes, I was so convinced by the narrowing of the opinion polls and the broadcast media mood-music that the election result would mean us having to pack up and leave England for good, it was as if the fates of nature were tormenting me with what I would be losing.
Looking at them now however, the images seem to offer the hope of new dawn for this remarkable little country that once again feels like my green and still pleasant home.
ARKS, ADAM AND AXARQUIA 
How interesting. I never expected someone as cosmopolitan as yourself to favor Brexit. This is not really a political comment, as I have never studied the issue. Most of my working career was spent studying public policy in depth, and when I quit the work, I quit studying the issues which leaves me surprised all the time.
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Nothing to with Brexit Ray. Everything to do with my terror – and I mean terror – at the prospect of a Marxist antisemite getting the keys to No. 10 Downing Street.
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Not paying as close attention as I should, I had seen him labeled as as socialist [not Marxist] but had read nothing about him being antisemitic. There is a distressing amount of that going around these days. Oddly enough, I observe it more among our liberal elites than among the pro-Trump people who generally don’t [in my limited experience] include antisemitism in their bag of bigotry.
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Same here Ray. Exactly the same. Not that the old right-wing Jew hating does not still exist, but somehow a more prevalent, widespread form of the disease has gone viral among large swathes of the progressive liberal / left.
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And by the way, I am for leaving the EU, but that is incidental and a trivial concern giving the existential threat that was posed by a Corbyn government to the Anglo-Jewish community.
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This wonderful green pleasant and above all a tolerant great land will shine through all the doom and gloom and negativity of recent times
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Let’s hope so!
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No doubting he gets a lot of things right. I guess in the end it’s as much a question of “style” as anything else, and I think it’s that element of his presidency which puts off many people who otherwise support much of what he actually does.
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