Mrs May is a thoroughly modern girl if it were 1978 but what about now?
“She’s so 20th century, she’s so 1970’s she knows the right things to say she knows the right clothes to wear coz she’s a modern girl oh yeah”. Bob Geldoff somehow caught the spirit of Mrs May back in 1978 and after the one nation One Show sofa saga it seems opportune to remind ourselves that modern politics is currently being cast in the past, the 1970’s for both Mr Corbyn and Mrs May. We would suggest a little earlier for Mr Corbyn, perhaps 1973 to Mrs Mays 1976. In any event, we are experiencing politics which is clearly forty years out of date. Brexit which should be understood by all as a liberation from the yoke of an oppressive and tax gobbling overlord is seen by many an opportunity to renegotiate on the basis of a 1970’s EEC-type iteration of the EU. Not wholly bad but again a bit 1970’s.
The problem with the EU and its component parts is that it is manifestly inefficient like a middle-aged man living comfortably off a credit card with a huge credit limit but who’s income always seems to fall a little short of expenditure each month “old boy!”. As a result of this predictable long-term terminal decline we have a duty to not just to try to negotiate a safe 1970’s EEC style deal, if indeed we get that, we still might get nothing, but we should also be a critical friend to the countries of the EU. Like the disassociation that exists between the parliamentary system in the UK and the people who pay for, it the EU is not hugely popular with many ordinary Europeans. Like the Brits with Brexit, most EU citizens understand the EU doesn’t pass the sniff test but they are powerless to deal with it as no mainstream party wants to come on board. Like Clegg and Cameron, the mainstream continental parties see the EU as an exciting place to waffle, shuffle paper, and make a lot of money from somewhere. Macron is like that too so all the best to France. So we should stop being so 1970’s in our dealings with the EU and help the EU reach a position of sane self-awareness.
The EU is a continental sized liability a few short watery miles away and we are not living in 1976. The threat of the EU is enormous not as a warrior but as an unstable and unsustainable economic behemoth. A rendering back of power to nations states with an EEC style deal for all of the countries of the EU would at least offer the prospect of a controlled implosion when it finally comes. As it is we are facing at some point the collapse of a bloated arrogant and self-deluded pseudo-nation state with all the horrendous economic and social consequences its collapse will inflict on both them and us.
It is not good being too 1970’s about this, Mrs May needs to understand that it’s not just what you wear and what you say…..it’s what you think that matters and in what decade you think it!!
