Having been out all night protecting the adult ones, I am sat in front of the fire listening to BBC Radio 4 Today programme and marvelling at all the plans politicians have.
Let’s start with President Musk, sorry, Trump, who is going to relieve China of the arduous task of running the Panama Canal and is going to ‘buy’ Greenland.
Not sure if he plans a Mar-e-Largo style holiday resort or he’s after the mineral wealth, but he truly has his eye on it.
He even sent his son to check out. Well, let’s leave what Trump might want checked out to the imagination.
Then, closer to home, we have all manner of grand ideas from Sir Starmer and his merry band.
Firstly, they will build 1.5 million homes in the next four years. In order to do so, Deputy Prime Minister (oh, how she abhors that word, ‘deputy’!) and housing minister Angela Rayner plan to completely change the planning system so you are going to be told where these houses will be built and touch if you don’t like it.
Of course, Our Angela will need to get up to speed with her bricklaying/electrical/plumbing skills because I am not sure there are enough of these trades to build that many houses in four years. Of course, they could cut corners, several corners I suspect, and alongside reforming planning rules, completely reinvent building regulations.
Mind you, that didn’t go down to well when they deregulated the cladding of tower blocks and let cladding manufacturers mark their own homework.
Of course, high rise cladding won’t be an issue for the 10,000 homes to be built in St Cuthbert’s, south of Carlisle.
Finding 10,000 families to fill them might be unless they are truly affordable. And even then, moving out to the outskirts of Carlisle will. potentially, leave more homes in the city empty to become unloved and uncared for.
Then, good old Wes Streeting, cropped up in Carlisle, ably supported by the great and good of the local council. I bet he was chuffed to have council leader Mark Fryer and chief executive Andrew Seekings bobbing up at every photo opportunity when what Mr Streeting wanted to focus on was his national plans.
And what are those plans? Well, for a start, the Government is going to have a four-year Independent Commission find out exactly what the Dilnot Inquiry reported in 2011. Is it not time to stop talking and start doing something?
Secondly, Streeting has said he intends to speed up diagnosis and treatment for thousands of people with breathlessness, asthma in young people and post-menopausal bleeding.
Of course, just like the shortages in the building trade, there are shortages in the NHS.
These GPs who are going to refer patients directly for diagnostic tests are rather thin on the ground. So much so that the plan is to pay them to make the referrals. It’s like bribery but without the stigma!
And upgrading the NHS app will help reduce waiting times from 18 months to 18 weeks.
This all means more staff will be needed and where are these new GPs and consultants coming from? Has Streeting found a doctor tree in his garden?
Then again, we have the Starmer plan to get 13,000 more police on the streets of our neighbourhoods.
Okay, that isn’t 13,000 cops, but a mix of police officers, PCSOs and special constables, the last of which, Cumbriapolice is way down on recruitment. And to reach this target, there are no new cops, just officers taken from other duties.
Why, we are even getting more councillors for Cumberland just before we completely rejig the county with a regional mayor.
No, I sit here listening to the radio incredulous at these grandiose plans wondering why they haven’t wheeled out the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, she of the dubious CV, who has already made clear there is no money tree.
But then again, she might be busy trying to placate the money men and women in the City of London as the costs of Government borrowing rise to the highest levels for 16 years. Funny, her being so quiet?
And one last thought, and one the cat may/will come back to in the future, who exactly is wagging the Government dog’s tail?
Do we not have a democracy where the Government is mandated to deliver the will of the people or are the people just little unimportant problems to be managed?
Is it now so clear that only every five years, when they want our vote, politicians of all colours, promise the earth?
Perhaps people should be like me and curl up in front of the fire.
About Cumbria Cat
Born in Cumberland and now back living in Cumberland, having spent most of the past 50 years in some place called Cumbria, this cat has used up all nine lives as well as a few others.
Always happy to curl up on a friendly lap, the preference is for a local lap and not a lap that wants to descend on the county to change it into something it isn’t.
After all, you might think Cumbria/Cumberland/Westmorland is a land forged by nature – the glaciers, the rivers, breaking down the volcanic rocks or the sedimentary layers – but, in reality, the Cumbria we know today was forged by generations of local people, farmers, miners, quarriers, and foresters.
This cat is a local moggy, not a Burmese, Ocicat or Persian, and although I have been around the block a few times, whenever I jump, I end up on my feet back in my home county.
I am passionate about the area, its people, past, present and future, and those who come to admire what we hold dear, be it lakes and mountains, wild sea shores, vibrant communities or the history as rich and diverse as anywhere in the world.
