September. The hideous repercussions of the retreat from Afghanistan rumble on. Immigration policy lies in tatters as we prepare to receive Afghan refugees, a predicted sixty-five thousand British Overseas Nationals from Hong Kong and more of the cross-channel `boat people`.
For far too long successive Governments of all political persuasions have failed to constructively and definitively address the related issues of social care for the elderly and the disabled and healthcare at both primary (GP) and Secondary (Hospital) levels and to find the means to adequately if not generously fund both.
August In a month dominated by events in Afghanistan and the recall of Parliament to debate those issues it`s hard to remember that August was also the month of the “Covid Olympics” and Paralympics in Tokyo, the month in which Iran launched an air strike on an unarmed civilian oil tanker, and the month in which Ms Virginia Guiffre launched in New York, a lawsuit against Prince Andrew.
Local elections in Portugal will take place on Sunday 26th September and all EU citizens and Brits have the right to vote.
June . We do like to be beside the seaside - having beach barbeques at the G7 summit in Cornwall. The Indian – sorry, Delta – mutation of Covid 19 seems miles away and social distancing is very much for others as the Leaders of the Free World take in the joys of the English Riviera.
May. The `Indian mutation` of the Coronavirus hits Britain and throws the June 21st `back to normal` deadline into doubt Fish Wars break out between France and Britain in the Channel Islands and a gunboat is sent.
April, a month of two halves. Dignity, service and loyalty following the death of The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh at the beginning and squalid and unseemly wrangling over who said what, when and to whom and who paid for the curtains in the Prime Minister`s flat above Number Eleven Downing Street at the end.
The phoney `vaccine war `is a fig leaf designed to obscure the failure on the part of Commissioner Von Der Leyen and the EU to roll out an effective vax programme while the UK Government notches up a significant post-Cummings success in its approach to the pandemic. Less attractive is the Government`s offer of aone-per-cent pay increase as a `reward` to NHS staff for their service on the front line.
- Gale`s View from Westminster - February 2021
- N.A.B.O Got Double The Amount Of Marcelo!
- Gale`s View from Westminster - January 2021
- Gale`s Westminster - December 2020 – Viewed from North Thanet
- EU Presidency Priorities
- Gale`s Westminster View - isolation continues - November 2020
- A Better Use For Public Buildings
- Democracy and freedom in Portugal