Sunday 19th March

The Populist Revolution of 2016 has resulted in a decision for the U.K. to leave the EU and in America the election of Donald Trump.  David Cameron was forced to resign and against expectations Theresa May was not even elected, but assumed the position of Prime Minister.  Jeremy Corbyn was blamed by many media commentators and Labour M.P.s of not campaigning strongly enough on the Remain side, even though Cameron and Osborne who campaigned vigorously and rammed project Fear down everyone’s throats were equally unsuccessful.  Mrs. May came in and sacked Osborne, the architect of Austerity and it was ‘all change’ as we set sail for Brexitland.

In America, though we all laughed at Donald Trump (and still do), he was elected President despite losing the popular vote by 4% (incidentally the same margin as Remain lost by and have been branded as bad losers ever since)  – but that folks, is Democracy…the will of the people.  As President he has continued in much the same way, tweeting his random thoughts and passing executive orders only to be rescinded by (so-called) judges.

But, here is the surprising thing – barely anything has actually changed.  Not yet anyway.  Brexit has still not been even activated, let alone negotiated on or a deal – or even the shape, the faintest mirage of a deal has emerged from the mist.  Jeremy Corbyn is still leader of Labour who are still languishing in the polls.  True, the SNP are threatening another referendum, but that hasn’t happened yet either.  Northern Ireland is in yet another Political Crisis, and even Wales is making waves about a possible referendum….but, so far we are in never-never land.  Nothing has really happened yet.  All the predictions of chaos are just that, still predictions.   So, despite one’s instinctive distrust of Populism – the sky hasn’t fallen in………….yet.