Saturday 30th July

After all the fuss and the fights and the fury, the shock and the turmoil – all has gone quiet.  For a couple of months everyone cared, everyone had an opinion; all at once the usually imperturbable British Public was roused from in front of their tv soaps and got a bit angry.  At first the campaign was barely noticeable.  Referendum – what referendum?  We had had a referendum a few years back on changing the voting system to Proportional Representation and it hardly caused a ripple on the lake of placidity the British were floating on.  Nothing changed.  Of course nothing ever would change, would it?  Then we had a real scare as the Scots almost broke away; they were promised the earth to stay, and yet even in defeat they weren’t gracious, they didn’t say thank you at all, they merely grumbled that next time, and pretty soon there would be a next time, they would win.  The losers came out victorious.

But after a slow start and a catalogue, a veritable cornucopia of World Leaders and Experts had pontificated on the dangers of us children daring to venture out of the garden gate, things started to hot up.  Nigel started banging on about Immigration, controlling our borders and getting our country back; the Official Leave campaign tried to ignore him but then had to join in as all this Nationalistic xenophobia proved really popular.  And the tsunami grew and hit the shore with force, sweeping away Dave and George, and even Boris refused to stand up, Nigel waved bye-bye, Gove got stuffed, markets and the pound sank and then rose again, predictions of disaster were slightly overstated.

And now it has all gone quiet.  A new Prime Minister, new Chancellor, new policies – almost a new Government.  And even the row in the Labour party seems to have quietened down.   It is all as if nothing really happened.  Calm again after the storm; the people have spoken, the order has been changed and life goes placidly on….for the moment.