Clapping like seals

I’m getting more concerned by the direction of global politics.

People rooting for systemic change have an uphill battle in general because global neoliberal forces have pretty much all of us clapping away like seals to the latest capitalist distraction, whilst the world burns.

I’m very concerned that the UK in the coming years will have some kind of US-style health insurance system. Elites will line their pockets whilst outcomes for people get worse. Too many of us are blind to the fact that the rhetoric of the likes of Farage, Musk and any other self-styled ‘man of the people’ stems from a desire to strip state assets and finance and put them under the control of oligarchs who are already wealthy beyond imagination.

In the dismantling of the US Agency for International Development, which has happened in a ridiculously chaotic and damaging manner, there are some valid comments being made in Africa about the need to reduce reliance on finance from other countries. Very true. But progress on the various issues supported by USAID - environmental, health, energy technologies, education and much more - is so damn incremental and difficult to achieve that the drastic nature of these cuts just threatens years if not decades of backbreaking efforts. Reform needs to be planned and guided by experts.

Despite this global turbulence, the banana fronds continue their languid movements in the hot breeze.