The Ghost of Tom Joad

 In the UK, we’ve managed to show some sense and get rid of the bunch of self serving, privately educated conservative politicians and replace them with a group of, hopefully, more effective, honest and moral leaders. With 2 cabinet members from the same Wigan Comprehensive school, at least we should be able to see an improvement in the quality of the average pork pie.

In France, having flirted with electing National Rally (a bit like Reform but, obviously, with more style), the French electorate decided that they had frightened everyone enough and relegated them to 3rd place in the run-off.

Meanwhile, in the USA, some lunatic with a gun takes a pot-shot at Mr. Trump. Huge sympathy to the guy who was killed and his family and also huge sympathy to the gunman’s family who, presumably, were as stunned by this as everyone else. Having failed to assassinate the ex president he has, instead, boosted the orange one’s chances of being elected. It was nice to be informed by Trump’s running mate, a Mr. Vance I believe, that I live in a nuclear armed Islamist state. Do any of these people ever listen back to the utter rubbish that they come out with? I suppose that, on the upside, we seem to have got rid of Messrs Farage and Truss who are apparently attending the Republican Convention. I’m sure that the people who elected Farage as their MP are delighted to see him sorting out the problems of Clacton from a seat in Milwaukee.

Now Tom said, “Mom, wherever there’s a cop beating a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there’s a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me, Mom, I’ll be there


Wherever somebody’s fighting for a place to stand
Or a decent job or a helping hand
Wherever somebody’s struggling to be free
Look in their eyes, Ma, and you’ll see me”

B. Springsteen with a little help from John Steinbeck