THIS GREEN AND PLEASANT LAND

I can't sleep. Angry for many reasons. Visions of burning buildings on my TV screen. Peoples homes and livelihoods being destroyed openly and brazenly under the gaze of an embarrassingly impotent Police Force. Annoying, so called, community leaders bleating on the screen about disaffected youth and having the gall to quote
'A hungry man is an angry man'
I haven't seen anyone breaking into a bakery to get food. Just a sickening frenzy to loot for TV's, Jewellery and clothes and the gut wrenching site of peoples homes being burned to the ground.

Where else in the world would you see such a passive response. This is not about the right to voice an opinion or to demonstrate. It is in fact terrorism. They are inflicting terror upon our people and our cities in the HD view of the rest of the world.
So who do we look to for leadership in this hour of need. Theresa May! What a joke. She looked like a rabbit in the headlights on TV this morning with her talk of robust policing, whatever that means, and the naive plea for anyone who knows of anyone who was taking part to report them to the police who will follow it up. As if. Picture the scene. Knock Knock. 'Who's there?' 'It's the police, we have been told that you were involved with the disturbances last night!' 'No i wasn't, i was at home watching the telly wasn't i Mum' 'Yes he was, and stop harassing us! 'Er ok...'
You can almost hear Camerons earnest speech as he arrives from his curtailed Italian break. All hot air, littered with the words, 'Not acceptable" "The full weight of the law" "our way of life" "a small minority" "rest assured"
Rest assured that the Police force that he is cutting back drastically so that they are under trained and under powered will receive serious casualties. As far as i am concerned, if you are going to risk burning down peoples houses and businesses and openly stealing and attacking innocent people then you should also take the risk of having the crap beaten out of you or worse!
Just in case there is any chance of misreading my comments. let me tell you i'm all for taking to the streets to fight oppression, cruelty and tyranny but get real!!!! This is England, where no one needs to go hungry, where everyone is entitled to health care. We may be in a fucking mess but it's still England. What's left of it anyway. Abused and bruised as it is.

And where did the England i know go? The one one that still lives in my mind, now clouded and distant but very much alive in this poem that i remember from childhood.

Adlestrop

Yes, I remember Adlesrop –

The name, because one afternoon

Of heat the express train drew up there

Unwontedly. It was late June

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat

No one left and no one came

On the bare platform. What I saw

Was Adlestrop – only the name

And willows, willow herb, and grass

And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry

No whit less still and lonely fair

Than the high cloudlets in the sky

And for a minute a blackbird sang

Close by, and round him, mistier,

Farther and farther, all the birds

Of Oxfordshire and Gloucester.

Edward Thomas

See you soon and as my lovely cousin Gillian would say, Peace, love and light to you all.

JR