Space is useful.

Professor Brian Cox might want to adjust the niceties here but, having paid some attention to his programmes  I conclude that space holds up the Universe. That’s useful, if a simplistic analysis.

(Am I alone, listening to his joyful description of the unfathomable, when I go away for about five minutes believing that I actually understand physics only to realise after another five that nothing has penetrated my skull other than his enthusiasm? )

Then there are qualities of space. As  photographer and a very occasional artist  I make use of negative space to emphasise the main subject of my work. That’s useful.

When we look round a new house we are interested in buying we might say “ oh there is a lot of space” or grimace and say, “there isn’t much space.” So space is useful,  otherwise why might we reference it in positive or negative terms ?

As you will have probably have gathered by now that is the essence of what I am saying here, space is useful. 

There are some turns of phrase that work in the right circumstances and others that suffer from context . Witness the phrase “ to strike a happy medium .” I have  a spiritualist friend who is a medium and she is happy,  she fails to see why she should be struck. 

This is why I object to people saying that the Government we have, in its current state,  is a waste of space. 

Space deserves better than that. 

While space is useful , the zombie government in Westminster is demonstrating that it really isn’t. It can’t make any decisions until, possibly the least representative electorate  in Western Democracy, has crowned Liz Truss PM. This Government is the embodiment of the living dead.

At the time of the worst financial crisis since the big crash, when citizens are facing the worst challenges to their income in living memory  when governments around the world are intervening to protect their citizens , our government is paralysed by a grotesque political fashion show. Worse, a fashion show  where it seems every commentator has already decided the outcome. Meanwhile we have to wait until the Conservative Party has consulted with its 160,000 selectorate before it can go to work. Before the needs concerns and worries of the vast but of the traditional electorate, the vast majority,  will be addressed. 

There is only one guarantee at the end of this. Having slated each other, in some cases in graphic terms ,  the many candidates will “ come together “ as  apart of the “ Conservative family “ and as “ one country.” 

There are a few challenges in those statements . 

1: We clearly aren’t one country, 

Only the most cloth eared Unionist would suggest different. Yet anyone who believes anything other than the Unionist mantra  is “attention seeking . “

2: The  “coming together” thus  far has been of the explosive  variety. Uniquely so within their colleagues and political party

3: If this is a family,  then the Addams family would be preferable. Possibly less outlandish than what we may have governing us. Possibly more predicable, certainly  more rational. 

What has become clear in this process is that whoever wins will be an even smaller subset of the far right cabal who have grabbed power. 

What surprises me slightly in this period is that we are still paying our ministers. Since they are doing nothing, why should we? 

I’d make exceptions. Ben Wallace seems to be intent to keep the UK from harm as defence minister. But Zahawi? Quite literally saying he can do nothing? The only positive to say about the absence of the Prime Minster from his office is that at least he can do no more harm. But hold the press, there is time yet.

The only good thing about this process has been to show that the defeated leadership candidates will do anything to hold onto power and career including enthusiastically toadying up to people they have in the very recent past called incompetent fantasists. They have tossed their credibility onto a bonfire. We have found out more about their incompetence from their “Honourable Friends “ than from any political, let alone,  satirical commentator.

Meanwhile Liz Truss is nothing of a Foreign Secretary as she preens herself in a display of self importance as Maggie-lite. 

A diplomat who had the dubious pleasure of negotiating for their country with the the UK’s trade  team in recent months , used the “Waste  of Space” description to define their country’s assessment of our negotiating team, led of course by Liz Truss. On hearing she may be our new Prime Minister they descended into laughter . 

This is the politician whose most pressing requirement seems to be how she gets into Vogue, whose lack of self awareness leads her to believe she is evidently capable for the job with no weaknesses or reservations. This is a politician who was uniquely able to make a speech on cheese and make it sound as if we were being invaded by tractor driving French farmers, and who managed miraculously to offend  British Jews while defending them from anti Semitism.   

So please give space some ….space. To waste space is to waste a useful commodity, something we all need. The current utility of our government on the other hand  is seriously questionable. 

Space does not deserve to be in the same sentence as this government.