Why Donald Trump is the 45th President and Great Britain has left the EU

The love of my life and best friend is an American, we have been married for 27 years and we have two children, one is American and one is English, I have a son who lives in America while we all live in England. We moved back in 2004 after living 25 years in America.

I don’t think any of us know quite what to say about the last year; my wife and I are trying to explain to our 9-year-old how a man with absolutely no credible qualifications, who has run a campaign for the last 18 months based of bigotry, racism, sexist comments and behaviour has become the next President of the United States and at the same time explain to my friends and family in America, how we could opt out of the European Community without any clear plan for the future.

I can only come to one conclusion; you, the Politicians have stopped listening and we the people have reached the end of our tolerance for your indifference to our needs. You think you listen but you don’t, you simply give us lip service then go about your business as usual. So a racist, bigot stands up and regurgitates the thoughts that so many people have asked, things like why does an illegal immigrant appear to get better treatment than someone who was born in the US, has served the US and been willing to die for the US, but now must declare bankruptcy in order to pay for the injuries sustained during a war he fought defending the freedom of the illegal immigrant. In Great Britain we ask, why does it appear that we are paying more and more to the EU and getting less and less in return. Why is it we appear to be losing control of our country? Then along comes our own version of Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, espousing the same homophobic, racist bigotry and sets the minds of so many thinking that he is listening to them by regurgitating those questions and tuning them into hate. Our Prime Minister put it to a national vote and the people, many of who are simply angry and tired after so many years of not being listened to, make their voice heard. We awake to find out that we have exited the EU with no clear strategy for the future, the United States wakes up to find that it has an unqualified reality TV star as the next president.

We and the good people of the United States don’t care though because at last we have had our say and we would rather be right that successful in both cases.

My suggestion is to all Politicians is that you listen, really listen to what the people want, after all you are only Managers not Dictators and you represent and fight for what the people want, not what you thing is best for them. In a day and age when the majority of people were uneducated and untraveled that might have worked, but the majority of us be we ever so humble are well travelled and well educated and it does not work anymore. Try something new. Listen. Really listen.

I did not vote to leave the EU and I would never in my life vote for Donald Trump, but I fully understand why people did both.

The Value Of A Life

I’ve been lately thinking about my life’s time, all the things I’ve done and how it’s been. And I can’t help believing in my own mind, I know I’m gonna hate to see it end.

                  Poems, Prayers and promises

                           John Denver

I have been thinking lately; about life and friends and family, about the things I have done and I how I arrived at the place in life that I am in and about the life I have ahead of me. One which I see as a full and happy life along a journey that I hope I will take with many of those friends and those of my family who mean so much to me.

I recently spent time with many of the family who over the years have come to be the most important people in my life. We spent time with those who we only see sometimes once in every couple of years due to the fact that we moved to England in 2004 and they all live in America. I spent time with my son and his family and with my wife and her family. My daughter Erin who is now a young woman but who will always be my little girl managed to pull off a small family reunion on a glorious day in the park, by the lake, a lake that has come to mean so much to me and one which holds wonderful memories from thirty years ago. My son is now reaching his 30^th year and there is talk of he and Katie starting family.

This wonderful time was sadly marked on the last day by the news of the death of a friend. A tragic and wasteful loss of life due to driving accident.

There are mileposts in our life that have a lasting impression for different reasons and this one is one of those. 

Dave was only 47 and, by todays standards barely into his life. I met him at The National Conservatory Of Dramatic Arts, in Washington DC more than twenty years ago along with several other people who have come to mean so much to me. Most of us have not seen each other in the same twenty years however they had a lasting impact on my life. I have kept in touch with a few, but not enough and time has moved on for all of us. We all started at this small Acting School in the basement of a Church (As many seem to be) with one thing in common; Dreams. We all had a Dream, some of Acting, some of Teaching, some of a life behind the Scenes, but we all had dreams.

Those dreams ended abruptly for Dave and it jarred the hearts of those who new him, friends and family who he left behind. There will be forever those things that were never said because we can say them the next time we see each other, questions about what we might achieve with a life, a gift that we have that we can do so much with, how we might affect other people and give them the inspiration to reach for their dreams and in turn they may go on to inspire yet others, sadly this life will never see out it’s full potential and others will live their life with many questions.

Our hearts went out to those in his family who will miss him the most.

While the world watches.

Look, I don’t know if what I write has any worth or if it will have an impact on anyone or inspire you, but I do know that it makes me feel good to try and make sense of the world and this is the way in which I do it.

At the moment we have just gone through one of the most life changing events in history, we have as a country for better or worse voted to leave the EU, something we have been part of for over forty years and, as such, we are now in unknown waters.

In the forty plus years since joining the EU which has taken on many forms and names, the world has changed significantly. Chances are that if you were alive you would have mixed emotions at Great Britain entering into a partnership with other countries in Europe, at least one of who wished for our demise only a few short years earlier. We didn’t have the internet and quite possibly only two TV Channels. You were lucky to have a phone in the house and superstores like Tesco and Asda had not even been thought of. The world was still a very innocent place for many of us. WWll was in the past Vietnam was something that Americans were involved in and not us, and Woodstock was something we wished we had all attended. Our leaders however wanted more and with that notion took us into the Common Market.

In forty years the world has changed beyond recognition. The internet is immediate and an intrusion at times, we walk around with a phone stuck to our hand at all times and there are 100s of TV channels (Still with little of value on them) There are at any given time a dozen wars going on and we have seen the horror of September 11^th and July 7^th There is not a day goes by when someone gets shot in America at the hand of a maniac in a country more committed to being right than successful about gun control. In one fell swoop we are no longer part of the EU, we no longer have a real leader of the country and most of the opposition party are jumping ship. In a time when we need leadership the most it’s a scarce commodity. We are being represented by leaders who look like buffoons and while the world waits to see what happens to us, I suggest that the leadership we desire might need to come from out of own sense of logic and our own moral compass.  

Already we have seen the signs of bigotry and blame, as though immigrants who work as dishwashers and bus drivers are stealing our jobs? Be real, I do not see a line of white British people lining up to take their places. 

While this may be a great opportunity for Great Britain it may also be a time of great challenge for many also. We must be thoughtful and patient, look, all this money, the £350 million we are supposed to get now that we don't need to pay it to the EU, I guarantee our Government will find a more creative way to use it. Once gone we will never get it back. I seem to remember that VAT was a stop gap solution andante in, well you know the rest.