There comes a time in the affairs of nations when the past ought to be put behind them.History was ever thus;if it were otherwise then we in the UK would be stranded in a perpetual imbroglio of recurring grievances and hatreds.
Which of course certain areas such as the Balkans or the Middle east are and are not likely to emerge from them merely by the counting of years and decades as they pass. Were we something like them,then the offspring of the Roundheads and Royalists would still be embroiled in antipathies and conflicts related to their original struggles in the 1640s, which they are not.
72 hours ago,on Saturday 8 November,Ireland held its General Election and things will never be the same again. Sinn Fein irrevocably emerged as a major player in Dublin politics,one that will have important and lasting consequences for the future structure and coherence of the United Kingdom itself.
The UK having gone through its own recent GE2019 in December still under the antiquated,shambolic FPTP system where a single party can emerge with an overall parliamentary majority of 80 seats having garnered around 30% of the votes cast contrasts unfavourably with Ireland's multi-member constituencies with proportional representation /preference voting that seems entirely ,rationally superior and reflective of and responsive to actual political preferences of the electorate.
The Brexit -powered revolution has a long way to go yet,but its initial dynamic cannot now be countermanded.In its wake as an ineluctable outcome,the UK's over-centralised government and administrative apparatus shall change and evolve.
More or less in some cogent and popularly acceptable fashion if we are fortunate.
Then again,given the UK's chequered history on such matters,perhaps not.
In these historically significant periods of imminent transition,giving the go-ahead to vainglorious, metropolitan elitist,crony-corporate capitalist white elephant projects aka HS2 is not what London ought to be concentrating on or doing.
Then again would it be London if it didn't?
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