Progress

Progress Towards Christmas

I'm on schedule. All my Christmas greetings that go by post are in the post. Those I deliver locally or send by email have still to be done but they can wait until next week. All presents for family have been ordered and are on their way. The Christmas quiz for the Beaumont library is done and I've run off copies. The Christmas carols, under Jo's management, are well on their way; we all have our «bonnets rouges» and three of us red capes (the three kings). I've written the historical introductions to the carols, subject to any amendments by René, and done the rounds putting posters in both bakers, the Bar du Pont, the Mairie, the library and the Post Office. The English conversation classes finish next week until the end of January and the students have very generously given Steve and I each a bottle of single malt scotch and a basket of wine, pâtés and chocolates. We'll drink some fizz at the last session next Tuesday. Finally, I've planted another 50 narcissi in various places in the front; should look good when the spring comes. Friends will be coming to me to eat on Boxing Day but there is nothing to be done for that until a day or so beforehand. So all is on schedule, barring any last minute crisis.

Parliament Rules Again

With the government defeats yesterday the outcome of Brexit is still unclear but there is at least one good result: parliament has decided to reassume its proper rôle and rule again. For the pasr two years there has been a danger that the result of a referendum which, constitutionally, could never be binding whatever any politician said, would be allowed to be regarded as such, with parliament neglecting its rôle as ruler of Britain. Britain has never been ruled by plebiscite; it is parmiament's duty to rule. If Brexit doesn't happen, this will not be a betrayal of democracy as many Brexiteers and some of the gutter press want to claim. It will in fact be the opposite; a reaffirmation of democracy. The gpvernment, time after time, has tried to avoid scrutiny of its proposals by parliament and now, perhaps just in time, parliament has asserted its authority, as is its legal right and duty. That the government has been found in contempt of this, for the first time in history, is a true and proper judgement on the government's macinations. All the chaos, and the referendum itself, has been the result of a deep divide in the Conservative party, exploited by various individuals for their own purposes without regard for the consequences for the country. So let the Conservative party put its own house in order and let parliament in its own house rule.