IMAGINE A COMATOSE HOSPITAL PATIENT waking up after three years. Does he find the world hugely different? The last time I wrote, David Cameron had resigned in the wake of the June 2016 referendum, and his party were scrabbling around for a new leader. More of that a little later, but had the Sleeping Blogger awoken in Wisbech, the first blinks of his eyes would reveal that little has changed, at least nothing for the better.
THE NEWLY SENTIENT LAZARUS takes his first hesitant steps into the town. What does he find? A rejuvenated, bustling High Street, with its 'missing teeth' replaced with sparkling new buildings? Sadly not. The teeth are still missing, and many thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money has been trousered by consultants and facilitators with naught to show but a few implausible designs in an online brochure.
A RE-INVIGORATED MARKET PLACE, bustling with stalls, and lined with pleasant shops offering beautiful commercial opportunities? Woe, woe and thrice woe. The flagship retail experience of Wisbech remains firmly in the hands of pound shops. At this time of year, those with psychic powers can see the faint pahantoms of Christmas customers queuing outside Franks, formerly the best butcher's shop in the area. The Ghosts of Christmas Past wait in vain for their pork pies, haslet, ham, succulent sausages and other more esoteric (and acquired) porky tastes.
A WALK ALONG NORFOLK STREET is a depressing affair. Despite boasting three of the best shops in the town, Anglia Locksmiths - with the unrivaled expertise of its staff and great value, the Post Office - run by two of the friendliest folk in town, and Wisbech Music Centre - with the ever friendly and expert Carmine at your service, the street is shabby, litter strewn, home to fly-by-night hair-cutters, body-piercers and skin-inkers and poky European grocers. The progress of our former coma victim, as he inches his way along the pavement, is watched over by groups of smokers, huddled in shop doorways, making the thoroughfare as enticing as a slug crawling across a birthday cake.
AS LAZARUS REGAINS HIS STRENGTH he might be tempted to investigate Wisbech politics. That, above all other things, must have changed, surely? In tiny ways, perhaps. Those indefatigable campaigners for their constituents, Mike and Virginia Bucknor, have left the battlefield. Defeated perhaps by a combination of ill health and persistent animosity, they have called it a day. Virginia, though, has now revealed that she is a fearsome Socialist, despite her long held Independent banner.
STILL AT THE HELM OF WISBECH POLITICS, firmly in control, reputations undiminished by allegations, shining armour untarnished by the acid of criticism, relentlessly confident and charismatic are two people who ............ at this point I must stop. No names, no Pack Drill. Anonymity rules are not to be waived. Frustrated by the relentless assault on my decision (and that of millions of others) to leave the EU, and boosted by the arrival of Boris Johnson as Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister I joined that party. I have not regretted that decision for one second, and I hope that in the cold and frosty dawn of 13th December I will wake up to the news that Boris has won a working majority.
MY REQUEST TO BECOME A CONSERVATIVE PARTY MEMBER was challenged, inevitably, by the local hierarchy who, not without reason given my views on their antics, wondered why I wanted to be, as it were, shipmates. I replied that my request was in support of Johnson, and that I would not involve myself in any way with the local party, and that is that.
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