Thursday 23 April 2015

Politics

Here we are in the middle of a general election campaign that promises to produce a very interesting result.  And yet I can't get worked up about it.  I think it's because I just want to get to the finishing line now.  I've had enough of politicians promising all sorts of goodies, if I vote for them.  It would seem we can have lower taxes, higher pensions, more funding of the NHS and also cut the deficit at the same time.  Amazing how this can all be done just before an election, but not for the five years before it, and probably not for the next five years after it.  I also saw the end of a Nigel Farage interview on TV yesterday, where he actually said that, if the government lowered taxes, there could be an uplift in the economy that meant more income would flow into the Exchequer.  He insisted it could happen.  Not a matter to base your budget strategy on though, is it?

I am currently involved in the next Stables production, which is "Anne Boleyn" by Howard Brenton.  It is full of the political scheming around Henry VIII's desire for a divorce from his first wife, so he can marry the fecund Anne.  While Anne is shown as fervently for bringing Protestantism to England out of religious conviction, Henry is persuaded by a very different motive.  Not only will he become Head of the Church and be able to approve his own divorce, all monastic revenues will accrue to him and not the Pope.  Taxes and money make the world go round, then as now.

The play is seen through the eyes of James I, and he makes a very perceptive comment at the end of the play.  One that is pertinent in the present day of ISIS and Fundamentalist Christianity.  He says "Why is it that all we do in the name of God is always exactly the same as what we need to do in our own self-interest?"

Think on.

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