Pack Up All Your Cares and Woe…
December 20th, 2007Since my last posting, we have been busy writing and preparing letters about the post office closure proposals that have been distributed to thousands of local residents in and around the affected post offices. The response we are receiving is excellent, and we shall take the matter forward as part of the consultation process over the next month or so.
Readers of my Facebook profile will know that today, I was off to see another Nativity Play. This time, it was at my daughter’s school, where she was taking the lead role of Mary. The challenge for the school’s staff in organising and choreographing young children with autism and ASD is huge, but everyone rose to the occasion and there was not a dry eye in the house. This is a time of year when newspaper and periodical editorials are full of columns about “the true meaning of Christmas”. I don’t think it is worth me trying to add to the sum of human knowledge about this well-worn theme, which is also the topic of most sermons I have heard at this time of year.
At the moment, Christmas for me is what I saw this morning, and what my son did a week or so ago at his school. It is a time for putting our cares and worries aside for a very short while, before we plunge into yet another year. I wonder whether this year’s Christmas shoppers are having more than the usual difficulty in laying their cares aside. The credit crunch has arrived, and the forecasts for the year ahead are not particularly rosy. Mr. Brown, who has conspicuously identified himself with economic success over the past ten years, inevitably refused to be drawn to answer the question “are we going to be alright” at his Press Conference yesterday.
The position is clear: Mr. Brown has enjoyed the political fruits during times of economic progress, which means that he will have to endure the brickbats during an economic downturn. He can’t seriously claim all the credit for increasing prosperity one minute, and then cite international trends as a reason for downturn the next.
