Clive

I wasn’t planning on posting today, but WP has reminded me of a short piece I wrote ten years ago today, well before most of you were following my blog. 24 June 2016 was the day after the UK voted in the Referendum to leave the EU, in a collective act of mass suicide. All I wrote was this:

NIGHTMARE

It seems an appropriate time to revisit this brief piece that I wrote two months ago. The Nightmare is beginning. We have voted to destroy our country and to seriously damage future European unity.

Today, I’m ashamed to be British.

The piece I referenced was written on 1 April that year, with the same title, and was this:

NIGHTMARE

Taking liberties with the format, a little piece of 100 word flash ‘fiction,’ especially for today:

“It’s April 1 2020. The news is worrying. The UK General election is coming fast, and the country is veering towards a post-Brexit win for Nigel Farage’s renamed UK National Socialist Party. President Trump has just declared war on Mexico for its continuing refusal to pay for his wall, and has threatened Scotland with armed retaliation for the nationalisation of his golf course. President Putin and Wendy Deng now control her ex-husband’s media empire: their newspaper, Pravda of London, has begun circulating.

Am I dreaming? Is this real? A bad April Fool’s Day joke? Or is the world really stumbling towards oblivion?”

Far-fetched? I hope so, but there is so much happening now that makes me worried about our future. I hope I’m wrong! Happy April Fool’s Day!

……………………………………….

Ten years on, the details of that may not be entirely accurate, but the prescience of my fears was anything but far from the mark. The template set by the Vote Leave campaign, of scaremongering and telling blatant lies, has become commonplace in politics on both sides of the pond, and you don’t need me to give you any examples, do you!

We live in uncertain times, and whilst I have far fewer days ahead of me than behind me, I fear for the future of the world in which my grandchildren are growing up. I just hope it isn’t too late for change.