The Day, the Shame

So, the Great Day has come at last. Here in London, the weather gods have been making their feelings very clear with spectacular electric storms, incessant torrential rain overnight, and more to come. I fully sympathise.
 I was finding the whole referendum farrago dispiriting but just about bearable - until that fateful day last week when the MP Jo Cox was murdered. This was a horrific and terrible event, but clearly not one that had anything at all to do with the EU referendum; the killer was a lone whackjob whose views on the In/Out question are not known and who was certainly not acting on behalf of any Brexit campaign. However, the Remain camp was soon spinning furiously and shamelessly, to such effect that suddenly a vote for Brexit would seem like an insult to Jo Cox and an encouragement of the dark forces that, unleashed by the Out campaign, had killed her.
The spinning that has gone on ever since Ms Cox's murder has recalled the very worst excesses of the Blair/Brown years, and might well be perpetrated by the same grubby, scruple-free operatives. And it has probably worked; a Remain vote is looking more and more likely. If the Remainers do swing it and get a majority, it will be on the back of a campaign so shameful and squalid that they should take no pride in their victory. And that, I hope, is the last I'll have to say on this topic. Happily, I shall be church crawling in deepest Surrey when the result becomes known tomorrow.

 But here is something to gladden the heart. Kris Kristofferson turned 80 yesterday - eighty! It doesn't seem possible. To honour the anniversary, here he is - just five years ago - giving a lived-in, rough-edged performance of his most beautiful and touching song. He was not thinking of the referendum when he wrote 'Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose'...