Your correspondent cannot write anything good about this Christmas because there are just too many bad things happening around us from political leaders at home and abroad…
… and the bad news is that these people are being elected either in good or rotten elections.
Let’s look at the list of such matters that is the rational for the headline of this article:
- At home here in Finland, there is a freshly elected right-wing government that promised fiscal responsibility, care and fair policies for low-income folk, and higher levels of employment through labour reforms. But we now have more borrowing, tax cuts for high income earners, reduced healthcare and education budgets, increased taxes and big cuts in public subsidies for low-income folk, and fast rising unemployment, and a refusal to engage with the trade unions while they respectfully in front of the employers’ central association.
These politicians appear to see themselves as some kind of Margaret Thatcherites who believe in punishing the population as a necessary therapy, while ignoring the long-lasting damage it is causing the economy.
- Abroad we have Putin, the brutal war criminal, and his corrupt followers in Hungary and in Mar-a Lago.
- The Ukrainians are being treated to falling support at the time when the whole of Europe and the rest of the West should be digging in and supporting these brave defenders of their country.
- The German Chancellor appears to be a puny weak politician, who is possibly implicated in helping tax-fraud bankers.
- The French have a president who is so unpopular that anything he does out of desperation makes him look more foolish.
- China is grappling with Xi where the failing economy sinks like the Titanic dragging us down in swirling whirlpools.
- Israel has a war inside their own country on a scale never seen before. A civil war inside any country needs two sides in opposition and never starts spontaneously overnight. Israel’s policies towards Palestinians were in the plain in sight for decades. The reaction from extremists on both sides of the divide are now responsible for inexcusable destruction. The leaders of the USA have much to answer for this situation – they provided unconditional support to this small nation without considering the obvious outcome that brought this deadly violence.
Biden’s term of office will conclude next year and we will probably face having a new corrupt and ignorant man who spreads falsehoods and spits on democracy. His control over the justice system is worse than Orbàn’s because there are no sanctions or complaints coming from the rest of the West!
Faced with this clearly very probable prospect, we are being forced to wait for the EU’s actions to support Ukraine and for our defence of European democracy.
This is a sad Christmas because there are too many important matters to decide by our Western political leaders. We have no reason to take off a few days just now – there is nothing to celebrate when our world is faced with such death and destruction and such huge threats to our peaceful lives.
