Ashamed

I have been avoiding the Internet a bit. I've also been avoiding debates around the referendum. I shouldn't do really. I have been a classic undecided and wanted as much information as possible. Immigration is an issue obviously as is the economy. The democratic process or otherwise in the EU is a concern for anyone. Yet I have been unable to engage as I should. Who was it do you think? Who was it that sat around a table and decided that it was going to be all bets off. That debate was going to be a nasty, untruthful thing that only the strong would survive? Who thought that we could then call this the cut and thrust of politics? I just haven't been able to bear it. People with expertise on economics or democracy have simply been shouted down by the other side. People have said whatever they wanted and no-one has been able to call them out on it. A lady in the hospital where HOH works said she was going to vote out because all the Syrian refugees are flooding the Health Service and making the queues long. She had seen it on the telly. Normal political thinking has been killed stone dead in this campaign. Partly because we really have no idea what will happen if we leave. This gap in our knowledge has been filled with nasty words and threats on both sides. It is, however, my personal belief, that any team with Nigel Farage on it must deal with the thing they let loose. I wonder how the people on the Exit Team - many of whom are thoughtful people with challenging things to say have made their personal peace with this poster?

I don't know why but whenever I look into these poor people's faces, I keep seeing Jesus there, because that is assuredly where he would be with the terrorised and the dispossessed. It was his natural home.

It has been horrible and there are people I will never, ever want to see on TV again. My personal belief is that, for some politicians, it has nothing to do with Europe but it is opportunism of the worst sort. A chance to clear out people standing in their way in their party, with no actual thought for the country and how things will affect it. 
And now an MP is dead. One of the brightest and the best. Killed at the hands of someone with longstanding mental illness who maybe, just maybe, picked up some of the underlying tone of what was going on. I don't know of course. I saw the BBC Political Head Person,  Laura Kuenssberg saying that this was the most vicious campaign that she had ever covered and that this death may well give people pause and make them think before they speak. I admire her optimism. I don't share it.