A year to forget since General Election shock

Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of the East Kilbride News.

This Friday marks a year since the General Election which produced a hung parliament after the Conservatives lost their wafer-thin majority.

What a year it has been – although not, it must be said, in a good way.

The Tories, propped up by Northern Ireland’s DUP, have seldom been out of cr isis mode since Prime Minister Theresa May returned to 10 Downing Street. There has been bitter in-fighting and resignations. It’s almost as if every day produces a fresh fire to be put out.

Throughout the past 12 months, Brexit has sat on the horizon; its presence becoming more prominent as the United Kingdom prepares to leave the European Union.

Shamefully, huge swathes of the population will be none the wiser as to what Brexit actually means in reality for it is the definition of a moving picture.

And incredibly, there is still no solution to the issue of the Irish border question – something that it might have been good to discuss before, you know, people turned up at the ballot box.

Time is, of course, running out for those in charge of ensuring the UK’s orderly withdrawal from the EU and it would seem clear to those watching from the outside that some major compromises will be required if progress, of any sort, is to be made.

As this goes on, so does the business of running the country and the recent Windrush fiasco shows the government stumbles from one problem to the next.

However, polls show the Tories and Labour would be the biggest two parties if another General Election was held today, in line with last year’s result.

Brexit Britain? Deadlock Britain more like. Colin Paterson