Whisper it, but politicians are good

Whisper it softly, it’s not a popular view, but politicians are good.
There is an air of cynicism in this UK election It’s not wholly new.  From ancient hilarity about Guy Fawkes being “The Only Man Ever to Enter Parliament with Honest Intentions” we move to this election, with Robert Blackstock’s rude little question. Then there’s a much shared cartoon of the wolf at a lectern promising an audience of sheep: “I will become a vegetarian.”[1]

The distrust runs deeper. Recently Prof. John Curtice’s National Centre for Social Research “Damaged Politics” reported that:
“Trust and confidence in government are as low as they have ever been.”
The percentage of the population who say they would ‘almost never’ trust politicians to place the needs of the nation above the interests of their own political party have risen from 11% in 1987 to 31% in 2003. Distrust did pop up to 40% in 2009, the wake of the MP’s expenses scandal before coming down again. The ‘distrust score’ was 27% in 2021.
It’s now at 45%.
Various suggestions can be made for such a dip. ‘Partygate,’ the Brexit bus (you could just summarise: “Johnson”).

But politicians are good. Not all of them. But more than our particular affiliations may admit at any one time.
That doesn’t mean they are right. I could list loads that are wrong and tell you why. Somebody else would write a different list.
And that is the beauty of politics. It’s the complicated means by which we constitute our differences.
Politics is a transmission mechanism between passionate people and the community we form. If I disagree with you about something we have to do, I have two choices: violence or politics.
That’s what these good people do on our behalf.

Political cynicism, on the other hand, is both easy and lazy. It may also be dangerous.
The mantras, “They’re all the same” and “Can’t trust any of them” play to those who want to cultivate that very sentiment and convince us our politicians are bad, and politics is too. Ironically this cultivation is often for political ends.

There is a risk involved in political disagreement becoming identified with moral opprobrium because politicians can be wrong or mistaken without being bad and evil, and that vital distinction is becoming increasingly eroded. We saw it a bit during the divisive fallout in the Labour Party in previous years. We also see it in the way certain politicians find their stance on Gaza are identified with genocide and having ‘blood on your hands.’ It might even play out in such playful spaces as a badge that proudly declares “Never Kissed a Tory.”[2]

We need that distinction between a persons values and morals and the political strategy and policy they build upon it. That distinction is essential. It’s the means by which a dyed in the wool Lefty like me can acknowledge the good intent of my Tory friends. Let’s pop it here and light a fire: however misguided they may be – Ian Duncan-Smith may be politically bonkers, but he has a compassionate moral compass and Michael Gove genuinely strove to make education better.
They were wrong, though.

There definitely is morality at play in our politics – but if we cheapen it, we lose the chance to draw on it.  When Farage stood in front of a misrepresentation of immigration and used it to garner votes, that was immoral. It could be that Sunak knows his £2000 tax claim is deliberately misleading. If so, using it is wrong. The debate about the morality of Blair hinges on whether he believed the claims made around Saddam Hussain and weapons of mass destruction.

The danger in failing to realize the good that goes on within politics is that those who do so either create, or are drawn into, a false redrawing of the political map. Populist anti-politicians want you and me to lump all politicians together into a lump that can be referred to in terms like “the political class” or “the Westminster Bubble.” In the wolf and sheep cartoon they are made out to be a whole other species (with the rest of us depicted as dumb sheep).
Such lumping is used by those who dismiss politics as failing to represent “the people”.
But watch them when they do this. Often in the next breath they are claiming that they do Farage, Anderson, alongside Orban, Grillo and Trump, have used this tactic; they claim to speak for the people while dismissing the politicians those very people elected. Reform’s recent take on a party election broadcast is an example of this – a blank  screen that simply read: “Britain is broken. Britain needs Reform.”
It was an example of the simplistic dismissal of the political process and if we fall for its cynical appeal we may regret who pops up in its wake.

Last Monday I hosted a hustings in Church for our constituency. We do this every election.  Though the former MP standing again for Labour declined to attend, we were blessed with a Tory, Lib Dem, Green and candidate from the Workers’ Party along with an independent standing on a pro-Palestine ticket.
I think these people are amazing. To sit there in a hot sweaty room fielding boos and heckles along, no idea what questions are coming while, lets face it, knowing you are possibly not going to overturn a 12,000 Labour majority. Pretty good.

Huw Thomas
Thanks for reading.

[1] The image is actually nicked from a sermon by William Ralph Inge (here) on the subject of patriotism

[2] 😉

Doing Hustings

Hustings – the opportunity for voters to meet candidates in an election – are not just an event a church could do. They’re a should.
The theologian Walter Brueggemann translates the commandment: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” as “You shall not answer with false testimony” and explains how  “It is a simple requirement that neighbours not distort shared social reality.”[1]
That responsibility for truth in the public square lends itself to a role for the parish church. It also makes for a fun night out!

So what to do?
First thing to do is check your constituency and then find out who is standing and contact details (here). You invite every candidate unless you have a good reason. If you are in a constituency where there are over 7 or 8 candidates you may have to make a clear rule. But it does need to be clear and fair, such as one to sadly only be able to accommodate main parties, or parliamentary parties. If you are a church then as trustees you may decide engagement with a far-right Fascist crowd is at odds with the interests of the charity.  You do not have to accommodate parties that advocate policies which are in contravention of the church’s  objects. Use this sparingly. I’d be the first to question the antics of Reform, but you’d be hard pushed to exclude them using this rule. It’s there to use if faced with the modern equivalent of the awful BNP.

Then set a date. It is possible to send candidates an email saying “This is the date we are looking at…” but any such interactions need to be guided by the transparency and impartiality note below. Aim for a date as soon as possible – the postal votes are landing next weekend and local folks may want to know they will have the option of hustings before they cast their vote.

You need a chair and a few folks to help out with microphones, question gathering, welcoming and other aspects of the event.
Chair-wise it helps to have someone with a bit of a grasp of the different parties, issues – and they will need to familiarise themselves with the main promises in the manifesto. They also need to be clear that, whatever their political views, in that setting they must remain positively neutral.
By positive neutrality we mean that their goal, and that of the hustings, is simple: let the candidates emerge as the best version of themselves and their policies that can be on display.

You set the format but if you want a suggestion – a two hour event  keeping the main Q&A to an hour. So start with 15 to 20 minutes for arrival and question gathering then launch into the hour where it all kicks off. It’s important to leave time at the end for the candidates to mingle and meet voters. Some years back in my area, which is a Labour safe seat, and very safe, the Conservative candidate did OK in the Q&A but then also did a fantastic job of picking up arguments in the room as she mingled afterwards, including gathering a group of young people who were not yet turned 18 and having a lively debate about the lowering of the voting age.

How does the Q&A work?
You need microphones. (What is it with Churches and microphones???)
You need a few for the candidates to pass between them and one for the chair, ideally a roving one so they can take it round the folks gathered to hear the panel.
At ours we gather questions at the start by giving people a paper as they arrive, giving two identical spaces to write their question, twice.

Having written it twice they keep one half and hand the other in. Those gathering need to group the questions into piles that bring together issues. We usually all know beforehand what will come up. In my community I’ll bet the house on Palestine and Gaza, but also am confident we’ll get asylum and immigration. Talking to folks in another part of my region I have had immigration and the cost of living raised as two of the issues on people’s minds.
The question gatherers need to find a good one for about five or six issues, bearing in mind you want a diverse spread of voices.
This process goes on for twenty minutes or so and then its time to begin.

The Q&A
The candidates take to the platform.
At the start it helps to give each candidate one minute to introduce themselves. One minute. One. Not two. Let’s face it, we want their name and a quick thing about them – any policy stuff should be led by the questions from their votes. So one minute.
The chair can be clear when a minute has gone.

Once that round is over we can start on the actual questions. You’re looking at about five questions – which isn’t much. Each candidate can be asked for a response and the Chair will need to have a varied list of the order they call on candidates so that the same one doesn’t always go first or last.
If they talk across each other you can allow a minute or so for interaction – but we’re not in the business of rewarding loudmouthed rudeness.
Shutting them up is a problem but, in my experience, a polite “Thank you” repeated while they are talking can indicate it is time to move on. Another option is to wave or do thumbs up but it helps if the chair is standing and roving and facing the candidates with a good microphone to thank them into silence.
As long as the chair is watching the clock fairly they have good grounds to remind the candidates: “We want to get people’s questions in.”

A Quick few tips.
If you have a roving microphone, use it for questions, angling it to the questioner but not handing it over. Anyone who wants that microphone wants to make a speech as part of their question – and we’re not here to hear them.
Remember you have the humour of impartial boredom at your service. If a candidate is going on a bit you can ask them to wind up, but if they are still persisting, you can also sing the ‘Countdown theme’ or pray  ‘Please God let this answer end’…if you dare.
There will be some heckling. There usually is. Don’t join it or encourage it but usefully reflect it. If everyone groans at a phrase like “I want my country back” or shouts terms that they believe go hand in hand with such sentiment, your job as chair is to channel that into a comment or question that gets the panel back in: “You’ve heard that, what have you got to say?”
If you are a church, watch out for religious questions. There is a strata of Christianity more obsessed with gender than the NHS. It may be this is the issue for your community, but handle with care. A church hustings should be for the parish, not for the oddball fringe of Christianity.

Finally, a note having done a fair few of these with candidates from the party of which I am a member as well as those representing the opposite. I have had those I know well and those I wouldn’t have chosen to know had I not encountered them in this context.
A good hustings can and should be the antidote to cynicism. There is something in the way they narrow distance between politician and people that brings out something important in candidates. You get to see these people who are stepping up, placing themselves on the ballot and before the voters. They can be times of real community connection.
A should.

Huw Thomas

Hope it’s useful.
Christ Church Pitsmoor Hustings for Sheffield Hillsborough and Brightside will take place on 24th June, 7.00pm

[1] Brueggemann, Walter “Truth Telling as Subversive Obedience” p. 71.

Bring Back National Service

I agree – bring back National Service.

Todays proposed silly version is clearly devised to exploit generational factionalism.
Sunak plays to all the nonsense about the younger generation being lesser than my lot.
That’s nonsense.


Ask anyone who spends time with younger folks, they’ll tell you of a generation that is ethical and compassionate and inclusive. One that carries all the values you’d want for a good society.


So, here’s an alternative suggestion.
Why don’t we make a year of national service compulsory in your 50s.
And why don’t we get the 18-year-olds to decide how the fiftysomethings will spend that year.


They possibly create mandatory education programs for us in things like the benefits of immigration, diversity and acceptance.
They could ask us all to save up for the deposit they all need for the houses, inflated out of our control by the greed of the older generation.
Or they could ask us to go and solve the climate crisis that we are passing on to them.
They might even ask our sorry inward looking selves to organise another Brexit referendum, and find ways of excluding us from making such a monumentally stupid decision. Something they didn’t vote for.
They might just want to choose the real meaning of the word ‘service.’

Dividing old from young is all about antagonising a nation. Nobody is served by such populist rhetoric.
Bring back a genuine spirit of National Service.
We could start by finding a prime minister who can actually serve a nation.

Huw Thomas

The Trinity and the Gravelly

There’s a well known the story of the little girl who is crayoning a picture with avid concentration and her father says:
“What are you drawing”?
She replies “I’m drawing God”
So he says “But nobody knows what God looks like”
and she pauses, takes that in for a moment then continues her crayoning as she comes back at him:
“They will once I’ve finished”.

Trinity Sunday approaches – the day in the Church calendar when, aptly, we do one of  three things.
We can studiously ignore the fact it bears that name “Trinity.”
Or we can come up with an inadequate way of creating an image of how this doctrine works – ice and steam and water, the fact I am a dad, husband and teacher, a leaf with three prongs.
Another favourite pursuit is for geeky types among us to spend the day pulling apart the images anyone comes up with by accusing Sunday School teachers to put their three pronged leaf away and accusing them of Modalist heresies like patripassianism or Sabellianism.

(This video is actually cracking on that very point…)

Yet our struggle with this concept is not some weakness in theology. Quite the opposite. It springs form one of the strengths of Christian faith. With our image of God, just like our ideas about how the cross somehow changes things, the Christian faith springs, not from some theological codification but rather from the experience of followers of Jesus over the centuries.

Christianity sprang from the experience of forgiveness and being put right with God through something God did at the cross. That was the experience communicated to and by those first Christians. We then spent centuries trying to explain how that idea works.
Likewise, here’s a faith that starts with a bunch of people finding a renewed way to God through a person called Jesus. Whatever happened when he departed from them, its clear they continued to find in Christ “all the values of God.”[1]

Ours is a narrative faith, in which experience became doctrine, or theology – not the other way round and there are a couple of things that follow from this.
The first is, we carry with us some dazzling and paradoxical concepts that are messy. Sometimes the best we can end up saying about these ideas is the phrase  “It’s a bit like…”[2] That’s why we end up with all those inadequate images of the Trinity. It’s not like a leaf or an ice cube but we turn to images to communicate something of an idea. The best we are doing is “A bit like” – but in our business, ‘a bit’ is pretty big thing.
The second implication involves us. Christian faith may involve experience turned into words and concepts but the blessing of this is the way it works in the other direction. Things that are complex to explain can still be experienced. The idea isn’t a new one – look at how intelligently we try to understand and analyse things as experiential as love and anxiety (I don’t know why I chose those two examples…maybe I need to ask an analyst).

This Sunday the Trinity may prove hard to explain or understand, but the idea of God as Trinity is fairly easy to worship. Indeed it provides a way, or ways, to worship.

That’s why today – 24th May, two days before Trinity Sunday 2024, is so important for me when it comes to this talk of Trinity. Today is the anniversary of the opening of the Gravelly Hill interchange, on 24th May 1972. This was the image of the Trinity passed down to me by Ted Slade, the pastor who guided my first steps as a teen from no faith into Christianity: it’s a bit like the Gravelly Hill, otherwise known as…spaghetti junction.  This is the meeting point of section the M6 motorway, the A38 and the A5127, and it looks like a mess. And yet, it works.

If you drive it, follow the signs, keep on your road or change, following the signs, it’s fine – you can exit the M6 and take the 5127 into Birmingham or by-pass Erdington on the A38 (this resonated with me as a kid with a love of  Erdington).

So here is a faith that started in Galilee amongst a group of fishermen following someone called Jesus. They met Jesus, and over time he talked about God, he did God like things, he brought them so close to God, and, eventually his followers saw God in Christ Jesus. Whether or not he did – and that’s debatable – they did. In the same way the faith many of us stepped into was one where the words and way of Christ created a way to God, such that, to variable degrees, Christ becomes God for us.

When Jesus went away from that first bunch, they didn’t disband, or hide: they started this church – with a sense of God amongst them, so strong and so renewed they started to sense a third person, that of God among us by the presence of the Holy Spirit. And she’s still experienced by us all these centuries later.

There’s a beautiful distinction that springs from the Orthodox tradition, between the essence of God and the energies. The essence of God will always involve the mysterious and unknowable.
It’s through the energies of God, that act in relation to us, that God becomes those things about God that we can enter upon and experience. Christian theology tends towards seeing these along three distinct roads based on the journeys the faithful have taken in their experience.


Huw Thomas
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[1] The phrase is from Bishop Charles Gore
[2] the usefulness of this phrase was really brought home to me by a brilliant teacher and theologian, Helen Matter

The Rwanda Plan….and the Ninth Commandment.

The Government’s Rwanda plan is mean spirited and wasteful – but there is another strand to this policy that is particularly alarming.
It breaks the ninth commandment.

There are many things to despise about this plan. Not only is it a gimmick attempting to appeal to the right wing of politics, but it is an unworkable and expensive one, costing somewhere in the region of £370million over 5 years.[1] The cost of this scheme, per person, is £63,000 more than keeping asylum seekers in the UK. Add to this the Government allowing a backlog in the asylum system and the fact that we restrict those seeking asylum from working and contributing to the economy and you start to realise the one benefit of this daft idea is the contribution it makes to the Right’s use of immigration as a favourite dog whistle.
The Rwanda gimmick is a piece of populism from a government flailing around for credibility. It may also be the case that this policy satisfies something within a small section of the electorate (what a horrible thought). Maybe this is why the first home office raids were captured on camera: the government has invented deportation-porn.

The gimmick makes for bad policy pandering to base instincts and that’s bad, but there is another, parallel reason for finding fault with this evil – it breaks the ninth commandment.


The commandment: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour” has special significance in the context of the extremes to which they have gone to get this law on the books, and that’s partially because this isn’t just a little rule about not fibbing (if it was, we’d all be toast!). The ninth commandment is an example of law as a means of creating a community of trust. Writing about the ninth, Walter Brueggemann notes the judicial context and translates it:
“You shall not answer with false testimony.”

It echoes the words of  Deuteronomy 16:19-20:
“You must not distort justice; you must not show partiality….Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue”

To maintain community it is essential that justice and those who administer it can give a clear sight on reality: that’s what the courtroom is all about – ascertaining the truth.
Brueggemann adds:
“The commandment is likely articulated in a simple, face-to-face agrarian society. It is a simple requirement that neighbours not distort shared social reality.”[2]
It may have its roots in that simple agrarian face-to-face setting, but it reaches into the sinister nature of current policy.

Last November the Government’s precious Rwanda Bill fell foul of the Supreme Court when that body unanimously found that Rwanda was not a safe third country for asylum seekers. For example, there was a risk Rwanda would send asylum seekers back to the country they had fled.  Admittedly the Government addressed that matter by changing the deal with Rwanda, but they then went a massive step further.
To avoid further judicial challenges to this policy they created the ‘Safety of Rwanda’ Bill which, effectively, creates facts, even if they are not true. The Bill legislates that:
“Every decision-maker must conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country”[3]

The Government is effectively legislating for the truth to be what the Supreme Court found it not to be, and also shackling future social reality not to the shared understanding we formulate as a society but instead to that one rule. Unless there is a significant change, all decision makers must see Rwanda as safe.

While prime concern should be for those poor souls being rounded up by this sorry Government, this change should also alarm. A Government is telling the courts how to interpret the law. Clearly this is miles away from the sorts of extremes some regimes enact – but the principle of a Government defining reality is at odds with the ninth commandment.
If they can do it for the term “Safety of Rwanda” what else could they come for? “Protest”? “Opposition?” “Democracy?”

___________

[Addendum: I wrote some of this in ‘Bar Bruno’ – the finest cafe in Soho. This is a shout out not just for the cafe but the staff there, one of whom quizzed me on what I was writing and reminded me or the benefits of immigration. In turn I pointed out that we were sat in Soho: centuries of immigration have made that district the culinary and cultural treat that it is. And that also goes for the wonderful ‘Bruno’]

Huw Thomas
Thank you for reading. You can subscribe here:

Other posts may be of interest: this about the language surrounding immigration
or this one about migration and problems with it.
This one is about the Right and Christianity.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-61782866
[2] Brueggemann, Walter “Truth Telling as Subversive Obedience” p. 71.
[3] Safety of Rwanda Bill 2(1)

God’s Behaving Badly

Recently, God has been behaving very badly. Lectionary readings for Morning Prayer are taking us through Numbers. Just this morning Korah’s entire family got swallowed up, alive, by a big hole opening up in the earth and then closing over them (Numbers 16:31-35). It’s not an uncommon experience for any reader of the scriptures: a flood in which God commits genocide, the slaughter of all first-born innocent Egyptians the punishing children for the iniquity of parents, “to the third and the fourth generation.”

Next week’s Morning Prayer will involve God sending poisonous snakes to kill people (Num 21:6). The other week God gave them quails because they were grumbling – but then threw in a plague (Num 11:31-34).
It’s not uncommon for me to meet the acclamation “This is the word of the Lord” with the not-very-liturgical response: “Ew!”

There are various ways of approaching this sort of thing.
A common one is the “Mysterious and Holy God” response, where readers say things like  “Ah, but we can’t understand God”. This is usually couched in talk of God’s holiness, abhorrence of sin, being beyond our understanding etc.
While this approach may work as a way of not acknowledging the dilemma of such readings, it is a bit naff. Firstly, it leaves us floundering with a God who does crop up in the readings of people who wonder how it is we can worship such a monster. I am sure I am not the only teacher who has encountered children who see round the ark full of animals and a smiling Mr. and Mrs. Noah and ask: “But what about the other people?”
I hope I’m not the only teacher who is relieved when children do this – after all, we really do want to raise generations who are attuned to the naughtiness of massed slaughter.
Secondly, we are supposed to enter stories. Indeed it’s in the nature of narrative that we instinctively do, often ending up on the side of those who get dumped on: I may not totally understand the Almighty but snakes biting people who complain cos they are thirsty – that I understand. To make God inscrutable feels like we’re blaming humanity for lacking knowledge.
There is another version of the “Mysterious and Holy God” line of thinking that finds ancient justification in suggestions that people were subject to collective guilt or that there was a greater good at stake. But even so, a flooded earth is not a good look.

A possibly healthier approach involves the recognition that , within the Bible, God develops as a character. Some may believe God is eternal and unchanging and omni-this and omni-that, but in ancient narrative this same God is depicted as a character with whom you can play hide-and-seek (Gen 3:9). You can’t do that with an omniscient God because, by very nature, they’d be cheating. This is a narrative God. A God who can change their mind – God did so only the other week in the story (Numbers 14:11-23).

In these ancient narratives, God matures while also disappearing.
Here is a God who can need a rest (Gen 2:2), regret a flood (Gen 8:21 & 9:11) and have a fight (Gen 32). This God can change God’s mind (Ex 32:14; Jonah 3:10).
Alongside this, the God of the Old Testament disappears a bit. Over the course of the Old Testament story God slowly becomes less apparent. God appears in Eden and makes lots of other appearances – but over time this changes. In these early books there is a move from this unmediated God popping around the place, to a God who is mediated and present in a tabernacle. A dangerous God needs to be encountered in ways with which we can cope. Writing about Moses descent from Mount Sinai to the creation of the Tabernacle, McEntire observes:
“The volcano has come to live in the tent because the tent was built by the volcano’s friend”.[1]

By the time we get to the exile and book of Nehemiah, the story tells of Ezra reading the story of God – and the people stand when it is read. It’s as if the reading of God has replaced God’s presence. (It resembles those times when we stand for the reading of the gospel). Here the presence of God (Neh 2:8) is being discerned, not in bright lights and big voices, but in the success of a venture.

Surveying Biblical narrative, Mark McEntire’s ‘Portraits of a Mature God’ looks across the sweep of character described above and sums it up with:
“The God at the end of the story is clearly more mature, but the God at the beginning of the story is easily more interesting”[2]

Underlying our approach to all such stories will be the extent to which we feel bound to affirm them as historical and accurate depictions of our God actually having historically said and done what the story claims. Given that most Christians read Eden as myth, we all have a cut-off point somewhere.

Lightening up on this is healthy for a couple of reasons. Firstly it places the stories. If we understand these stories as collected and edited together around the 6th – 4th Century BC, it is understandable that the exile-battered shaped stories about the way God batters enemies, however “Ew!” the results may be.
Secondly, it frees up our readings to enjoy the stories for the rollercoasters of mad earthquakes and angry God-types they become and, in doing so, to be inspired by liberation from Egypt, challenged by ideas of radical holiness or to join Moses in changing a vengeful mind. Historical scepticism isn’t dismissal of the story: it still comes in our faith tradition and speaks to us. As the Native American Storyteller says of a tale: “Now I don’t know if it happened this way or not, but I know this story is true”.[3]

Huw Thomas

Thanks for reading.
The apostrophe in the title is not a mistake.
Feel free to subscribe here

Other posts include this post on Hell, which may relate to the above. And this is on Biblical narrative, as is this book what I wrote.
It just so happens the new “Faith for Normal People” with Charles Halton is about this Biblical personal image of God. I also highly recommend two books that informed me hugely in this area: McEntire ‘Portraits of a Mature God’ and Seibert ‘Disturbing Divine Behaviour’

[1] McEntire ‘Portraits of a Mature God’
[2] McEntire ‘Portraits of a Mature God’ p.14
[3] Seibert ‘Disturbing Divine Behaviour’ 115

OfSTED: the Problem Page

Dear Marje

It’s not just the one word judgements that hurt me. It’s that he’s inconsistent when he makes them. We’ve been together supposedly since 1992 – but it still feels like a very one sided relationship.
His modus operandi is to leave me for long times, then when he comes back it’s just for a couple of days. He never says when he’s come. At best he gives me a ‘window’ when he might phone and say “Tomorrow. Get everything ready for me.”
And when he calls I am expected to drop everything and be at his beck and call.

When he visits I try to talk things through – but he’s always the one in control. He’s the one who will sometimes just tell me to stop talking to him, even when I’m trying to explain my feelings to him.
He calls this a “partnership” – always saying how he wants to do this with me and
“Partnership”..i.t doesn’t feel like one

There is no consistency to how he behaves.. When he calls I have no ida what he’ll be like when he turns up. Sometimes he’s frosty and cold and at other times he’s charming and smiley. How he appears has no bearing on what he’ll say when he leaves.

He always judges me. Whatever he says about caring and supporting me, the judgement is always the loudest word. Sometimes it may be that he thinks I’m ‘good.’ I dread the days he calls me ‘inadequate.’

I would love to break it off, but he has all the power. It’s been very clear since ’92 that if I don’t play along he would destroy me – financially, reputationally. I’d be ostracized or even institutionalized.

Dear Marj, does this sound healthy?

————————-

Huw Thomas
Thanks for reading. You can subscribe here: