'on the confines of a dying year'

'ten minutes before 12 o'clock again on the confines of a dying year, and thought runs backward over the 12 months past..'  

the reverend william poole of hentland and hoarwithy sits alone and contemplates his works on 31st december 1858.  this is from a diary horsemouth bought at the local abbey, another diary rescued from oblivion, the manuscript of it having been found in the amnesty international bookshop in york. 

'we are close to the tipping point at which elections begin to lose legitimacy because the majority do not take part...

only one in two adults living in the UK voted in the july 2024 general election... the lowest share of the population to vote since universal suffrage. among registered voters, only three in every five cast a ballot.'

so blithers the grauniad. 

now when horsemouth was an anarchist this would have delighted him. it would have been proof that the people were too smart for the system of government. now he tends to see it as a problem, a symptom of the wider crisis of representation. 

horsemouth would welcome automatic voter registration (it seems ridiculous to him that it is not in place now), similarly with scrapping the requirement to have ID in order to vote in an election (this recently introduced requirement he just regards as voter supression). extending the franchise to 16 he regards as  politically dangerous as would be delaying it. 

'the turnout gap between 18- to 24-year-olds and over-60s was 21 percentage points...' 

that the old vote but the young do not. but the old need the young to show up to work to pay taxes to pay for their pensions.  

and the youth are leaving (allegedly). the rewards for having accumulated student debt are just not here (in the uk). low salaries, high student debt repayments, high housing costs - it's all pretty hellish  and horsemouth doubts the government's actual ability and willingness to deal with it. 

oh dear. horsemouth's friend who is his regular lift to the bell-ringing has taken a tumble coming down off the common over christmas and fractured her leg. so that's the end of horsemouth's lift over for the next while. there's a chance her husband will come from work to pick him up for tonight and then horsemouth will ask around to try and sort out some lifts for future weeks.