Post-Brexit, are we still doomed?

Speaker's Corner columnists -  Peterborough Telegraph - peterboroughtoday.co.uk/opinion, @peterboroughtel on Twitter, Facebook.com/peterboroughtodaySpeaker's Corner columnists -  Peterborough Telegraph - peterboroughtoday.co.uk/opinion, @peterboroughtel on Twitter, Facebook.com/peterboroughtoday
Speaker's Corner columnists - Peterborough Telegraph - peterboroughtoday.co.uk/opinion, @peterboroughtel on Twitter, Facebook.com/peterboroughtoday
The fallout from the referendum continues to rain down on us and we have also had the Chilcot report to mull over, but Andrew Murray won the Wimbledon title and Lewis Hamilton the British Grand Prix, so things aren't all bad.

Theresa May tells us that there is no going back on Brexit . So perhaps it won’t be too long before we hear of Government plans to get the nation back on track and heal the divisions and cracks that have appeared.

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In my book, too much time is spent on wondering how we got where we are and still getting entrenched in bitter recriminations arguing whose fault it was in the first place. We need our Government to strike out and take us forward and guide us through uncharted waters.

This will be no easy task for any of us and our only hope is that Government will see us through – heaven help us.

Let’s hope the Government is no longer floundering, rudderless and for all our sakes sorts itself out and puts an end to its in-fighting. I wait with bated breath in the hope that Theresa May’s promise to “build a better Britain and to make the UK’s EU exit a success” turns out to be a reality

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So what of Chilcot - it 
was a long time coming, 
but at least it was no cover up.

But, we are told lessons will be learned – really?

Locally, we are not immune to proposals for what to me seems a mini EU-style of governance. We are to be consulted on joining up with Cambridgeshire in what is called ‘devolution’ – I think the Government has found a new meaning which is not in the dictionary. Some say there was no other way, but to me the wording of the consultation seems to be straight out of a Yes Minister script leading to only one answer. I wonder if the consultation will have real meaning.

Are we being offered a bag of sweets in return to be taken for a ride?

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It strikes me that if the Government wants to provide more money for local authorities, it could do so with out going to the expense of shackling us with a Mayor and another expensive tier of Government bureaucracy. Okay so we get lots of nice new projects as compensation, but I wonder if, like the PFI schemes, the local tax payer with be shackled with the cost in the years to come.

PFI (Private Finance Initiatives) took off under the Blair Government, encouraging Government institutions to have expensive deals with private companies - the result according to Sunday’s File on Four are good looking buildings that are in need of urgent remedial work costing the nation 100s of billions of pounds. The programme highlighted the build issues with City Hospital and who knows what other issues may be lurking for the unwary tax payer to fund.

Instead of finding newmoney to bait us with setting up a new expensive layer of officials, wouldn’t it be better to sort out the things that really matter to people and also get the burden of doomed PFI projects off our backs. We don’t need a new gravy train and no new Mayor, thanks.

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If there is one lesson our top politicians need to learn from the referendum is that people feel they have been forgotten. Chilcot has shown us what many knew already - Government has not been entirely honest with us nor acts in our collective interest. I hope common sense and democracy will win through.

Or, am I just being naive? and it will soon be business as usual?

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