Winds of change

The cold winds of change are tugging at political skirts around Cumbria at the moment. 

The Parliamentary Commission on Boundary Changes, Gerrymandering and Fiddling Round the Edges has recommended that Cumbria’s political boundaries be randomly hacked about in order to generate correspondence and boost sales of local newspapers.

And I think it may work. Residents of Hawkshead and Windermere, for instance, who have hitherto been content to share their MP with the fine folk of Kendal will be more than a little dischuffed to discover they’ve got to share one with the lower class oiks from St Bees and the west coast. They’ll be reaching for the headed notepaper in droves. But they’ll be out of luck. Droves is now lumped in with Carlisle and Penrith.

As it is a cartoonist’s task to get outraged before the readers, the target for this week’s newspaper cartoon was clear.

But lo, there was a second story worthy of attention. Kendal is suffering declining air quality. For once, this was not caused by the thick fumes which belch forth from the dozens of mint cake factories on the outskirts of town. It is caused by traffic. And probably traffic at a standstill; in addition to high concentrations of nitrogen and carbon monoxide particles, tears of frustration were found in the dense smog.

Here are the four ideas I submitted to my editor this week. As usual, you can find out which was the lucky winner of the Caribean cruise by shimmying over to my website.