IT’S getting quite exciting here in Bream. After my disastrous lunch I decided to record a letter to the paper advancing an historical dimension on a government which collectively has gone insane. I became aware of a strange animal with its nose pressed to the glass of the door of my conservatory.

It looked hungry – it is the time of year when the vixens drive out their cubs.

I had just put up a burnt sausage on the bird table. The fox tried but unfortunately it could not get up to the sausage.

What am I doing here? What am I supposed to be writing about?

I’m worried about Mark Harper, our MP, for it is not that long since he was given the important and influential job of being Chief Whip to the government.

His task is to persuade Conservative MPs to support and vote for the government’s policies.

But who is the government? David Cameron has resigned from the Premiership but still seems to be trying to do the job while waiting for his successor.

He has been obliged to reduce his appearances on TV from twice a day to once a week.

I went to see Shakespeare’s King Lear at the Old Vic in Bristol. The vicious power struggle to destroy the authority of the old king who had divided his kingdom between his daughters in 16th century Britain seemed highly relevant to today’s plots and counter plots in Westminster.

I rejoined the Labour Party a year ago when I heard Jeremy Corbyn proclaiming his socialist solutions.

I regard myself as a Christian Socialist and in the 114 statements and actions of the carpenter of Nazareth recorded in the Bible I can only see a compatibility with Old Labour.

The trouble is that there are serious flaws revealed with our political system.

The head of state is Her Majesty the Queen, there is enormous power and authority in her status.

But the tradition has established itself for her never to intervene either by word or deed in any political situation no matter how grave.

All is delegated to a Prime Minister who as a result has far more power constitutionally than the American President.

At present we do need a referee with a whistle and a democratically elected President with real executive power with which to face the future competently.

I have my own problem too. Should I go and buy a roast chicken to help the fox run faster?

No doubt my fox’s mother told him there is no work or prospects around the den and only slim benefits in Bream.

This leaves me with a great moral problem. Should I provide a welfare maintenance chicken to this immigrant? Or should I send it back to wherever it came from?

How many foxes can we tolerate? Or how many politicians can we support who cannot put the needs of their country first?

If the fence borders are weak, a few chickens may fail to make it to the supermarket shelves but life will go on.

The trouble is that if humankind continues in the same way all life on the planet will eventually perish.

– Roger Horsfield, Bream.