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Love is its own reward

Poem - Love is its own reward

A poem for NHS workers and everyone in caring professions who go on caring for others, even though they don’t receive the recognition or respect or pay that they deserve. In spite of the main idea of the poem, love alone is not a sufficient reward.

 

Love is its own reward

Some people stand apart,

have no need of status,

recognition,

or the world’s approval.

They have risen

above the need for love or lovers

because they have it all

within themselves and love to spare

and give it all to others.

5 December 2022

David Roberts

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Arms spending 4 – Public service workers Nil

Arms spend 4, public services pay Nil

Arms spending 4 - Public service workers Nil

Arms spend 4, public services pay Nil

Ambulance drivers’, nurses, and other public service workers pay demands are described as “unaffordable”. Yet spending on arms has consistently gone above inflation and even this has been added to. Biggest increase in defence spending for 30 years, way above commitments in the rest of Europe.

● 2019 Conservative Manifesto commitment to increase defence spending every year by ½ percent ABOVE INFLATION.
● 19 November 2020: Government announced £16.5 billion increase in defence spending ABOVE MANIFESTO COMMITMENT.
● Total increase in arms spending £24.1 billion over four years compared to 2019
● Further huge increase in defence spending promised in next 7 years.

Liz Truss planned to spend 3% of GDP on defence by 2030. To do this the government would need to increase defence spending by about 60% in real terms. This is equivalent to about £157 billion in additional spending. 

This spending target for arms spending by 2030 remains the government’s aim.

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My new book of poems about love

My new book

How could you know? –  Poems about love

Love experienced, love observed, love examined from different angles, love in the context of human life in all its variety. – This is an exceptional book of love poetry. It goes beyond expressions of adoration, wonder, longing, and loss  –  the rhetoric of love poetry. It is a wide ranging exploration of “love”.

My approach is often thoughtful – even philosophical, at other times it may be surreal, bizarre, suggestive or facetious. This is “poetry of ideas”.

Poems include, Fifty kinds of love, Love is its own reward, Does love exist? How could you know? Don’t vanish with the dawn, A heart in winter.

Available now for download on Kindle  –  Amazon website  –  £3.

Now also available as a 100 page paperback  –  £6-95.  Amazon link.

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Military boom time

Tanks

Boom in Military Spending

Tanks

BRITISH PUBLIC might question vast increase in arms spending

Today, 20 October 2022, Liz Truss, UK Prime Minister, has resigned and the British Government is in a feverish condition following a couple of weeks of disastrous policy decisions and U-turns. The newly appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, has said that there will have to be painful cuts in the spending of government departments.

SO THERE WILL BE CUTS to public services – AND THE BRITISH PUBLIC WILL surely question why arms spending is continuing to increase rapidly.  Surely the public will not accept that arms manufacture would take precedence of over key departments such as the health service,  and education
The UK now has the biggest defence/arms spending budget in Europe. On 19th of November 2020 the government announced the largest military spending budget for 30 years.
This amounted to a £16.5 billion increase above the manifesto commitment over four years.
On existing forecasts, this is an overall cash increase of £24.1 billion over four years compared to the previous year’s budget.
The Royal United Services Institute said that the “additional cash represents a real-term increase of between 10 percent and 15 percent in the defence budget.”

HUGE FURTHER INCREASES IN SPENDING PLANNED
But now the government is planning astronomic further increases.

Professor Malcolm Chalmers of the Royal United Services Institute web 2 Sep 2022 commented on the latest UK arms spending target:
“To deliver on its commitment to spend 3% of GDP on defence by 2030, Liz Truss’s government will need to increase defence spending by about 60% in real terms. This is equivalent to about £157 billion in additional spending over the next eight years, compared with current planning assumptions. By comparison, the 2020 Spending Review, and the associated Integrated Review, allocated an extra £16.5 billion over four years. This would be the biggest increase since the early 1950s.”

Professor Malcolm Chalmers, Royal United Services Institute website, 2 Sep 2022. TO PUBLIC SERVICES

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Climate change? – Poem – What little I know

This is me in the Mojave Desert, California, in 2009

Climate change is not new

Ever since there have been climates on earth there has been climate change. Today we know that large areas of the earth are threatened by rising sea levels and other areas are threatened by droughts. Such problems have been common throughout human history. Mankind has always been at the mercy of forces beyond his control, and sometimes forces that he could and should control.

I, for one, feel powerless to do anything about the current climate crises. At the same time, in spite of everything, I think that mankind will survive and enjoy the benefits of modern science.

I wasn’t thinking of the climate issue when I wrote the following poem which my notes tell me I wrote over several years, returning to it from time to time when I happened to come across it in a folder, but I think the poem may be relevant.

Poem – What little I know?

What does anyone know?

What do I know?

The origin
of the universe
its scale
its destiny
are beyond my understanding.

This earth
so rich
so poor
so vulnerable
so uncontrollable
is all we have.

I accept
that I am less than a speck
in the sandstorm
of stars.
I only know
I am a citizen of earth
and this,
my brief home.

David Roberts
2000, 2015, 2020