Fixing Stuff

Last week I upgraded to fibre broadband. That gives me something like a 7 times improvement in speed and it costs me £1 a month less than my previous contract. However I have a repeater that allows wifi to be picked up anywhere in the flat and it was hooked to the previous router (have I lost you already?). The thing is I had no instructions on how to fix this and the manufacturer’s website offered no solution.

So off I went on a random search of the internet and found a short video. It turned out I had to push the reset with a pin and hold it for around 10 seconds. It worked and I eventually got a steady blue light indicating it was hooked up to my new router. Job done. Such a small thing gave a me a great deal of satisfaction. There was a time when I was working with software that didn’t have the bells and whistles that software does now, and I’d work out how to get it to do what I wanted. Some were what you might call dirty fixes.

Then life became complicated and my confidence in being able to fix stuff took several and considerable knocks and the wreckage is still around. I suppose this is the school of hard knocks they talk about. It’s not so much how we deal with success (although that in itself can be a challenge) but how we deal with failure that makes us what we are. When you get into politics (as I did around 4 years ago) you get to appreciate that the rights and privileges of ordinary people in this country were won on the back of decades and centuries of failure.

Martin Luther King spoke of the arc of justice. It doesn’t march in a straight line into the halls of power. It looks more like last week’s brawl in Washington’s Capitol building than the inauguration of the president. Predicting failures is easier than predicting successes and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The 2016 campaign of Bernie Sanders and the 2017 campaign of Jeremy Corbyn caught the guardians of the status quo off guard. While there wasn’t any real danger of Bernie winning the nomination, Jeremy wasn’t miles away from becoming Prime Minister.

I watched Keir Starmer’s interview on Andrew Marr yesterday. Marr is past his best but made the leader of the opposition look as appealing as a tripe sandwich (though, to be honest, it didn’t need Marr to do that). It wasn’t depressing because it only confirmed what we knew. When asked if the teacher’s union deserved an apology for not being listened to, Keir responded with “We all owe them an apology”. When asked if everyone should have free broadband he acknowledged that it was in the Labour manifesto but gave no commitment should Labour win a 2024 general election.

In a later interview of Richard Burgon by Aaron Bastani, Richard made clear that believing Labour could simply walk into power in 3 years time was misguided. Operating on the basis of not upsetting anyone is hopeless. Walking behind the government with a shovel, pointing out the mess left behind, is not real opposition. Taking the lead and pressing for actions that can mitigate the challenges before us, and supporting those who head off disaster by blocking dangerous policies, is risky. But it makes a difference.

Richard pointed out that failure in having the wrong policies or failure in carrying out your policies can be forgiven. What can’t be forgiven is a failure of standing by your principles.

Last weekend I engaged in two successful activities, one of which was decidedly unpleasant but both had to be done. I unblocked my sink and gave the toilet a thorough clean by unbolting the lid. I’m particularly lazy when it comes to household chores so these were considerable accomplishments. Every major victory involves blocked sinks and grimey toilets at some point. I doubt Boris Johnson would have a 13mm ring spanner handy for undoing the nuts and his hands have probably never seen the insides of a pair of rubber gloves.