Not Mid Morning Matters

Death is the last act of life. Well almost. If you make a will you have made your last wishes known in a legally binding form so it is clear to all what your intentions are about all you have gathered through life. It’s simple, if well written. There may be some who are left out, some who think there are entitled and some who are surprised by your wishes but it is your Will, your literal will about what should be done about the moss you have gathered as you roll through the decades.

The story of Joan Edwards from Fishponds in Bristol is a story that should have never been. Her will was clear in her Will as qualified with and by her solicitors. Her wishes were to leave £520,000 to the government of the day. Simple. Her executors followed her wishes and the government of the day did what they felt was right with the legacy they were given. But no it was not right because a newspaper with an agenda decided that Ms Edwards and her solicitors were wrong, so forcing the government, her elected beneficiaries, to hand the money over to the treasury. The implication was that the Conservative Party and Liberal Democrats had trousered the cash, with the comment from the Shadow Defence Secretary say they government taking the cash was ‘dodgy as hell’. You could almost smell the fear at party HQ.

Worse was to come against the will and the Will of Ms Edwards. The so called great and the good, some self-appointed to the ‘role’ such as the editor of The Post in Bristol, others democratically elected to the ‘role’ such as the Bristol Labour MP Kerry McCarthy decided what Ms Edwards actually meant and even suggested what the money, Ms Edwards money and her will actually was and what it should have gone towards. How utterly arrogant and disrespectful to conjecture on the will of Ms Edwards.

They did not know Ms Edwards, her will or had even read her Will. This was political agenda gone feral, making capital out of the mess of political funding in the UK, where ALL parties are trousering money from those with vested interests and agendas, be they Unions, businesses or those with political convictions or ideals. This is our system of party funding, and our political class and those who serve them have to deal with it, quickly, so they can serve us the voters and all our interests properly and fairly. They don’t at the moment because money talks, be it union or private cash, very loudly.

It is this that makes the story all the more unpalatable, because until the funding of politics is sorted nobody has the right, freedom or authority to challenge the will of anyone let alone a spinster from Fishponds who made her political will clear in her Will.