… is not my King/Queen. The past few weeks I genuinely think this country has gone completely insane. We are in the middle of a cost of living crisis described as ‘now irrelevant’ by a BBC news presenter due to the death of the Monarch, we had the police shooting of the unarmed Chris Kaba, a #blacklivesmatter march for whom was mistaken by Sky News as being in fact for the Queen and the Climate Crisis coming to a head with the flooding, death and destruction in Pakistan, all while we have a Tory government that wants to cut tax and invest in Fracking & the continued production of fossil fuels. The Mainstream media for a solid two weeks was endlessly pumping out nauseating & sycophantic coverage of the Monarch’s death, down to radio stations playing sad music to force the nation to feel sad for someone they didn’t know and who certainly didn’t care about them. The British Royal Family is emblematic of everything that is currently wrong with this Country in terms of the un-equal distribution of wealth and a national, and possibly global, tendency to hold on to bad ideas from the past rather than forging new paths forward for better futures for all. To make the enforced national mourning worse, we have seen protesters in the ‘Free Country’ of the UK arrested for simply expressing Repulican opinions in public. This is supression of Freedom of Speech in a way that really shocked me, what is worse is the willingness for everyone Royalist or no to go along with this. So #notmyking- I stand in solidarity with those brave enough to be arrested for saying this in the streets in protest of an un-elected head of state. I hope that one day we will remove these very costly Living Waxworks from their palaces so that their wealth can be invested in this country, but with the crew we have at the controls this doesn’t seem very likely. The British Royal family represents our brutal and bloody history, state enforced religious belief and imperial reach, it is time to put this ghastly insitution behind us.

So…I lied, the wasps are still on a break. I was really struggling thinking of how to wrap up the wasp story, but I’ve figured it out now so I will finally finish the saga which has now swallowed about a year or so – it went completly off the rails haha. Anyway…they’re coming…

The wasps will be back next time (I can just feel the anticipation growing) it has been a busy month or so and the next wasp comic has been a difficult one to figure out, so instead I have for you my subtle reflections on the times in the UK.

The last few years have seen some pretty bad things happening, but the Overturning of Roe v Wade in the United States and the subsequent banning of and criminalisation of abortion in many states shows how quickly basic freedoms can be taken away. The right to bodily & reproductive autonomy for cis-women, gender non conforming people and trans-men is something that must not be taken for granted. This is especially damaging in the USA where delivering a baby in hospital itself is very costly so puts those in lower economic groups at risk, in turn also putting many ethnic minorities at risk. An abortion is safer than giving birth, and in many cases an abortion must be carried out to save the life of the parent. A pregnant person has the right to decide what they want to do with their body. There are many reasons as to why someone might seek an abortion, but please do not believe the lie that so many people just use abortion as a contraceptive, this is a very rare occurance and would be flagged by providers as a safeguarding concern. As to the words of my picture, banning abortion does not stop abortion, it just drives people to desperate and dangerous methods if they need one. It is not original to say at this point but do not believe the lie of ‘Pro-Life’, there is nothing pro-life about fanatic, derranged anti-abortion activists. I have used gender neutral language in my post, but of course it must not be overlooked that what underpins the decision to overturn ‘Roe V Wade’ is misogyny, pure and simple, whether it be backed by religious scripture or not. When a handful of people have the power to overturn something that affects millions, you have to question whether you are really living in a democratic or free society. When they come for one set of human rights do not think that they won’t come for all eventually. With a right-wing government in power in the UK I also worry about how this could have a ripple effect here, given the rise in anti-abortion rhetoric online. If you are in the UK there is a march on 9th July starting from Trafalgar Square at 4pm organised by https://linktr.ee/abortionrights.

A little collage of post-it note of little sketches I do when I am waiting on the phone at work!