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Showing posts from 2014

Eureka! - I've seen the light...

This week I experienced a pivotal moment. The final realisation that none of the leading political parties fit the bill - including my hitherto preferred option, the Labour Party. I faced a decision - do I withdraw my vote or find an alternative party to back? Certainly, withdrawal of my vote is anathema to me. People fought long and hard for the right to vote and in my book we are doing wrong if we don't exercise that right. UKIP has always been a no-no for me, and the realisation that the majority of UKIP supporters favour very explicitly socialist ideas (in a major survey, 78% of UKIP supporters responded that they supported outright renationalisation of the UK energy market, and 73% of them supported renationalisation of the rail network) only underlines the futility of following that line! UKIP is essentially a right-wing Tory group - would they implement Socialist ideas? I think not. So, what was the solution to my dilemma? As a 70-year-old pensioner who loo

It's All Coming Together...

It is three months since my last post, but now we've had a resolution to the 'Scottish question' (thank goodness for that!) it's time to switch to the forthcoming General Election that is only 8 months away. The leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, has surprised me in this week's party conference. I was not taken with his election as leader and thought (when he was appointed) that he lacked the force and conviction that I would hope in a leader. But his longer-then-expected speech yesterday seemed to confirm that he has qualities that are different to the norm. I gauge him now as a person who is intellectually very capable and one who has a reasonable view of the bigger picture. I also see him as being a team-man - one who is letting others get on with their share of the work while he confers with them and prompts them down discrete channels. The key word that he espoused yesterday - togetherness - sums him up: he does what he says. The label on the tin match

What are we here for? It's time we thought about that question.

In the UK, I fear that we are sinking further into deep hypocrisy. We like to give the image that all is fluffy and bright, but much - a lot - of that is only on the surface. At least, that's my view. And two things occurred yesterday that cause me to revert to this blog. I will come back to them. Why do I sound like a dischuffed  septuagenarian ? Probably because I am! I have spent my life believing that mankind will surely morph into something more beneficial both for the sake of its species and for planet Earth, but what I had overlooked was that the attitudes, mechanisms and institutions that exist today to implement the nation's will have not changed enough. And apathy is largely prevalent at election time. As a nation we are asleep. Asleep  .. to real realities. Thanks to the 1980s revolution under Thatcher we are now a self-seeking lot in the main. We are continually thinking of our individual selves rather than thinking about what is best for the majority; for the