It's pantomime season in the Houses of Parliament



Steve Bell in The Guardian, 20th December 2018

Our wonderful caring government unveiled its new immigration policy this week and, as we’ve come to expect from them, it’s petty, restrictive and nasty. EU citizens will, in the future, have to earn over £30,000 a year in order to apply for residency in the UK. What the government didn’t say was that UK citizens who wish to reside in the EU will doubtless be subject to similar restrictions in future. Reciprocity rules OK. What it means for all those UK citizens who currently reside in EU countries, I've no idea.
 

Mrs May is obsessed with immigration and she panders to the xenophobes who infest the comments sections of the press. Here's an example of what I mean. I've just read a story in an on-line edition of a newspaper about a businessman in Scotland who is originally from Bangladesh. He has been refused permanent right to remain in the UK despite having lived here legally for 15 years and owning a successful business employing five people, people who now seem set to lose their jobs. The story is one thing but the comments below the article are another. Here the usual British nationalist trolls are at their small minded worse.  Empathy is a foreign quality to them. Compassion is a curse to them. These are the nasty little people that Theresa May has in mind when she frames her immigration policy. This is British nationalism in action. It’s not pretty. It’s not dignified. And I think it stinks.

Hopefully it won't be too long before the real opposition, which isn’t the Labour Party unfortunately, will bring forward a No Confidence motion in the government. Labour will probably abstain. Of course, they will. To support it would be to do something positive.  This will be the first time in decades that a government has been subject to a No Confidence motion, yet it’s lost in the shouting, the infantile behaviour and the insult to the intelligence of the public which passes for parliamentary debate.

But none of this gets properly aired in parliament or the press. Instead of holding the government to account, we get a pantomime. And that’s quite literally what we witnessed a couple of days ago during Prime Minister’s Questions. It was a childish and stupid display of crowing and question avoiding of the sort we’ve come to expect from a government which has absolutely no intention of explaining itself, never mind being held to account by the Opposition. Mrs May played the pantomime dame, urged on by her hysterical supporters. This playground behaviour was later dismissed by the Leader of the House, Andrea Leadsom, as "parliamentary banter". What have we come to?

Jeremy Corbyn reacted to this infantile display by muttering something. Then the news was dominated by the allegation that Jezza called Mother Theresa a stupid woman. Because apparently a perceived personal slur against Theresa May is the most important thing that’s happening just now.  To the allegations that Jeremy Corbyn is anti-semitic, we can now add the allegation that he’s sexist. And I will say that the phrase “stupid woman” is sexist in a way that “stupid man” is not. However Jezza insists that he didn’t mutter “stupid woman” after Theresa May’s display of childish stupidity which was accompanied by the jeering support of her braying backbench donkeys. He claims that what he said was “stupid people”. A well respected lip reader is quoted as saying: "It’s true that those two words can be difficult to distinguish when all you have to go on is lip reading. The words woman and people both consist of a series of labial consonants followed by a vowel and ending with a alveolar consonant. To pronounce both words you make two movements causing closure or partial closure of the lips followed by a tongue gesture towards the gum ridge, also known as the alveolar ridge. When a person is muttering, as Corbyn was, lip movements are not always fully and clearly articulated. Without any audio it’s impossible to tell which word he actually said during the exchange."

I’ve played the sequence over several times. It does look to me as though he did, in fact, say “stupid woman”, but I’m not a lipreader. He could just as easily have said “stupid people”, “stupid arseholes” or “stupid tossers”, all of which also consist of the labial-labial-alveolar sequence. Naturally the Tories are going to select the option that allows them to feel most outraged and which conveniently distracts from their actual stupidity. Because that's what it was - synthetic outrage designed to disguise their questionable policies. And the tactic worked - amongst those easily fooled by this bunch of clowns.

What looks bad is that right after the event Jeremy scuttled out of the chamber and didn’t make a formal statement to clarify his remark. If he’d got up immediately and stated that he’d actually said “stupid people” he could have killed off the matter. Instead the Tories are going to town on it, Corbyn looks evasive, and the government has got off the hook for its woeful performance on Brexit and its nasty immigration plans. It’s yet another own goal from the Labour leader. The greatest asset this woeful and pathetically inadequate government possesses is that it’s confronted by an equally woeful and pathetically inadequate official opposition. The point is that the Tories are by no means innocent wallflowers when it comes to insulting behaviour. They’re certainly not innocent when it comes to pandering to racists and bigots in how they frame government policy. You can judge for yourself which is worse.

However we’re now in a place where stupid people behaving stupidly believe it’s a greater insult to be called stupid than it’s insulting to everyone else for them to be dangerously and selfishly stupid. They’re wrecking all our futures, running roughshod over what passes for a British constitution, playing Brexit chicken in an effort to sideline parliament. But that’s nothing compared to a mumbled personal insult, if that’s indeed what it was. If that’s not proof all by itself of just how stupid the Tory party is, and more to the point just how stupid they think the rest of us are, I’m not really sure what is.



Martin Riddell in The Guardian, 21st December 2018

 

Is this what we really deserve?



Despite the fact that it is clear to everyone that there is no support for Theresa May’s Brexit deal in Parliament, she blindly and stubbornly refuses to countenance any alternatives. We have a Prime Minister who heads a government which has, at every turn, attempted to block the MPs, the people have returned to this supposedly sovereign Parliament, from having their say. She only allowed them to express their opinions for three paltry days then pulled the rug from underneath Parliament and refuses to have a vote because those MPs will give her an answer not to her liking. Her government was found in contempt of Parliament but instead of apologising and seeking reconciliation, she has merely redoubled her efforts to continue along the same path. 
 
Mrs May is immune to criticism, deaf to advice (except, apparently from her discredited predecessor), blind to danger, uncaring that time is running out, hell bent on pursuit of control and power for the sake of power, and bugger the consequences for anyone else. She’s playing chicken with Parliament and with the lives and jobs of everyone in the UK. Everything can be risked, everything can be destroyed, just in order to save the Prime Minister’s reputation. It was noticeable that this icy politician, totally lacking in empathy, warmth, or emotion, only became animated and displayed her emotions when she thought that the EU’s Jean-Claude Juncker had insulted her personally. 
 
This is a Prime Minister who came to power in the wake of a narrow vote to leave the EU and decided that she would ignore that 48% of the population which voted to remain, and pander to the Brexit extremists in her own party. She ignored those who voted to remain, and she has ignored those nations in her precious union which voted to remain. She has instead decided to use Brexit as an excuse to further centralise the UK.
 
All the while she claims that she’s doing so in order to respect the result of the referendum. A referendum fought on the basis of a lie, a referendum where the winning side cheated and deceived. But none of that appears to matter.
After claiming that the central goal of Brexit was to restore sovereignty to the British Parliament, the Prime Minister is now stalling, using every tactic imaginable, in order to avoid a vote in the Commons. The goal of this appears to be to use up as much time as possible in order to rule out the possibility of a second referendum so that, when a vote finally becomes unavoidable, MPs will be forced to choose between her inadequate deal or no deal at all. Acting consciously and deliberately in order to restrict the freedom of movement of a supposedly sovereign parliament is the open contempt of democracy.
When a government is found in contempt of parliament and the reaction of the government is simply to shrug its shoulders and no one resigns, we’ve passed from contempt into the open dismissal of democratic norms. Yet that is exactly what happened this month. It’s not just that no one in the government resigned over this appalling attack on the integrity of parliament, it’s that no one expected anyone would resign. That’s how low our expectations have fallen. 
 
At every turn, at every opportunity, the UK government has acted in the selfish interest of the Conservative party. There are two minority governments in Scotland. The British government and the Scottish government. This week the Scottish government is negotiating with other parties in order to pass its budget. With the exception of the foot stomping Lib Dems it’s a discussion between grown ups. It’s a discussion about give and take. Compare that with the British government, a minority government that has continued to act as though it has an absolute majority and doesn’t need to consult with, never mind offer concessions to, anyone else.

Meanwhile this same British government has elevated cruelty from an unfortunate side effect of policy to the policy itself. There is Mrs May's infamous “hostile environment” for those who live or who wish to live in the UK but who are not UK citizens. Families are divided. Children only see one of their parents in Skype conversations. People who have lived in the UK for decades fear the knock on the door and deportation to a country where they haven’t lived since childhood. 
 
Deliberate cruelty is a central design feature in the punitive and brutal benefits system. Sanctions are imposed for trivial reasons, leaving claimants without food and dependent on charity. We now live in a country where it is normal that people go hungry and where the biggest growth industry is food banks. You cannot walk down a street in a city centre without encountering young homeless people. Kindess is no longer a virtue in UK government policy, but a weakness. Compassion is no longer a consideration in UK government policy, but a failing. Empathy is no longer an asset in British politics, it’s been replaced by the vitriol of the right wing press.

The UK has become a cold and nasty place, defined by casual cruelty, prioritising scorn and disdain over care and understanding. It’s driven by xenophobia, scarred by hatred, inward looking and fearful, medicating itself with the dream of past glory like a homeless addict in a doorway lost in a spice-fuelled reverie of a better time. 
 
If you check a dictionary you will find that the definition of tyranny is the cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control. It is government by a ruler or small group of people who have unlimited power over the people in their country or state and use it unfairly and cruelly. Unfair votes, breaking rules, the centralisation of power, the avoidance of democratic accountability, cruelty as government policy.  Guess whose government ticks all the boxes.

Last rant of 2016

How has it come to this? What curse do we live under that we have to put up with the metric tonnes of what seems to be utter bullshit, fed to us by toxic politicians and an ever more toxic media? When did it become acceptable to hound and hunt people as a political strategy? To ‘claim scalps’ (is that the term?), make their lives and by extension ours, a living nightmare of sound bite statements, cherry picked factoids, half-truths, post-truths, sheer lies, manipulation and misdirection? When did we allow politicians and the media to talk to us in the way that they do? How is it possible for us to become so lazy, so apathetic, so disenfranchised that we allow others to do our thinking for us? To make decisions for us? And when things go wrong, or even when they haven’t, to tell us who to blame?

You’d think we would have learnt by this point, wouldn’t you? After all, politics by sound bite and policy by media forum has worked out so wonderfully well for us. Manipulating and driving the opinion of the masses using dog whistle, short termist strategies and the politics of expediency, nothing has done more to divide our society, break the chains of trust in our public institutions and send levels of societal trust in each other back to the Dark Ages than the freakish love affair between our media and the political class.

We are where we are and like many others I voted against every decision that brought us here. I'm just waiting for the point when the pooh hits the fan in politics, as it will big time over the ongoing cock-up that is Brexit which is shaping up to be the worst bout of political, economic and societal self harm in the UKs recent history.

Putting Brexit to one side and using it as just one example as the malaise of British politics, it's clear that the two-party adversarial parliamentary system is no longer fit for purpose. But where is the need for change being articulated? Certainly not by those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo - and I include all parties in this. They are all paying lip service to change but are doing absolutely nothing about it. No discussions, no proposals, nothing. Nature abhors a vacuum so I'll fill it with my thoughts on constitutional change: Parsons Seven Point Plan for Reform, if you will.

1. I would make it compulsory for people to vote in general elections. If you live in a society, that’s part of the deal, along with paying your taxes. Compulsory voting would be conditional, of course, upon there being a box on the ballot paper marked “None of the above.” To require citizens to make the minimal effort of going to a polling station every few years seems to me the least that anyone could be expected to do.

2. I’d put limits on the length of time an MP can represent a constituency. Two terms in parliament is quite enough to see what someone has to offer. They can have a third term, maybe, if they’re a member of the cabinet or shadow cabinet, or chair of an important parliamentary committee. I'd extend the same restriction to other levels of government - county councils, parish councils etc.

3. I'd also bring in the requirement to have had a proper job before going into politics then you might start to see a political class which is representative of the country as a whole. We don’t have that now: the present system requires you to strike an attitude at 18 or 19 and never to deviate as you make your way up the greasy pole. The system rewards cases of arrested development. No thoughtful person can indefinitely justify things they thought when they were a teenager. I want parliament to be made up of representatives who think about things, instead of slavishly obeying the whips.

4. I'd abolish the House of Lords and bring in a fully elected second chamber. Either we are an elective democracy or we are not.

5. While we’re at it, we should turn the Palace of Westminster into a museum/tourist attraction and invent a new parliament, preferably outside London. If we do get to design a new chamber, let's get rid of the across-the-aisle confrontational lay-out. Maybe a circular chamber would encourage more collaborative behaviour?

6. We do not have a written constitution. We should have. If we did, it would make talking about 'British values' much more objective.

7. Oooh, almost forgot. Last but by no means least, it's time for the Royal Family to be consigned to the history books. Let's make Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth the Last.

Gosh, I'm beginning to sound like Mr Angry from Tunbridge Wells. But I don’t think the UK is going to hell in a handcart. It’s still a beautiful and precious place. It’s just that I don't think we have learned how to manage the consequences of capitalism and affluence. Maybe things will be better in 2017 than they might seem at the moment? I travel into the New Year with optimism and whistling this tune...

The truth is out there..somewhere.

According to one theory, there are an infinite number of universes, which in turn means that all possible things which can potentially happen do in fact happen somewhere in the infinite multiverse, no matter how implausible or unlikely. It's mind boggling to think that there is a universe somewhere where there are actually more LibDem MPs in England than pandas. And there's the Corbyn Dimension where Labour MPs support their leader. There’s also a universe where the Daily Mail is a really good newspaper, although quantum physicists consider this to be far less plausible than the universe where the Daily Express publishes an editorial begging the UK Government to allow in more asylum seekers from countries which Westminster has bombed and invaded. And somewhere way out in space, there's the most singular universe of all, the blessed land where our politicians are truthful, objective and rather bland.

You know, I really wish there was less passion in politics and more cool logic; less evangelism and more data; less hyperbole and more matter-of-factness. Unthinking passion has brought the Labour Party to its knees and, as the success of the Brexiteers shows, threatens to do the same to the country. The exploitation of unthinking passion could bring the USA to contemplate a Trump presidency. Faced with all this, I find myself hungering for dry analyses and thirsting for bloodless lucidity. I admire, more than ever, those with obscure technical knowledge and the hard-won skills needed to actually make progress, rather than merely promise it. But don't ask me to name any from the current bunch of tossers who purport to represent us. I really can't and I find that rather disconcerting. Spirit of Clem Atlee, where are you in our hour of need?

A few comments about the Panama Papers

You have been warned: immoderate rant alert. And before you ask, no, I haven't got any money tied up in an off-shore account. Never have and never will.

We’re supposed to believe that our government is going to be the most transparent ever, that it’s going to crack down on tax avoidance by big corporations and rich individuals, whilst the head of that government has himself been a beneficiary of tax avoidance schemes set up offshore by his dad, and most probably will be a beneficiary in the future. Asked a carefully worded question about whether his family had benefited in the past or will benefit in the future from his father’s offshore holdings, Posh Dave obfuscated and answered a different question that he wasn’t asked. He smiles and waves and tells reporters his father’s Panamanian dealings are a private family matter. And he’ll get away with it too, because this is Britain.

And because this is Britain, the ones who will be condemned, the ones who will be called haters and extremists, are those who point out the avarice and greed of the rich and the powerful. That’s because screwing over the little guy is central to the way that the UK works and the economy is structured. In the land of the robber the honest are despised.

None of this is new. None of this should surprise us. None of this should make us raise our hands in astonishment. We’ve all known for years that the powerful elite enrich themselves on the back of the poor and the marginalised.

British governments both Tory and Labour have bowed down before the might of the robber barons of the City of London and the Panama papers aren’t a story of the dirty dealings of foreigners, of bribery in far off places or of corruption in distant lands. They’re the story of how the British economy works, drawing in the ill-gotten gains of the corrupt and the dishonest and hiding it in British overseas territories that Whitehall doesn’t supervise. They’re the story of how Britain has become the money launderer to the world’s despoilers. They could be called the Square Mile Papers.

All over the UK people are as repulsed as the Icelanders about the rules for the rich that don’t apply to the poor, but unlike in Reykjavik there will be no political consequences for the British hypocrites who tell us that we’re all in this together. And there’s nothing we can do about it within the British state.
 
I don't want much. I just want to live in a land where the rich abide by the same rules as the rest of us. I just want to live in a country where politicians have to resign for hypocrisy and telling lies. I just want to live in a country where the voices of ordinary people are heard and the rich don't get even richer while blaming the poor for their poverty. I just want to live in a country where the super rich sheep are penned and shorn instead of the people getting fleeced.

That’s not going to happen in the UK, because the UK’s raison d’etre, as personified by Cameron and Osbourne, is robbing the poor to pay the rich. It’s only going to happen in a country where the government is close enough to the people so that it can be truly held to account. A country where, to repeat myself, it’s the sheep that get shorn and the people don’t allow themselves to get fleeced. Baa!

Still alive................

..............and still ranting. Unfortunately there's a limit to the pestilence that amoxicillin can get rid of..

Definitely not fit for purpose

A link on a friend's Facebook page (thanks, John Perry) takes us to a recent blog by MP Micheal Meacher. This one is entitled 'Horror Stories from ATOS' and is a list of  the appalling practices of ATOS with regards to the medical assessments they are carrying out on behalf of the government.

There is more than enough evidence available, and not just from the usual suspects like Micheal Meacher, to show that there is a cruelty taking place, right now, right here in the UK that shames us all. Every single report, committee or enquiry into Work Capability Assessments have found them “unfit for purpose”. And they are just one part of a barrage of measures which disadvantage the most vulnerable members of our society. Think about what else has affected them:

The Independent Living Fund – Scrapped
Severe Disability Premiums – Scrapped
Social Care packages - Slashed
Support for profoundly disabled children - Slashed

I find this all very depressing and it's a depression compounded by the apparent lack of concern of the general population. Those affected are not just numbers on a balance sheet: they are lives, real people. Let's not believe the Tory narrative: they do not deserve to be demonised or demeaned as 'benefits scroungers'. Disability and ill health can strike any one at any time and a civilised society looks after those in need. Yes, even in times of financial belt-tightening. Even more so, in my opinion.

I read the following quote recently (variously attributed to Edmund Burke or Benjamin Franklin): "Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are”. Surely our common humanity means that we cannot be unaffected by what's going on? Let's get outraged and stand with those who are sick and disabled. Let's write to our MPs and Ian Duncan Smith and let them know that it's unacceptable. And let's pray that we, or anyone we know, never need to go in front of one of ATOS's assessment panels.

Aging activist? Moi?

Through my activities as a trainer with Amnesty International I have had an exchange of e-mails recently with a younger (much, much younger!) person. It ended up with the said young person gently reproaching me with the words “you aging activists are all the same”. I was taken
aback: activist, yes, but aging? I was not quite sure how that had happened as just the other day I was 19 and getting ready to explore the world!
After more serious reflection, however, I have to agree with her. It’s sad but true: I guess I am an 'elder' now. Although my correspondent was respectful, I felt she was being somewhat dismissive of my views. How typical of her generation she was I don't know but I hope the young can give us elders a little compassion now and then. Many of us already feel the cold winds of eternal night as they begin to blow through our aging joints and we may rant and rage. Some of us have waited most of our lives for the global awakening, scarcely daring to dream it might happen before we pass on. In our enthusiasm and/or impatience we may overreact, repeat old behaviours, regress to the 60s.....
Don't take our rants too personally. They’re just the last desperate and/or joyous cries of a passing generation. If there's a kernel of truth in what we say, run with it. If it’s empty noise, smile kindly at us and move on.
I think we elders still have a lot to teach but, I have to admit, not always what we think! Many of us serve best as excellent bad examples. And that's not such a bad role. It can be fun - in an cranky, off-beat, liberating sort of way. We don't have to impress and because we have already lived through so much, we now have less to lose but still lots to give. We can listen, support, and lend a little historical perspective now and then if it seems essential. But, let’s be honest, many of our tired old fears and dated approaches - no matter how relevant they once were - belong to another era. And the oppressors already have scripts and weapons to defeat our bygone tactics.
I am really impressed by the sophistication of some of the young this time around (those behind 38 Degrees and Avaaz spring to mind). They are way ahead of where my generation of activists were in the 60s, 70s and 80s, when the opposition could so easily divide, divert and disrupt our movements. It’s critical that the young continue to take the lead (and I'm more than happy to ride piggy back on the innovations they bring). I hope they break the rules, choose the direction, attempt the impossible, seek allies everywhere, facilitate meetings, build momentum, goad us into a greater awakening, and keep the rest of us uncomfortable, off-balance, and wondering what will happen next.
And the cartoon below? A Google search under 'aging activists' didn't bear much fruit but it did come up with this cartoon. OK, it's a tongue in cheek take-off of the seven ages of man but it did prompt me to think of what my 'activism curve' might look like. I've superimposed it in red and I'm comfortable with the message it gives: the older I get, the angrier I'm getting! I hope I don’t ever lose my passion or desire to take action for what I believe in.

The Oracle of Risca has spoken - be afraid, be very afraid.

My mother-in-law is fond of saying "things come in threes" and I'm wondering what she would make of the terrible trio now facing us.

#1: The global financial crisis and its various manifestations.
#2: Global warming and its implications.
#3: The increase in global population and what that means for future generations. Future generations? Actually, that sounds somewhat abstract - let's make it personal and use "my children and grandchildren". Take a look at this chart from Nature News (published online October 19th 2011 at http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111019/full/478300a/box/1.html)
Of course, there are many who will downplay each and everyone of the above (look out for vested interests who want to maintain the status quo - ask yourself "why?") and say that human ingenuity will triumph. I wish I could agree with that view but I can't. It's a mess and the worrying thing is that I detect no cogent arguments for the best way forward. No cogent arguments at the state level from the political classes, that is, but plenty of activity lower down the pecking order - witness what is happening outside of St Paul's and elsewhere. I'm not so naive to believe that such demonstrations will change the world but it is heartening to realise that there is an increasing level of discontent felt by many people. How can this all be channelled into making real changes for the better? I can offer no solutions apart from taking every opportunity to engage with the real world (and I don't mean the world of soporific celebrity and impoverishing consumerism) and not accepting that more of the same will pull us through. It won't....and on that cheerful note, I'm off to get my porridge!

From Neil Kinnock to the French Revolution via D.Ream

A strange title, perhaps, but bear with me as I string my thoughts together.
In my last blog, I mentioned Neil Kinnock. After I'd written that piece, I could not stop myself from whistling (both mentally and actual) that sublimely irritating song of D.Ream 'Things can only get better'. I think the connection with Neil Kinnock was themes used as political slogans. As any political pedant will know, the connection of that song with Neil Kinnock is spurious, as it was used in the 1997 General Election by Tony Blair and his cohorts.
Be that as it may, my mind wandered further and I started musing on a number of other political slogans. A few of the ones I could recall (in no particular order) are: 'You've never had it so good', 'Labour isn't working', 'Beef and Beer for all', 'Power to the People', 'Long live the Revolution', 'Better dead than red', 'Are you thinking what we're thinking?', 'Labour's tax bombshell'....and there are lots more. What struck me is how inane and empty they all are. Hardly battle cries that would inspire me to take to the metaphorical barricades.
That set me wondering whether there was any political slogan that did stand the test of time and actually meant something. Almost immediately, three words came to me: Liberty, Egality, Fraternity.
The demand for 'liberty, equality (egality) and fraternity' during the French Revolution resonates with many of the points I have previously alluded to. The more I pondered on this slogan, the more relevant it seemed. It strikes me that it focuses attention on dimensions of social relations which matter most if we are to see a better society and see a difference to the real quality of our lives.
At the time, 'Liberty' meant not being subvervient or beholden to the feudal nobility and landed aristocracy. We can bring this up-to-date and say that we don't want to be, and should not be, subservient or beholden to the interests of large corporations, banks or any institution motivated purely by profits.
'Fraternity' reflected a desire for greater mutuality and reciprocity in social relations. Nowadays we raise exactly the same issues when we talk about community, social cohesion and, how I hate to quote Posh-boy Dave, the Big Society. Time and time again, research shows the importance of community to many facets of human wellbeing.
'Equality' meant a levelling of the gross inequalities between those at the top and those at the bottom of pre-revolutionary France. Liberty and Fraternity cannot happen without 'Equality', which is prerequisite for getting them right. Not only do large inequalities produce many (all?) of the problems caused by social differences and the divisive class prejudices which go with them, they also weaken many aspects of community life. Against what is emerging under the Con-Lib Coalition, how hollow sounds the slogan 'we are all in this together'. How rich sounds the slogan ' Liberty, Fraternity and Equality'. Where is the politician who will take up the challenge and use this slogan as their rallying call? Answers on a postcard to.........

Quotes from another Welshman

Neil Kinnock comes from the same part of the world as me, just up the valley in Bedwellty. As a past leader of the Labour party he was much maligned as a old-fashioned socialist and as a threat to the British way of life. Some of this antipathy was based purely on snobbery - he was from working class stock and he did not sound like someone who could be taken seriously as a senior politician. The perils of having a Welsh accent! Despite having a tendency to liking the sound of his own voice and never knowingly using one word when ten were available, he was an extremely good orator and, on his best days, could hold an audience in the palm of his hands. Here are a couple of quotes from him:

Relevant to my post of yesterday: "Do something that makes a difference - because, by God, there's a lot to make you angry".

As relevant to Cameron today as it was when he was talking about the Thatcher government: "I warn you not to be ordinary, I warn you not to be young, I warn you not to fall ill, and I warn you not to grow old.

Perhaps one day we'll come to appreciate the prescience of the man?

Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I've always thought that Dylan Thomas's poem was so expressive and nowadays the sentiments seem to be particularly apt. The older I get, the angrier I get and the more I rage. It's NOT GOOD because the list of targets for my rage seems to increase daily.

Mostly I am angry at injustice in its oh-so-many forms and at the people who perpetuate it.

I am angry at the willful ignorance that passes for politics these days. I am angry at a citizenry that won't do its homework, makes gods of lying "entertainers," and rewards politicians for negative and downright dishonest proclamations. (And on that last, I'm talking about ALL of them. Not just one party, even though there is a bunch that attracts especial venom from me). MAKE . IT. STOP.

I am angry about people who promise the moon and have absolutely no intention of delivering. I am particularly angry about people who do this while asking for my money, my time, my vote and my compassion.

I am angry about a society that puts profits before people, and actually rewards the robbers while it throws people out of their homes into the streets. I am angry at the selfishness of those who "have" and who seem determined to deny their fellow citizens a decent standard of living and some security because it might mean they have to give up some frills in their lives.

I am furious with people who have the power to help others--and refuse to do it.

I am angry with people who say "Have patience". People who don't have to worry about being homeless or having a job or going without medical care or being denied basic services. People who can afford to "wait" for justice for others because they already have all the "justice" they need.

I am angry with people who were born privileged but who have somehow convinced themselves that they have advanced on merit. Who believe that they have earned what they have, without ever once examining the unearned privilege of the socioeconomic status of their family and upbringing.

I'm angry about racism, sexism and homophobia. I'm angry at people who use these prejudices to oppose caring for the least among us and who bully, lie, and hate to oppress the weak and dispossessed.

I am angry about a society that celebrates vacuous celebrity and seems to be happy with a permeating meanness that impoverishes us all. A society that elevates the trivial and demotes the important.

Finally, I'm angry at myself. For not doing more. For allowing this impotent rage to bleed into my life and for allowing my rants to impact upon my relationships with the people I love.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.