tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67721696724492984372024-02-08T03:33:11.989+00:00David Marston Writes"...passionate and informed...really demand to be read." - Pointless Philisophical Asides.David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.comBlogger299125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-66720934685682543662017-01-12T21:40:00.001+00:002017-01-12T21:40:34.592+00:00So what now?
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCT-6ehNpRa2qIDDRTJ2s91kbHn2__-2KRAaIYdp1szQiS4vQUUIh0W8h4OkCqLCjtVA24LnxhL1sM-NGUiPoAfHWiQbOwxPeWvA6kE_mVIkhNKEImMkRlykLNhRzxPvpt4UeEWRhvXhH4/s1600/WP_20161227_14_39_08_Pro.2.1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCT-6ehNpRa2qIDDRTJ2s91kbHn2__-2KRAaIYdp1szQiS4vQUUIh0W8h4OkCqLCjtVA24LnxhL1sM-NGUiPoAfHWiQbOwxPeWvA6kE_mVIkhNKEImMkRlykLNhRzxPvpt4UeEWRhvXhH4/s320/WP_20161227_14_39_08_Pro.2.1.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I mean, really, what the fuck do we do now?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I called two election results early and correctly in 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://davidmarstonwrites.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/boris-legacylondons-decline.html" target="_blank">By mid-May, despite Sadiq Khan beating the odiously racist campaign of Zac Goldsmith to be London Mayor</a> earlier in the month, it was
becoming increasingly apparent to me that Leave was going to triumph in the
referendum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hoped for a Remain vote,
but the surprisingly range of people I encountered either considering or
definitely voting for us to abscond from the European Union was suggesting
disaster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Secondly, although arguably in a midst of post-Brexit
depression, I said as early as August that I thought Trump would take the
American Presidency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A trip to the
States in September didn’t yield much evidence to support that, but then we
went to New York and Seattle, Democrat strongholds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may have seemed madness, and different to
the EU-referendum, but the populist message he was chanting was the same as
that Farage, Johnson and Gove had sallied around the country blithely lying
earlier in the year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, it may be
complete bullshit, but the best stories never turn out to be true anyway. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I wish to hell I had been wrong.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">There was satisfaction in seeing Goldsmith also take a
kicking in a by-election he assumed would be a waltz to victory, another defeat
this time brought about by his own vanity and a justice of sorts for the racism
and xenophobia he has displayed over the previous twelve months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, that small triumph doesn’t anywhere
near make up for the fact that we have, as a country, blundered towards the
edge of the abyss and drunkenly stumbled into it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have found ourselves transposed to a world
where a politician with perfectly mainstream views like Jo Cox can be murdered
in the streets of the sleepy town at the heart of her community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even in the bitterly fought and stark divides
of the eighties, that would have seemed a distant possibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something that, maybe, happened in other
countries, but never here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I have written many versions of this article.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Immediately after the referendum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Labour tore itself apart and failed to
generate any sense of being a credible opposition even at the point where Tory
civil war threatened to implode the whole notion of government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During a summer when UK politics felt like it
was being written by a the same people who write adrenaline punctuated TV shows
like 24 or Game of Thrones, locked in a sweaty, darkened room,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>with just cocaine and whisky for sustenance,
each producing ever elaborate narrative swerves: “call that a twist?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll show you a twist.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://davidmarstonwrites.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/writing-about-not-writing.html" target="_blank">Unable to write fast enough</a>, the world ran away from me, but in every single version I failed to answer the
question, so what do we do about it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Part of the difficulty is that it is not just us, not just
the UK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A dangerous nationalist tide is
sweeping the world and with it comes, almost inevitably history suggests,
violence and tragedy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I first wrote
about the threat Putin poses eight and half years ago and rather than learning from
the escapades in Georgia that prompted that piece, the world seems to be
scampering to fall over itself in admiration for the man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trump, Brexit, Marine Le Pen looking like the
candidate to beat in France, moderate reforms brushed aside in Italy, right
wing governments in Hungary and Poland, a near run thing in Austria, trouble in
Greece.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are no longer blips,
anomalies; this is a full blown global political swing away from the centre
left and social liberalism that dominated for a decade and a half from the
mid-nineties and back towards the politics of the great powers of the nineteenth century.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Are you trying to cheer me up?‘ my wife asked me shortly
after Trump’s victory when we were wondering how long until Armageddon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Not really, no,’ just pontificating, but to extent, maybe,
these things go in cycles and we are currently just on the outer edges of the political
elastic band’s stretch. It’s a particularly nasty place, sure, but we’ll bounce
back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Won’t we?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Probably.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The problem is what happens while we’re here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s going to be a while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trump is good until 2020.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s unlikely that May will call an early
election unless she ends up with a minority government due to defections and
resignations so that gives her the same time frame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Even if she did, the opposition are so
fragmented at the moment who knows what the outcome would be.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">People across the social, political and creative spheres
have been talking about the fight-back and how it starts now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While I agree that there is a need, an
obligation even, to challenge and fight every erosion of liberty, of rights,
every step backwards from the progressive, tolerant world we have spent fifty
years trying to create, at the moment it can be little more than a valiant
covering retreat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is going to be
the political re-enactment of Dunkirk, to steal a Brexiter’s favourite period
of analogy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re out numbered, out
gunned, don’t have a fucking clue how we’re not even going to win, but how we simply
save what we can of society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All we know
is that we can’t simply roll over and die or run away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our defeats must be disguised as victories,
somehow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The reason this is the best we can hope for is that we’re
still not getting to the root of the problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The successful vote to leave the European Union and the shambles of an
attempt to defend staying in shows that the twentieth century’s political
battle lines of left and right are, effectively, dissolving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This rise of nationalism both here, in
mainland Europe and across in the USA is a knee jerk reaction against
globalisation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Russia it is a tool to
keep Putin in power, but it only works because of the cynicism of Russians and
a, surprising, pining for the more straightforward world under Communism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Rich, poor, old and young, people can see their national
identity being eroded by immigration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The fact that this could be an evolution of identity, that what we had
can become something better, as it has done throughout history, seems to pass
many people by.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In barely a generation we have seen the fundamental pillars
of industry and the economy change, and people are fearful of that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many don’t understand the world we’re heading
into, many can’t access its benefits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The fight against being marginalised in the face of global capitalism is
not to make yourself a smaller unit, it is to join forces with those in similar
situations, to be a part of the whole not an isolated island.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Oh well, too late now. Brexit means Brexit, even if no-one
can quite explain what that actually means in itself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Unfortunately those in the American mid-west, in
Philadelphia, in South Wales, in Boston, Lincolnshire who believe they have
voted to bring jobs and industry home have been hoodwinked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the immediate aftermath of the EU
referendum I saw a video of a man being interviewed in Hull who said he
expected the factories to be reopening and the jobs to be appearing within the
year, as though membership of the EU was somehow preventing those things from
happening, as though some magic curse upon the land put in place by “bureaucrats”
would be lifted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s bollocks,
obviously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson,
Donald Trump for God’s sake, these are not people who believe in work and
industry as a cornerstone of the community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They’re not Joseph Rowntree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
believe in profit for themselves, in looking down on everyone else from the
safety of their gilded parapet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">There’s an argument that we’re actually in the death-throes
of capitalism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That these things
continue to move and evolve, that we went from the ancient empires, to
feudalism, to industrialisation and then to free market capitalism and from here
to who knows what?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe the blessed
holy market can’t keep growing indefinitely, maybe we will hit a peak when
civil and social unrest overwhelms share-prices and the whole edifice comes
tumbling down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The past seventy years
have been a period of relative peace and prosperity, but maybe that’s coming to
an end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The future is, as always
unknown, and it probably won’t be quick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is only with hindsight that historians are able to say that the
deposition of the last Western Roman Emperor in 476 and an Ostrogoth declaring
himself King of Italy marked the end of the Empire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No-one at the time realised that, just as for
the century before that from the death of Constantine no-one realised they were
trapped in a period of terminal decline and fall. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No-one recognised that the adaptation of
Christianity as the Empire’s official religion was going to kick-start the
transition to feudal states.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course
they didn’t, just as in three hundred years, or less, people may look at back
at 2016 and decide it has significance of the sort we can’t comprehend stuck in
the middle of the maelstrom as we are.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Of course all of this depends on the planet not giving out
first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can read all sorts of forecasts:
that the icecaps are warmer than they have ever been, that water scarcity is
coming, that changing weather patterns are going to thrash our communities on
an annual basis, that there is barely a generation’s worth of arable soil left,
all of which will make the monetary system we’re using seem
inconsequential.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The politics of now
shouldn’t be about isolationism, about selfishness, about nations: it should be
about technology, about societal change, about rescuing the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It isn’t though, and that’s the real problem. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I know I still haven’t answered my own question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, what now?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Fight back is the obvious answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2009 I started writing a novel set round
about now, in a post-financial apocalypse society that had slumped towards
dystopia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a bleak world, but the
fundamental corners of what we understood about ourselves remained.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I worry that they don’t anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That what comes next is much worse than I can
imagine, will be inherently more complicated than fiction and so the fight back
has to answer those complexities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
can’t be fiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fiction, it seems to
my despair, has been co-opted by the alt-right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Post-truth means invented, so not only do we need to reclaim reality but
the imaginary world too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will take
time to fully understand how we meet that challenge, so as much as it pains me,
we must wait for the battle to be clearer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In the meantime, the best I can come up with is:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fuck knows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I guess we try to be kind, try to do the right thing, shout, protest,
argue and hope for the god-damn best, hope that things get bad enough for
everyone to recognise the terrible mistakes that have been made and try to turn
things around before a real dystopia is declared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">That’s not much hope, but it is probably all we’ve got.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Good luck.</span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-53080671496420211272017-01-05T21:28:00.001+00:002017-01-05T21:28:30.699+00:00Lost by music
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizAi0GipcyDejfJbpGUroZ9_EC3rYT1tdNR2EbETgIfEuqtNie3S06jE5Dp2rI4UU5O1raMK_fNjloGGTLkXkXxKvlG0XBdthardVVdx4r_58Gu609uzPJej49ZcZVnqo_XZWgmIqXBsX2/s1600/Blackstar_%2528Front_Cover%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizAi0GipcyDejfJbpGUroZ9_EC3rYT1tdNR2EbETgIfEuqtNie3S06jE5Dp2rI4UU5O1raMK_fNjloGGTLkXkXxKvlG0XBdthardVVdx4r_58Gu609uzPJej49ZcZVnqo_XZWgmIqXBsX2/s1600/Blackstar_%2528Front_Cover%2529.png" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgorb-vEXHJaz21zda3Jq4rqODHZpvX-CYJAKY2Da2zJm_5oBeQVw7i6Pk9rK2b73G_b2rtVDIt3GMTV5z1xz9MNL73wzSH-HShCTyiICOo7jEigOHMcdUBRYCg0EAfoSzikbO8dMwYL27y/s1600/Leonard_Cohen_You_Want_It_Darker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgorb-vEXHJaz21zda3Jq4rqODHZpvX-CYJAKY2Da2zJm_5oBeQVw7i6Pk9rK2b73G_b2rtVDIt3GMTV5z1xz9MNL73wzSH-HShCTyiICOo7jEigOHMcdUBRYCg0EAfoSzikbO8dMwYL27y/s1600/Leonard_Cohen_You_Want_It_Darker.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A year later, I still can’t quite believe that David Bowie
is dead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">When the news came through back at the beginning of the year
I hadn’t even gotten around to listening to Black Star, his final album.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was still lost in the first few weeks of
being a parent, the days and nights were interchangeable, life was about trying
to make it through the next few hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
saw it on the Guardian, having hauled myself into work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I felt like going home again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a bolt through my heart.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Mere days before I had been swaying around the living room,
the winter sun streaming through the bay windows, my son wrapped tight in my
arms, his gurgles of half sleep being smothered by the sound of Absolute
Beginners through the stereo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
ba-ba-baoo chorus felt like a comfort blanket being draped over me; it was
going to be all right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever else
happened there would be David Bowie.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And then there wasn’t; and then there was again.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My son, at the time, had an odd looking star shaped man with
dangling legs, a mirror in his stomach and various squeaking appendages. It
looked like a late sixties comic book inter-dimensional creature, the sort that
would get lost in New York and accidentally demolish a couple of blocks before
being calmed with acid tabs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Look,’ my wife says to the boy, ‘it’s your star man.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘It’s David Bowie,’ I exclaim and launch into Starman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the next few weeks the spirit of David
Bowie, trapped in a suckled child’s toy, waggled about while I tunelessly sang
my son his hit singles up until Ashes to Ashes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was an odd way to pay tribute to the man who so singularly sound
tracked my teenage life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, more than
that: Bowie’s music showed me what was possible and how it was perfectly
acceptable to stretch and cajole an art-form into something that fitted your
unique vision, provided you had absolute mastery of in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has been something I have been failing to
do ever since, but at least he gave me the inspiration needed to try.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I am trying to ensure my son understands this too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am trying to live out my failed musical
fantasies through him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">For Christmas, my wife gave me a <a href="http://www.stephencollinsillustration.com/" target="_blank">Stephen Collins print</a> where
a baby is being cared for by its Dad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Dad decides to put some music on, but rather than something age
appropriate he thinks the Fall would be more fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The baby has to be talked down from a crying
fit by the stuffed penguin it is cuddling, left to wistfully dream of a future
where modern music will terrify and annoy the older generation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every time I read it, I chuckle, not only
because Collins’ art if fantastic, but because I recognise myself so clearly in
the strip.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Listen to this, it’s brilliant, if a little heavy!’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My son whacks his drum over and over and I think he’s a
genius, the next John Bonham.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then
he thumps a wooden car against the glass coffee table repeatedly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He just likes smashing things.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Still, I look forward to the days in the future when we will
sit down together and I will say, ‘listen to this, it’s important.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he will, no doubt, roll his eyes
disparagingly, wondering what all the fuss is about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I bought a copy of Songs of Leonard Cohen in my early
twenties, on the strength of its reputation, and then, a few years later, acquired
a copy of Death of a Ladies Man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
former I found lyrically interesting, but frequently a little dull; the latter felt
a muddy, over-produced mess with occasional glimpses of fizz. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I struggled to understand what all the fuss
was about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess, in the end, I was
simply too young to appreciate his brilliance and uniqueness.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A friend of mine and I bonded over just the mention of
Leonard Cohen’s name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was back when
I was making a point of not really having friends at work because it was easier
to separate my real, often drunken, frequently miserable, always pretentious
self and the artifice of normality I presented in the workplace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was moved to sit opposite me and it was
immediately clear we had lots in common, but it wasn’t prepared to drop my
guard until I overheard her talking enthusiastically about the National, and
comparing the lead singer’s vocal style to Cohen, before adding: ‘Of course
no-one is really like Leonard Cohen, he’s just otherworldly.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">By this time I was immersing myself in Cohen’s back
catalogue and was coming to the same decision myself; the reason I’d struggled
to really connect to him when younger is because there aren’t really any
reference points.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, he’s singing
complex lyrics, but then so does Bob Dylan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yes, he’s essentially an acoustic troubadour who occasionally borrows a
bigger band set-up, but so are countless others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Underneath that, the lyrical eye, the
meticulousness of the song messages, the bleak, over-looked humour, are all so
much more than anyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Although, in fairness, aside from Songs of... it wasn’t
until Old Ideas in 2011 that he finally managed to get the production of a record
right, striking just the right notes between acoustic and band, perfectly
underplayed without being overly simplistic.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Unlike Bowie, Cohen’s complexity means he is unlikely to
have been the theme tune to many teenagers’ lives, but that doesn’t mean it fails
to inspire passions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Years ago, my then
girlfriend and I had been at a festival in Kent watching Neil Young.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was only a one day thing, so it was
midnight and was were sat in the car waiting for the traffic to begin to move.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As one of the first people to have arrived,
we were going to be one of the last out, that was clear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a hot evening, and we sat with the
windows down, trying not to fall asleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The car next to us was playing Cohen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually, Hallelujah came on and the volume
was cranked up to the max.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The windows
were rolled up, but you could still hear the music, that stretched vocal,
cracking the tinny speakers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A joyous
baritone of regret subverted by static.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The couple began to kiss to the rhythm of the song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their embrace became increasingly passionate
until the seats were reclined and, after a moment’s pause, long enough for a tugged
fumble, the car back to gently rock on its wheels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the song reached its climax I expected a
hand to slap against the steam forming on the window glass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It didn’t. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Slowly the car came to a rest, but the couple
didn’t reappear.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Against the slew of celebrity deaths throughout 2016 these
are the two which struck me the hardest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It wasn’t just the surprise of Bowie’s or the inevitability of Cohen’s,
but the beauty in their deaths which caused a tightening of the chest, a
welling at the eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both were able to
release last testaments, final pieces of music mere days before they died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bowie’s Black Star was one his most
challenging and original albums.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cohen’s
You Want it Darker offered the final bites of wisdom from a life well lived,
the last words were had.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both of them
had found a creative patch that was almost the strongest they had ever had. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Not many people have the privilege, to know the end is
approaching and to be able to say something final about life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That usually only happens in bad fiction, as
the family gathers around the deathbed, the child leans in to half-hear the gasped
final testament, misunderstood and lied about to the grandchildren for ever
more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Real life is almost always crueller,
snatching people away unexpectedly or in agony.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Prince didn’t beat real life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nor
did Victoria Wood, or George Michael, or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/nov/01/steve-dillon-obituary" target="_blank">Steve Dillon</a>, or Ronnie Barker, or
Alan Rickman, or Carrie Fisher, or Jimmy Perry, or Robert Vaughan, or Gene
Wilder, or Muhammed Ali, or Harper Lee or god knows how many others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bowie and Cohen cheated real life and they
cheated bad fiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were able to
create something that lasts, that can be slowly unpeeled and, when the grief alleviates,
can be finally understood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, that is
a thing of wonder to be treasured indeed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-65711590956707755702017-01-03T21:45:00.002+00:002017-01-03T21:45:11.061+00:00Writing about not writing<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwWsueoR_bntyQY2xjX7sg-N9svK2EgfvjsFLE8vxJa9FnBnWKvJe_pAPyiiUbrimeENHBU2bKiNli8FBkrQU8Qrkf4g3dBgAmoBAH7HMiifOaPOe8BggHptspINQViPLUozQXZBM254Lw/s1600/WP_20160827_14_35_11_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwWsueoR_bntyQY2xjX7sg-N9svK2EgfvjsFLE8vxJa9FnBnWKvJe_pAPyiiUbrimeENHBU2bKiNli8FBkrQU8Qrkf4g3dBgAmoBAH7HMiifOaPOe8BggHptspINQViPLUozQXZBM254Lw/s320/WP_20160827_14_35_11_Pro.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I find it staggering that my son is a year old.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Since his birth my writing productivity has dried up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I always knew it would drop off, but even in
my most despondent moments about becoming a parent, I didn’t think it would be quite
this bad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Babies sleep a lot, I
reasoned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Things haven’t quite worked
out as expected.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">There are various reasons for this. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most obviously there is a lack of time, compounded
by a lack of sleep which creates a fuddled mess of an imagination no longer able
to hold a thought through to conclusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Surprisingly the lack of a routine has created a lack of momentum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Previously I would normally complete a first
draft of a scene or of a whole piece in a matter of days. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now it takes weeks, or longer, until the end
of it is an abstract thing so disconnected from its start as to no longer be
coherent or even relevant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another human in the house
causes a lack of space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there is a
lack of urge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Time is stolen away from me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There’s no real shock revelation there, but prior to Dadness I hadn’t
appreciated that as well as baby supervision the amount of domestic and
administrative chores increase exponentially and not just by an extra third.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Furthermore the time to complete those is
shoved into the unlikely hours of the day where previously writing would take
place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Washing clothes happens late at
night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Researching imagined medical conditions
or some gizmo I had hitherto not realised existed let alone grasped its
essentialness occurs while he naps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
inevitable aching for those four in the morning moments spent feeding or comforting
to be given back takes place when the alarm goes off first thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If this is all true for me, it is one hundred times more
acute for my wife, especially in the early months where her very movements were
limited by the lips clamped to her chest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As he has got larger and more active, the headspace where it is possible
to do one thing and to think about something else disappears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes a surprising amount of mental
agility to stack plastic beakers or pretend a cuddly lion is eating his
stomach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similarly, the commute becomes
a manic dash where all thoughts are focussed on returning as quickly as
possible or trying to overtake on the way in those minutes lost by playing with
him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paid working hours need to become
infinitely more effective so that, where previously, time had paused to allow
some notes to be scribbled, anything that adds even five minutes onto my
departure time is vehemently resented.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is only in recent weeks that the constant throb of
tiredness has begun to abate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
still there, I still pine for bed, but I have stopped falling asleep in
meetings, on trains, on the sofa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I no
longer yawn through entire conversations and my caffeine intake has fallen
below levels which would kill many people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yet still I crave sleep like, in the past, I have craved whisky, an all
encompassing urge for the pillows’ soft depth that would be succumbed to, were
there not so much to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Every now successful writer has a story about the time they created
in the day to put words on paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like
many, a friend of mine advocates the early morning, enjoying that time where
your brain is not quite clear and the words can slip through the gaps in
perception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Previously I would happily
settle down to write when others were ending their day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, I already get up a six to get to work
for seven-thirty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could get up even
earlier, although the idea of disturbing my wife with an alarm at a time she
considers the middle of the night fills me with guilt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Besides, where once I sprang out of bed no
matter the time, now I sometimes find it physically impossible to lift my head
when the alarm trings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, I hit
snooze and immediately regret the panic of the minutes to be made up – and then
he wakes anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My evenings are now
occupied with stuff that needs doing. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
after ten?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am too tired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t go to bed, but that is only because a
day that races full tilt from six in the morning until ten at night needs an
hour to unwind, time to read or to think (but not to write).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Despite the weariness in my gut, if I went
straight to bed from sixty miles an hour I know I would lie in the gloom,
staring at the ceiling, waiting for who knows what?</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For me writing has always been a pressurised activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have to splurge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has always been a clattering rush to catch
the idea before the moment is lost and it drifts away in memory as though never
having been there in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Inspiration is ethereal and fleeting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The refinement through editing can take years, but, for me, there needs
to be something down to play with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My hard drive is littered with short stories and fragments
of what may have become something bigger where the momentum was lost, the all
precious voice reduced to a faint comedy accent, a stereotype so obvious the
whole foundation is sliding sand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These
are pieces where I wasn’t quick enough, where some bit of real life got itself
miserably in my way, and the words just evaporated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Regular readers will have seen evidence of this over the
years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The best posts on here are those
captured in a few hours, tweaked and spruced up over a couple of days and set
free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ones which struggle the
hardest are often those I laboured over the most.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That works fine as a model for blogs and
short stories, but, obviously, one cannot write a novel in such a way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of the two unpublished novels I like best,
one was written in an almost feverish six months where I had no other
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The draft which emerged at the end
of that time was short and unpolished, but it was a good base I spent the
following year building upon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The other
was written with more care over the course of a year with interruptions for
life events, such as moving in with my now-wife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fever was abated, but I kept the voice
loud in my head at all times, teaching myself to almost think like the
narrator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The finished draft was less
patchy, although I was to spend another three years trying to polish the
imperfections out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These revisions would
take place over a concentrated period of time, a few months or so where I would
find the voice again and in-between I would work on other stuff.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Since my son’s birth I have not opened the file containing
the earliest sketches of the new novel I had been working on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The voice I had is lost, as alien to me now
as a sonar bleep across the stars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
thought that might happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hopefully
I’ll come back to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For this first year
I had more modest plans around short stories and blog posts, all of which were
dutifully started, all are unfinished, and arguably unfinishable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Space too is important.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I used to want writing to feel a part of the everyday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t want to have to make the effort to
begin, just to slip into the role.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Living
alone my whole flat became an extended desk; when my now-wife and I first moved
in together I carved out a space behind the kitchen door, which was more
pleasant than it sounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was isolated
and focussed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In our house, I shared an
office space with my wife who often worked from home, allowing me to take over
the desk in the evenings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the summer,
I found my thoughts distracted by the views over Lewisham and to Oxleas Wood in
the distance, but at least it was a room I could spread my imagination out in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That room is now my son’s bedroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The desk that was in there is now in the
spare room, the chair bumps into the bed when I lean back in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two rooms are next to each other and so
in reality I find myself on the dining room table, amongst the fruit and
newspapers, the fragments of ordinary life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It may be uncomfortable, but is better than worrying that every key
stroke will wake him from his slumber (even though, logically, I know it won’t).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except downstairs, life is more
prevalent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The washing up needs doing,
the gas bill needs paying, the washing machine roars in a way that can’t be
good for it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am distracted by a
thousand different bits of normal life that need finishing.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But none of this matters.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The poet Jackie Kay once said that we write to understand
what’s missing in our lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The second unpublished novel, the one<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wrote in a frenzy, sweating in summer sun,
cramped in the box sized flat, fuelled by whisky and coffee was about heartbreak,
loneliness, rock n roll, no-one listening to you and never growing up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I stopped refining it and trying to sell it
shortly before my wife and I moved in together.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The third unpublished novel was about murder, envy,
unrequited impossible love, buildings and never realising what’s
important.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the years it took me write
it I doubled my paid-work salary, got married and became the minor shareholder
in a house.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Before my son was born I was starting to work on something
about politics, about the death of liberalism, about hope, a single history of
a family intertwined with the soul of the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The scenes I’d written were mainly about
fatherhood.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All a coincidence?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maybe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Probably not.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The other evening, when I was getting my son ready for bed,
I lifted him up in order to tug his top down and he reached his arms around my
neck, burying his head into my shoulder, gurgling happily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s that, and there’s the way he babbles
along “Dada, dada,” and greets every return with a smile of joy wider than my
heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s the game we have where he
chases me around the downstairs of the house, trying to find me in one of the
two places I can hide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The way he looks
at me a moment before diving off the bed, or under the bathwater, that glance
that says “I know I can do this because you’ll save me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All those and a million other reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s why writing no longer matters.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
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<o:p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Well, except it does a little bit.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As I type I am sitting in a metal storage container in the
car park of an old police station, a space I am subletting to escape the
chores. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s early Sunday morning,
barely nine, and there’s a biting chill to the air that cools the coffee next to
the computer faster than I can drink it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My son has been awake, fed and played with and gone down for his nap
already and so I am excused to come here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One eye remains on the clock in the bottom right corner of the screen,
watching the two hours disappear faster than the words can appear.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If I don’t write I feel like I am going mad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I don’t write there is nowhere for all the
stuff, all the emotions, the ideas, the fear to dissipate to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I don’t write I only feel half alive.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No, that’s not fair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s not that melodramatic, but it does feel like something is missing.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Maybe Jackie Kay is right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maybe I just need to work out, as my life becomes ever better, what it
is I am missing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the moment it feels
as though the things I have lost are space and time to think, to create and
maybe understanding that will be one of the hardest parts of becoming a Dad.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So for the time being I am writing about not writing, and
that’s better than nothing.</span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<br /></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-55214554760553971012016-06-21T22:41:00.002+01:002016-06-21T22:41:25.236+01:00Europe
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgCLcfu0oim3oJjg7IAbNB2480l_N-s7JLcQpqqFHpAzAPtDiq5_DpkT9o3SOe5zCS0uCl0eOKy-QI9yzAGFrftZEbRHmohGvQjN167oa45_Qo3-YD94N9ocaga_PK_rXr19NbfJ9wjZN/s1600/P1013394.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgCLcfu0oim3oJjg7IAbNB2480l_N-s7JLcQpqqFHpAzAPtDiq5_DpkT9o3SOe5zCS0uCl0eOKy-QI9yzAGFrftZEbRHmohGvQjN167oa45_Qo3-YD94N9ocaga_PK_rXr19NbfJ9wjZN/s320/P1013394.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Statue depicting, possibly, how UK voters feel, Copenhagen</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Somehow, as I type this, it has become the 7<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> of
June.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I started thinking about this
during my month’s paternity leave over December and January, getting down a few
thousand words at odd times of the night, at the kitchen table during the
softly lit mornings when it felt mid-afternoon, or evening, or who knows
when.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My initial ideas for an arc about
the importance of Europe quickly proved too big, too unwieldy for the time I had
and so were abandoned.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Then I tried again, sometime when things got a little
easier, when we found the new rhythm of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That was better thought out, more realistic, but I lost interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fundamentally I didn’t really have an
argument and was largely swiping concepts from a Radio 4 documentary I’d heard while
driving through Lincolnshire one Tuesday morning, the tempo of my prose as flat
as the landscape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And so, here I am.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The 7<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> of June.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
Tuesday evening, the summer downpour leaving the garden feeling fresh and cool
after the afternoon’s clamminess, the breeze comes through the French windows
of the kitchen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Part of my brain is
contemplating the pre-six o’clock start for paid work tomorrow morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rest of it is worrying about the 23<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">rd</span></sup>
of June.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The referendum on our membership of the European Union is probably
the most important decision we have faced in a generation and I seem unable to
properly plug myself into what’s happening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When I wrote far reaching, well researched, coherently argued pieces
around the <a href="http://davidmarstonwrites.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/augstine.html" target="_blank">2010</a> and <a href="http://davidmarstonwrites.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/things-change_18.html" target="_blank">2015</a> elections I was watching an hour or more of news and
devouring the BBC and Guardian websites every day as a minimum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the moment, I seem barely able to remember
there’s a choice for the nation to make.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Of course, I have my excuse:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My son is almost six months old and while it is significantly easier
than it was, there are scarcely any free moments in a day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that’s okay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would much rather spend half an hour
playing with him, seeing his gummy grin as I enter a room, than contemplating
the disaster looming.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But this is important, vitally so, and not just for me and
the immediate future, but for him and for years to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once we are out there will be no way back
in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my overly privileged bubble it
all seems obvious, but around the country I fear those who want to leave are
gaining traction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Remain campaign is
a shambles so every right thinking person needs to wade in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to help, but how am I supposed to
find the time and the head space to write for our futures?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">*</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And there we go, it’s now the 15<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> of June and I
got little further than the above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I may
not have been writing, but I did manage to pay closer attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Depressingly, the outcome seems worse than I
thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think the Leave campaign is
going to just sneak a victory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More
interestingly, I think I have, finally, begun to understand why.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Both sides have tried to distil a hugely complex system into
simplistic messages leaving factually incorrect sound-bites and we all spend
time picking holes in each others’ supposed facts rather than addressing the
fundamental motivation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which is easy
enough to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s debunk some of the
arguments for Leave:</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We all know that the £350m Boris Johnson so maturely carved
into metal with a chainsaw and is emblazoned on the side of the Leave
campaign’s bus is, at best, misleading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The reality is that the majority of that money either never leaves the
country or is reinvested back here as subsidiaries for industries such as
farming or green energy or infrastructure projects such as introducing
broadband to Cornwall, developing a number of centres for innovation at
universities around the country, subsidising regional graduate employment
programmes, rejuvenating the port of Sunderland, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/erdf-programmes-progress-and-achievements" target="_blank">and hundreds of other projects</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This leaves some £160million being invested into Europe each
week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of that will be used to
support the EU’s infrastructure, but much of it will be used to invest into
similar development projects for the poorer member states of the club.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By developing these countries, by stimulating
Slovakia’s economy, for example, it improves the wealth, well-being and living
standards of the population enabling them to buy more things off us (leaving
aside the services we may sell to them in order to deliver on their
projects).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The EU is a self-generating
marketplace, an internal wealth machine.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Unlike some of the claims being made by Leave the EU does
not prevent us from trading with anyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Instead it enables it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, it
prioritises internal European trade, in the same way that significant import
tariffs to the USA encourage citizens to Buy American (not that it works very
well, as many a Donald Trump support will tell you), but it also facilitates
sensible trading deals with the rest of the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By acting as a whole we have a greater
buying/selling power that supports our ability to trade with India, China,
Brazil and America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any suggestion that
operating alone we will somehow gain preferential treatment and overhaul the
fact that Europe is by far our biggest market in a short space of time is
hopeful at best and wilfully ignorant at worst.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The majority of the world’s significant trading countries have already
indicated they would prefer to work with Britain as part of the EU, not as a
separate entity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, we could always
sell financial services to North Korea in exchange for a tractor that breaks
down after ten minutes.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Perhaps that’s who our natural bedfellows should be, after
all one of the claims by Leave is that we need to regain our sovereignty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We still have it, indeed thanks to the Maastricht
treaty we have more ability to opt out of EU legislation than any other
member.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, our activities are
governed, to an extent, by things like the Human Rights Act (<a href="https://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/human-rights/what-are-human-rights/human-rights-act/human-rights-act-mythbuster" target="_blank">which incidentally was originally written by British lawyers</a>), and our laws cannot directly
contradict EU legislation, but then this applies for members of the United
Nations as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are international
laws which, if you don’t want to have to play by yourself in the corner,
countries willingly sign up to, otherwise you’re completely on the outside of
international society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The question, for
me, no-one seems to have an answer for is which rules do we want
contravene?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What different laws do we
want?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Removal of the right for trial by
jury?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Get rid of carbon emissions
targets?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Allow our food to be pumped
full or hormones like all that cheap Argentinean beef everyone seems exited to
have flown into the country by the end of the month?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The EU is not undemocratic, dictatorial or wholly populated
by self-serving bureaucrats (well, no more than any other civil service, anyway).
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The council of the EU comprises the President,
elected by the other members of the council who are the heads of state, elected
by us, the people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The parliament of the
EU which holds the council to account, negotiates and sets the laws are
directly elected through proportional representation in each country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We vote them in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bureaucracy
that manages the whole thing, writes papers, produces the legislation is, like
any other country in the world, unelected, yes.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Oh, but the immigration is out of control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need to gain control of our own
borders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The country is full,
infrastructure and resources are over-stretched.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>House prices are out of control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, yes and no.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The reason you can’t get an appointment at your GP or your
kids may be struggling to secure school places is nothing to do with
immigration, but policies of austerity over the last six years and a longer
term failure to invest adequately in health, education and social care
systems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wherever you live, if the EU
immigrant population is removed then your GP practice does not magically become
a wait-free experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either you will
see no difference at all because there still aren’t enough GPs working long enough
or non-core hours to meet with demand or, if your practice is overwhelmingly
attended by EU immigrants, then it will probably close because they’re funded
by population head count and suddenly it isn’t viable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Same with your school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The biggest pressure on the NHS is an
increasingly elderly population; on schools it is the congestion of young
people into concentrated areas producing birth rate spikes and the system isn’t
nimble enough to respond in time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
same argument applies to any area of infrastructure you’re feeling the pinch
on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Net EU immigration to the UK has a
peak annual figure of 180,000, a significant number, sure, but they’re not all
living in your street.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So then we’re back to whether that £160 million a week would
make all the difference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reinvest it in
the NHS say Johnson and Gove as though we were voting for them and they had any
right whatsoever to be making promises about what a post-EU membership Britain
might look like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Okay, so £160 million a
week is in the region of £8 billion a year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A lot of cash, but the annual budget of the government is £772 billion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s 1%.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Given that the total deficit for NHS Trusts in England alone was £2.3 billion
in the last financial year, this would just about haul healthcare out the red
temporarily, but is barely a drop in the ocean of what’s required to reconfigure
the whole service and create the sort of utopia yearned for.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Like benefits, there is no system of positive discrimination
that allows EU immigrants to jump ahead of you in the queue for council
housing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There just isn’t enough available
and hasn’t been since Right to Buy was introduced in the eighties and councils
prevented from using the revenue to build more homes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The government we elected in 2015 has pledged
to extend this policy, forcing housing associations to sell their
properties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This shoves people into the
private rental sector which, in London and many other metropolitan areas, is
out of control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, this is nothing
to do with the EU, but the fact that we have a completely deregulated market
with landlords able to charge what they want and a soaring demand due to there
not being any council housing and young people being unable to afford their own
homes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This doesn’t happen in the rest
of Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a uniquely British
problem.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Astronomical house prices, especially in London and the
South East, are not the fault of immigration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They can’t be both unemployed, living on benefits, coming over here to
take the menial jobs the local population wishes they were above, and also be
able to afford paying over the odds for property.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, this is a lack of regulation, a
national mindset whereby we see our properties as our pension or inheritance
cash for our children and grandchildren (too many elderly people rattling around
large family homes), and foreign money laundering into premium London
properties which then sit empty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again,
not the EU’s fault:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Saudi Princes,
Russian oligarchs and Chinese shell companies are not part of the club.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Illegal immigration and non-EU immigration are entirely
different issues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those applying for
visas get assessed in the system we would have even if we left the EU.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those arriving illegally are fleeing a
terrible life elsewhere and are coming to Europe for its stability and economic
prosperity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Okay, yes we can blame the
EU for those last two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the problem
is not confined to Britain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re not
even the biggest recipient of refugees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sweden
takes more immigrants than any other EU state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We don’t change any of this is we leave the EU.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can change it by ending the civil war in
Syria, by ending a police that routinely uses torture in Eritrea, by making
sure homosexuals don’t have to fear for their lives in Uganda, and anywhere
else that people are treated unfairly and life is horrible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You end the refugee crisis by making the
world a better place not by washing your hands of it.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But this is a great country, or it was. On our own, we were
so much better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s be that way
again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we joined the EEC in the
1970s the country was on its knees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Industry
already in terminal decline, Thatcher just put it out of its misery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’d been a three day working week because
we couldn’t keep the lights on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
posing led to the breaking up of the unions and the sale of the utilities companies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reason the French state provider is now one
of our biggest providers of electricity and gas is because we voluntarily sold
it to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Interest rates running at
22% (put that in your mortgage calculator and see whether you can afford
it).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sterling devalued.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A bail-out from the IMF that’s no different
from the economic aid being given to Greece.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We deserved it, why don’t the Greeks?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">If not the point we joined the EEC, then further back?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe, if we’re really honest the only thing
we’ve ever been great at is our military forces occupying countries
significantly behind us in terms of technological developments, raping their
land for raw materials, shipping it back to the UK’s early industrial
manufacturing sites (which were hardly the pinnacle of workers’ rights) and
then forcibly selling back to the colonies at inflated prices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oddly enough I don’t think the rest of the
world is going to let us do that again.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">(And even if they did, it only ever benefited a small,
extremely rich elite, not the masses). </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Unfortunately Leave’s arguments may be utterly flawed, but Remain
is no less sensationalist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A complete
financial apocalypse is not going to happen on the 24<sup><span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span></sup> of June,
although we almost certainly will slide towards a deep rooted and extremely
harmful recession which could cost the livelihoods of a whole generation of
twenty-somethings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>World War Three is
not around the corner, but it will play into the hands of an increasingly
aggressive Russia and I wouldn’t fancy taking on the world’s third largest
standing army (not counting the millions of trained reservists) with an
aircraft carrier that has no compatible planes and a military force the current
government has a habit of serving redundancy notices on while they’re in combat
zones.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">By giving just the negatives it fails to paint a picture as
to the benefits of staying in Europe and nor does it address the fundamental
reason as to why so many people are desperate to leave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, some people are xenophobic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, Boris Johnson only wants to because for
some reason he sees it as a road to being Prime Minister and appears content to
fiddle Nero-like while a fucked up country burns around him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, some businesses seem to think there are
economic benefits to it, but presumably their margins will be found in screwing
profit from the workforce; the boss of JCB is not <a href="https://www.jrf.org.uk/" target="_blank">Joseph Rowntree</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But why do ordinary people want to leave?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I think for many it is fear of and a sense of being lost in
the twenty-first century.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A lot of the economic arguments are about how corporations
are run from abroad, for the benefit of shareholders not the local community
that generate the profits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re about
an absence of job security.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s about
an anonymous high street, about a shopping centre full of big brands somehow
equating to rejuvenation even if you don’t have any money to spend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s about call centres in far flung corners
of the world, businesses moving their workforce to cheaper locations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How we don’t make anything anymore, how work
is an abstract concept rather than a satisfying labour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a lack of social mobility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s about people seething at the fundamental
unfairness of being stuck somewhere with no hope and even less prospects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it’s about being scared that things are
going to be even worse for the next generation.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It’s about thinking that things used to better, when we were
young, when we were carefree, because, you know, they always are when all you
have to worry about is how much pocket money you’re getting, whether that girl
who sits at the back of the bus fancies you, where the next pint comes from,
whether you want chips on the way home or a kebab.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That isn’t the world changing, it’s just the
shock of growing up and realising life as an adult is hard.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But none-the-less, I get all that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I understand why people in areas that have
been trodden on by successive generations of politicians, who have always been
promised something better are really, really pissed off that better has yet to
materialise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At times it feels like the
last politicians to make a substantive change to people’s lives for the better
was the Atlee Labour government, doesn’t it, and that was a long time ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sorry, though, none of that is the fault
of the EU. That’s a globalised economy and in the USA, in Australia, in Japan, it’s
no different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s an adherence to a
neo-liberal form of capitalism, as advocated by Johnson, Gove and Farage, that
works for markets which need to make exponentially increasing profits at the
expense of human satisfaction.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Leaving the EU won’t change that.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The sort of trade agreements being talked about
optimistically by Leave are more of the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The rhetoric is about releasing the shackles on the market, letting
capitalism drive down prices (maybe) with no consideration for personal safety,
job security or the environment.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Lord knows the EU isn’t free from big business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It bends too easily to pressure from
lobbyists (but also often fights off the worst of them) and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4OQeekSD6s" target="_blank">entering into discussions about TTIP was one of the worst ideas</a> since trying to capture the
Suez canal or introducing university fees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But the EU does offer subsidiaries for businesses, it will support key
infrastructure, it does help the market to help the people and that’s a far cry
from what’s being proposed.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">To fix all of this, to make it better, you don’t need a new
European Union you need a new consensual global system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Crazy as it seems I think we stand a better
chance of doing that, no matter how almost impossible, as a part of something
bigger than going it alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And failing that how about we just concentrate of saving the
environment?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not much point having a
world if it’s uninhabitable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, if
Britain wants to be great again it needs a new USP not a new set of trading
agreements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need to take leadership
and develop true innovations in green technology, ordinary technology,
financial services which suggest a different way of doing things is possible, a
society which focuses on the benefits of all not just a few in the right place
with the right friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And once we’ve
done that for ourselves, let’s lead the way in Europe and from there, who knows
where we could end up.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Today, for thousands around the country, life is shit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s miserable, skint and we pine for
something abstractly better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We long for
a past that never quite was, but you can never go back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You just have to go forward, like cultural identities
we continually evolve and a notion of Britishness is not the same today as it
was when we were kids, and that’s okay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s just life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s hard, I
know it is, and it’s scary and it’s easier to yell and vent all that pent up
frustration against something which doesn’t really understand why you’re so
upset.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know all that, and it doesn’t
necessarily make leaving the wrong thing to do, I just think most people are
doing it for the wrong reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Leave is, essentially, offering more of the same and a
sliver of hope that it will, somehow, be better than it currently is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What we should be doing is hoping for better,
having the system in place to deliver better and in the meantime having the
security of the status quo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Change is
incremental not a lighting flash and to change we must Remain.</span></div>
<br />
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
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<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-45368720968070358722016-05-04T17:58:00.003+01:002016-05-04T17:58:57.155+01:00Boris' Legacy/London's Decline.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTj5__ffmnVswKM9eawJ-sK01qJxQ1mDYhvSVNzulgZUbU009-qls4dlVm0NykyhTsAh5OoZ5JkLB6WvJ-ucoHX6lSv1CK93IFo2vm8pXpl4psui34Lieko2X7DIMGuPsi9kdNtzcgy1tb/s1600/P9231876.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTj5__ffmnVswKM9eawJ-sK01qJxQ1mDYhvSVNzulgZUbU009-qls4dlVm0NykyhTsAh5OoZ5JkLB6WvJ-ucoHX6lSv1CK93IFo2vm8pXpl4psui34Lieko2X7DIMGuPsi9kdNtzcgy1tb/s320/P9231876.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">George Orwell keeps coming on holiday with me.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Last September amongst the faded vine wrapped quiet of a
Tuscan farmhouse, I found a copy of <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/George-Orwell-Life-Bernard-Crick/dp/014014563X" target="_blank">Bernard Crick’s biography of Orwell</a>,
something I’d wanted to read for some time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With my wife entering the heavy phase of pregnancy, it was a lazy break
with much time spent on the veranda, coffee or beer to hand, the sun crawling
through the sky, the book open on my lap and my thoughts dipping between Lancashire,
Catalonia, Burma, Paris and London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Eight months later as the rain lashes against the cottage in
the middle of Scottish nowhere and with the views of the Loch below, from
whence the water runs to the sea and the Isle of Skye until the ocean beyond, I
find myself thinking about Orwell again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/10/1984-george-orwell" target="_blank">After the Second World War, Orwell retreated from London life to the remote island of Jura, supposedly because the air would be good for this ever-worsening tuberculosis, but also, I suspect, because he needed to the free of the city to write his masterpiece, 1984.</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A novel with a world of beautifully realised, so distinctly different
from ours yet where the evolution of it was evident, had to be constructed in
isolation, away from distraction and poor influence.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It was surely no burden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Surprisingly, for a writer of his generation, Orwell never seems to have
particularly liked London, and it shows through his novels like Coming Up for
Air, where the nostalgia for disappearing small town rural life is rife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was never Evelyn Waugh or Graham Greene or
any dozen others, separated to an extent by class (certainly by money) from
many of his contemporaries, London’s charms were likely to be indistinguishable
from, say, Wigan’s.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At one point, around the first half of the century’s first
decade, I could see myself being like Orwell: resentful of London, but feeling
saddled with having to live there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
took me a long time to come to love the city, for many of the reasons everyone
else who comes and tries it for a while leaves:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>it takes ages to get anywhere, it can be busy to the point of suffocation,
every little thing conspires to drain your wages away, the people are
unfriendly, it isn’t interested in you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is easy to find yourself trapped between spheres, unable to know
where you fit in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the bright
young graduates moving to London to not join a bank find themselves on generous
yet not ridiculous salaries, unable to fit with the monied ruling class who
swank about town in taxis, drink cocktails in the most fabulous bars and
somehow live just off Kensington High Street, or in Bloomsbury like it is still
the 1920s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nor do they have much in
common with those they are likely to live alongside, the people who are just
normal in the city: those who work in shops, on the tubes, in normal offices in
places like Tooting and Bromley, Acton and Romford.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, there’s the artistic underworld, but
even if you can get a ticket in, you are likely to find yourself sneered at for
having to work rather than dedicate yourself to your creative muse.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It took me many years to get beyond all that, and to find
myself comfortable in the city, at ease with myself, with friends living
nearby, looking forward to the occasional hour long tube journey as an
opportunity to read, and I began to fall in love with its wonderful reality
rather than the facade most casual visitors see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And yet, in the past couple of years my relationship with
the city has become strained.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We no
longer get on quite as well as we used to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There are times when we just won’t speak to each other, and neither of
us can really remember what sparked to the spat. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And, to a large extent, it is all Boris Johnson’s fault.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://davidmarstonwrites.blogspot.co.uk/2008/04/no-it-cant-be-surely-not-him.html" target="_blank">In 2008 when Johnson emerged as the Conservative candidatefor London Mayor I wrote a snidey, mean-spirited blog about him. At the time I was trying to post every singleweek and had yet to find my voice for these things, such as it is. It wasn’t a terribly well written piecelacking a central argument beyond the unoriginal insight that Johnson is just ashowbiz chasing moron. </a>I didn’t think he
stood a chance against Ken Livingstone, indeed I almost didn’t vote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Time on the day almost ran out, somehow, and
I had to run to the polling station, not that I thought it matter that much.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Implausibly, he won. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAxA-9D4X3o" target="_blank">Johnson is a “nasty piece of work”, as the BBC JournalistEddie Mair described him, who it seems will do anything to gain a moment in thelimelight.</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He appears devoid of
principles as his flip-flopping around whether to be pro or anti-Europe and
whether he would contest a Parliamentary seat in the 2015 election show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both decisions are much more about his
aspirations to be prime minister than any concrete ideology or wish for public
service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Privately he has been,
allegedly, describing himself as bored by being London Mayor, once one of the
top political jobs in the country and something he has manage to whittle down
to an irrelevance while he focuses on the day job of promoting Brand Boris.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somehow, despite his management through
absenteeism, the most diverse city in the country voted in a blonde, blue-eyed
Eton boy, twice, and he is now mentioned seriously in any discussion about
potential leaders once David Cameron steps down sometime before 2020.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Perhaps the most staggering thing about Johnson is his
unashamed cheek.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During eight years in
the mayor’s office he has latched himself onto numerous projects, often
triumphantly proclaiming their success, none of which were started by him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bike hire scheme, so associated with him
it is commonly referred to as Boris Bikes?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Instigated by Ken Livingston.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When the East London line extension opened in 2010, Boris rode the first
train into Dalston Junction, proudly waving a Union Jack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The work had commenced years previously with
the final phase resulting in the closure of the existing line in 2007.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anything Olympic related, from wafting
another flag atop of red double -decker bus in Bejing onwards?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>London secured the right to host the games in
2005 and the vast majority of work was already underway well before Johnson
hitched himself to it.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">His actual achievements are generally rooted in failure and
corruption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His restored routemasters
introduced to replace the perfectly serviceable bendy-buses have a tendency to
overheat in summer and cost significantly more than the original
forecasts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hyped-up super cycleways
are not only less extensive than promised, but poorly maintained,
insufficiently segregated from traffic, frequently confusingly signed and with
a tendency to disappear at major road junctions creating safety issues where
ill-prepared riders find themselves thrust between an articulated lorry and a
plumber running late.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Often they are
little more than a smear of blue paint on the tarmac.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Johnson likes to portray himself as a cycling
champion, whizzing down from his Islington home to City Hall, pausing to scream
abuse at taxi drivers, but really it is all just part of a media image designed
to highlight supposed quirks which make him a “laff”.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The new river crossing, the Emirates Air Line cable car
which links the North Greenwich Peninsula with Canning Town, two points already
conveniently linked by the Jubilee Line, is a £60million tourist attraction
no-one visits and locals avoid – much like the planned Green Bridge could
become.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That scheme seems to be proposed
as both privately owned and publically funded, with security guards intended to
keep people moving amongst the flora and fauna.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It whiffs of scandal before a single foundation has been bored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What he can be said to have achieved is to fundamentally
change the horizon of London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Walking
through one of the South East’s many parks atop hills the view into town is
different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before 2008 one could easily
spot the clustered towers in docklands and the scattered few in the centre of
town, the Gherkin, tower 42, the old post office tower, centre point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, not only is the financial city packed
with staggeringly high towers, but so is Wandsworth, Battersea, Lewisham and
most other town centres.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The air above
our heads is getting packed with glass and steel, much of it not actually
needed, empty office spaces and flats somehow acuminating value, all of it
actively changing the look and feel of the City, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-23930675" target="_blank">some of it determined toattack the people who built it, like some sci-fi version of a seventies’ disastermovie where concentrated sun congeals into a laser like focus on the streetsbelow</a>.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But probably Johnson’s most serious failing is his lack of
moral perspective. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is after all
someone who had a rival beaten up for money, although that was before he was
mayor, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34530932" target="_blank">and beat up a Japanese school boy</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He seems to never miss an opportunity for some cringeworthy gaff that
endears him to people who think politeness is over-rated while really acting a
cover for his own narcissism and inexplicable belief that he is somehow
deserving of the highest offices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Probably it is how, under his watch, London has started to lose its
soul.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So, the housing crisis isn’t directly Johnson’s fault, but
it has happened on his watch and the curious by-product of the traditionally
more affluent areas of London becoming ghost towns, places where the global
elite park millions of pounds worth of bricks alongside their Maserati, is the
surging gentrification and transformation of everywhere else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gentrification is, of course, just change and
places like Brockley are just returning to their affluent beginnings: grand
four storey houses are scrubbed up and returned from flats to single occupancy,
but with it comes CCTV cameras and high front hedges or locked gates to keep
the rest of the neighbourhood out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Previously
the last affordable bastion of affordable zone two London which few could find
on the map, now we see a craft beer bar opening followed by yet another deli or
coffee bar and me meeting people in Cardiff talking about it as somewhere their
cousin who works in advertising aspiring to move to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the wake of every new business something
else has to close, maybe the fancy dress shop, or the paint merchants, and with
their disappearance goes the livelihoods of the people who worked there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The new businesses aren’t for them, they’re
for the new people.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My wife mocks me, pointing out I am claiming affection for a
society I was never truly a part of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
might have chatted with grave diggers and sparkies and alcoholics and gardeners
while pumping bar, but I was doing a masters degree at the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But she misses the point: yes, I do like the
better choice of drinking venues, the nicer and more plentiful restaurants, and
not glancing over my corner when crossing open spaces after dusk, and at the
same time I worry about where all the people who were here before went.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For everyone I know locally who I like,
there’s someone else, a pop star or an investment banker, with whom I struggle
to relate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are the people who move
somewhere and then start demanding change to fit their idyll, it inch towards
the places they have been economically kicked out of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you liked it enough to move here, stop trying to turn it
into something else – if only because it rarely works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems that for every non-chic site - be it
a garage, a carwash, the sorting office, the technical college, the office
furniture retailer with sporadic opening hours – there will be calls for it to
be closed and replaced by a gym, a Waitrose, another restaurant, a high-end
butcher.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The garage I always used was
forced out by increases to land rents and then the property put up for
sale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What have we got in its
place?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some one and two bedroom flats
and a Sainsbury’s Local to complement the one a few hundred metres away over
the railway tracks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I think Johnson is emblematic of how London has shifted over
the last eight years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It feels a bit
more of a selfish city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It feels like it
is interested in only helping and being for those of a certain sort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It feels like it is only slumming it in zone
two, in the Mayoral office, until something grander, more prime ministerial
comes along, and it will stop at nothing to get there.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So it is with relief that Johnson is gone, at least from
local politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there’s a risk that
we’re about to replace one blonde buffoon with another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Okay, maybe Zac Goldsmith doesn’t wear the
same facade of being a drunken simpleton, but he brings with him the same sense
of entitlement, the same self-serving policies, the same aloof disparity for
ordinary people as Johnson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The son of a
billionaire whose only job outside of politics was as editor for a magazine
owned by his uncle, Goldsmith is running a vile campaign, following Lynton
Crosby’s usual strategy of flinging the equivalent of a dead cat on the dinner
table every day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It gets people talking
about the dead cat, even if it turns out to be a fake, but then you move on to
the next moggy’s corpse before anyone has time to ask what you were doing with
a dead cat in your jacket pocket in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/30/battle-london-mayor-dirtiest-fight-zac-goldsmith-sadiq-khan" target="_blank">It might win elections by keeping youropponent on the defensive and persuading the public of their, real or imagined,faults, but by using Sadiq Khan’s religion as a divisive issue and throwing outunsubstantiated accusations of association with extremism it is nasty, petty,and lacks for moral fortitude that real debate instils in worthy winners</a>. <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We can do better. We can be better, surely?</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The clouds dissipate as my son goes to sleep and my wife
heats up soup.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sun is warm through
the windows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mountains become clear
again as though emerging from a fog of disillusionment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe we should run away to the
countryside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe we should abandon the
city to its own, self-induced mess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
Orwell didn’t see 1984 as a judgement, but rather a warning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps we should see Johnson’s reign of the
capital in the same way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you want a
fool in charge, you get eight years of stagnation and nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead you can have something else,
something better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe the clouds will
lift and the light of hope and inclusiveness will return to London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe, and for the time being I’m not giving
up on my home.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-22876488107871985472015-11-30T18:33:00.003+00:002015-11-30T18:38:59.360+00:00Sons or Daughters (Ages of David, Part 8 of 8)<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">My wife is pregnant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am going to be a dad.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Any moment now.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is not a decision we took lightly, nor one taken simply
because it is what we feel we ought to be doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My wife’s career is important to her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We both have reservations about adding
another soul to a planet already over-stretched, about bring someone into a
life which – in all probability – will offer harder choices and a more complex
existence than we, to date, have experienced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And yet, beyond just an idle curiosity of what our spliced genes would
look like, we actively want to be parents.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I want to be a strong father, a good husband.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to provide for and support my
family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t want to let them down.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But I also don’t want to let myself down.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I sometimes feel that there is nothing I can invent, no
fiction I can construct which is worth anyone’s time to read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I find writing this blog, dramatising my own
life, covering up all the scars with words, much easier, and at times more
satisfying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its readership is
reasonable, if not stellar, but significantly higher than those who read the stories
stored on my hard-drive.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In other words I am devoid of inspiration but there is only
so far I can go in trawling my own life for material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My wife and unborn child did not sign up to
become characters for me to manipulate.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Writing takes significant amounts of time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I fear that time being eroded by the arrival
of a child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same time, I welcome
the time being stolen from me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It gives
me a legitimate excuse to give up, to surrender the fact that I am, quite
simply, not good enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And never will
be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No-one will begrudge me giving up
what increasingly feels like a hobby to spend more time with my son or
daughter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All of which is making me sound like a total twat.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">*</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am in my study.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
music plays loudly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The screen blinks as
words fill it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Outside dusk has
fallen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My wife lies in the bed in the
next room, her laptop open, resting with the cat curled up tight to her
thigh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world is calm.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I consider writing an imaginary vignette to compliment the
true-ish stories I’ve been telling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I think about taking my son to the playground in the park,
feeling the gentle smack of the swing being pushed out by my gloved hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rush he feels as he shoots once more into
the air never quite knowing if this time he will fly free, but somehow trusting
he will always come back to my hands.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Or teaching my daughter how to ride her first bike, feeling
the tremble in her hands as I steady her balances and then that surge of pride
as she wobbles decisively over the horizon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That I know she will be able to do anything she wants if we are able to
set her on the right path.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Or a thousand other situations which may or may not ever
come to pass.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Maybe I should dramatise the joke my wife and I keep
telling, that on the morning after our child’s birth I will take to the Hilly
Fields stone circle and raise it aloft in the dawn, promising it the kingdom of
south east London.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But these are just fictions and this is real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is happening and I cannot possibly,
truly, understand what it will be like until it does.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I need to just stop making stuff up and focus
on real life.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">* </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It sounds like I’m not excited, which isn’t true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With every inch my wife has expanded there
has both been a spark of nervousness but also a touch of a thrill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There have been those moments when your gut
somersaults, your heart pinches and the sheer miracle of it all bites: hearing
the rapid fire heartbeat at ten weeks, like a terrified mouse, gave me a sudden
realisation that it was really, truly alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That first time I felt it move, swirl and wriggle, in my wife’s stomach,
as it took a twisting escape from the pressure of my hand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And a hundred, thousand other times. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But I am worried I will fail either it or myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe I put too much emphasis on my need to
write, but at the moments when the words come together the scars are entirely
gone and I feel whole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When it is a
battle to get anything that makes sense out, they weep pus and guilt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am, I realise, utterly ridiculous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My own parents had far realer difficulties in
bringing up their children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From my
touch and go birth onwards, my own Dad had to deal with a, at times,
pretentious and precocious son with strange interests whose ambition left his
ability far behind and who had a tendency to wallow in frustration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dad responded by instinctively doing
everything in his power to provide all for his children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In contrast, I’m moaning about losing a few
hours a week to pointlessly put words into a computer hardly anyone ever sees
anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My problems are miniscule
compared to so many in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I
can be a fraction of the father he has been, my child will be off to a
brilliant start.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Earlier in the year I re-read some of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/jul/15/harvey-pekar-american-anti-hero" target="_blank">Harvey Pekar’swonderful American Splendour</a> stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Pekar was never a professional writer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He worked by day as a file clerk in veterans’ hospital, finding
splendour in the life and struggles of the every day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His comics were his creative outlet which
kept him sane, even finding a way to come to terms with his cancer
treatment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At the time I remember admiring his resilience; the fact
that, even in his darkest moments, Harvey Pekar never gave up on his writing,
on his life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He kept picking away at the
scars of his soul and the society he saw around him, needling away until the
crisp crust split and the truth underneath drizzled out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, sometimes, that’s a release I
crave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To stop picking at my flaws.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A part of me wants to have permission to not
feel guilty about not writing, about not necessarily doing anything other than
being a man, a husband and a dad.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And part of me is terrified that, should I stop, that will
be the end of me.</span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-29754393673177158722015-11-29T17:16:00.002+00:002015-11-29T17:16:23.792+00:0035-ish (Ages of David, Part 7 of 8)
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRkYeV4Hf7O7wzwkXrRuJMoRO31nxXvE7DjxOBG5wqdM2d_UVeu5bGi627bTmK3BNjdi2DSgG6dEY0l0RAwUUtdJmLRx9uWcGY8ibsdblSBiOsWNNVgZUwg_Ze-uwEVbSASSbH0a_Bm-44/s1600/WP_20151129_004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRkYeV4Hf7O7wzwkXrRuJMoRO31nxXvE7DjxOBG5wqdM2d_UVeu5bGi627bTmK3BNjdi2DSgG6dEY0l0RAwUUtdJmLRx9uWcGY8ibsdblSBiOsWNNVgZUwg_Ze-uwEVbSASSbH0a_Bm-44/s320/WP_20151129_004.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘I think we should try to make a baby.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘What?’ I reply from underneath my cagoule’s hood and glance
around at the rain sodden Welsh hillside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>‘Right now?’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘It’d be a bit chilly,’ my wife of five days says.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘But maybe in the autumn when we get back
from Vietnam?’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Uh-huh,’ I say, <a href="http://davidmarstonwrites.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/25-ish-ages-of-david-part-5-of-8.html" target="_blank">remembering a similar conversation</a> and
trying to figure out exactly how I feel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>‘That’s, er, that’s sooner than we’ve previously talked about.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Is it?’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And, actually, I realise that it probably isn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s just that we weren’t terribly specific
and it’s so easy to wilfully misunderstand things when you want to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My wife continues to talk about our future
and I use the rain as an excuse to sink a little back into myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am torn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I want, so desperately, to please her and yet the idea of having a child
in a little over a year’s time seems ludicrous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I am just coming to terms with the idea that I am effectively halfway
through life with little literary output to show for it, and I haven’t realised
yet that my work is about to stall as inspiration rushes away from me. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t for one second believe I am ready for
the responsibilities of fatherhood.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But it is not solely my choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it certainly isn’t my body.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The idea sinks in more as we drop down off Pen Y Fan,
following the bridleway to the ruined buildings overgrown with greenery at the
head of the small dam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It isn’t as
horrifying as I first thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It grows
and images form in my mind, spreading like tendrils through my life map.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘I guess I just thought we’d have more time to, you know,
just be husband and wife, before we became mum and dad too.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">She smiles and I can’t not respond.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">*</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The bathroom door closes and I find myself not sure what I
want the outcome to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the past
couple of months, I have oscillated between excitement and hesitation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There have been moments, sometimes crucial
moments, of doubt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aside from questions
around my own suitability as a parent, it’s a hard world out there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Growing ecological problems, an economy
latched onto the hope that capitalism is somehow endless, that it is possible
for growth to be infinite, while we live in a society that, occasionally, seems
to embrace hate and aspire to social exclusivity. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One that is more than willing to trample
others in its race to the false summit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Who would want the gift of life in such circumstances?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Come and look,’ she calls, so I go upstairs to join her
staring at a soggy piece of card.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Slowly
the colour changes to something definite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She looks so pleased, I can’t help but get swept up in it too, but also
it feels remote.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s a clear change,
but an abstract one too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The next day we head to Normandy for a few days
cycling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Immediately, my wife notices a
difference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has less energy, finds
herself struggling more than she would do normally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She can already feel the changes in her
body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something is taking shape inside
her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile, I feel detached.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is, obviously, happening to me too but I,
simultaneously, am excluded.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">*</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It is summer by the time of the second scan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seeing it, hearing its heartbeat for the first
time helped it all to feel real, but during the lull in-between it has started
to disappear over the horizon again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
can see the physical changes occurring to my wife, but still I struggle to
fully understand them – and consequently to completely understand how I feel
about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do want this, I tell myself,
but I worry that it is just me saying it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m worried about how much I am lying to myself:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That really I am afraid of what it will do to
my life, that its own life will be as muddled as my own.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I haven’t written a word for weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sit upstairs at the computer, looking at
the white glow on the screen and nothing comes out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is just the void, barren and
uncaring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I fear that’s what is growing
inside me.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The technician scans the baby several times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No longer just a foetus, it is taking on
humanoid shape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its profiled head is
luminous and ghostly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A nose, a
forehead, lips and eyelids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
beginning to look real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I squeeze my
wife’s hand and feel a knot of nervousness scrunch in my gut as the
technologist returns from her computer and looks again.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Where has it gone?’ she mutters to herself.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘What?’ I ask, immediately assuming something is wrong.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">She thinks she has seen something called bright bowel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A brief moment where the bowel glowed like
blood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This, she concedes, could have
been a mistake since she can’t replicate it, but it could also be a soft sign
for all sorts of things. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some relatively
benign. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some significantly more serious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Don’t google it,’ I tell my wife, knowing full well that we
both will do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cystic fibrosis. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cytomegalovirus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trisomy 21.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Intrauterine Growth Restriction.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The next few days are tense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I reappraise the questions I’m asking myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It becomes no longer about whether I will be
fit to have a child, but whether I will be capable of caring as much as could
be required.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I fail to answer myself.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Another scan, this time at the bigger hospital with a
consultant operating the machine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Nothing,’ he says.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>‘There is nothing there, nothing to worry about.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The sense of relief I feel is so great I am giddy on my feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the relief is sharpened too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I immediately realise that I do not so much
feel it for myself but for my unborn child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I care about it more than I do myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And that is the moment everything draws into focus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am not ready to be a Dad – no-one ever,
truly is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am detached from the process
of growing a baby because I am one body removed, just like everyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, I do care for it, suddenly and
surprisingly strongly.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">*</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But no words come and wife grows and I feel as though I fail
us.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The air has turned cold tonight for the first time this
year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My breath hangs in the dark two
o’clock air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Someone from our NCT group
gave birth this morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are well
and truly in the drop zone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Labour could
commence at any moment and I am hundred miles away, drunk outside a pub.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am a useless excuse for a man, I think,
followed by something more profound I tell myself to remember and write down
later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I plan to use it here, in this
paragraph, but it is gone, fleeting on the winter wind.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My scars itch with guilt and the demons under my skin writhe
around looking for a route out.</span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-76802832640757549802015-11-29T11:10:00.002+00:002015-11-29T11:10:30.962+00:0030-ish (Ages of David, Part 6 of 8)
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixGwEvr-eq52ykm8JQ-M5kxPE9UX2UfAiIN1VL_SW1MMeXewYYThSxummga-ZSPoi3q1rQztH6KcXZWikxRnxa4VPYSL2qQmPdzjc9CsrE66V6i3FjyaJg0zXiBMwET831DTAPOu6zEpRU/s1600/WP_20151129_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixGwEvr-eq52ykm8JQ-M5kxPE9UX2UfAiIN1VL_SW1MMeXewYYThSxummga-ZSPoi3q1rQztH6KcXZWikxRnxa4VPYSL2qQmPdzjc9CsrE66V6i3FjyaJg0zXiBMwET831DTAPOu6zEpRU/s320/WP_20151129_001.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Before I even open my eyes I’m wishing I was still asleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s a burn in my brain and an acidy fire
in my gut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It feels like my memories are
combusting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mouth is heavily dry, my
tongue scuzzily fuzzed over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I really
need to pee.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Slowly I peel my eyelids
open, the summer’s morning light doesn’t sting but it does all look out of
focus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s a half empty bottle of
California rose on the bedside table, which is surprising, not least because I
don’t have a bedside table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes the
realisation that the pillow is a paunchy yellow to fully comprehend that this,
probably, isn’t my bed.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Unsurprisingly, on that basis, I am not alone, but the heavy
breathing suggests that I am the only one in the waking world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I slip out from under the covers, relieved to
see I am at least wearing boxers, and go in search of a bathroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m lucky; it’s directly opposite the
bedroom, across the hall, the door ajar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The stinking wine heavy piss is long and, eventually, a relief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s no toilet paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Afterwards I splash some water on my face,
but I can’t get it to run cold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
clammy warmness doesn’t alleviate my symptoms.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I go in search of a glass, wandering through the flat in
just my underwear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I find the kitchen
and pour myself some more lukewarm water, glugging back the whole glass in one
and refilling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mouth feels less
rancid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I take my water to the window.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re high.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maybe the sixth floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The flat
looks out on the greyed out grass of a communal area and other blocks smudged
between the raised train tracks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not
entirely sure where I am.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>South of the
river, I think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was definitely a
bus ride.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I don’t think it is as bad as it could be, but I can’t
rightly remember.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s another two
empty rose bottles on the table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
are also a pair of man’s trainers which aren’t mine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Momentarily I panic that it may be a boyfriend,
but then I remember mention of a flatmate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Less dangerous, but no doubt equally less keen to discover me, without
clothes, early in the morning.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">How early, I wonder and glance at the clock on the
cooker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It says 16.32.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It can’t be afternoon, I think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s too quiet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I creep back into the room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On the bedside table is my watch, next to an empty wineglass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just after six.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I get back into the bed, feeling too dreadful
to contemplate anything else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The girl
rolls off her back, onto her side and I look at her face and try to
remember.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her hair smells of
cigarettes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I turn my face to the
ceiling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the corner, by the window,
there is a black patch of mould.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
sheets feel greasy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What, I think, do I
do now?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Go to sleep, my body answers for me, encouraging my eyes to
close.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘That was a narrow escape,’ she says.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t reply, unsure what to say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m not sure I know the answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>‘I mean, this could be really awkward right now.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Uh-huh.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Well, goodbye then.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Oh.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I open my eyes
and sit back up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Goodbye, I guess.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I get dressed quickly, deciding as I do that this suit has
definitely seen better days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I pause at
the door, wanting to find some witty respite or at least some way for this not
to be quite so humiliating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t think
of anything so I leave.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘See you,’ comes the voice along the corridor.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Downstairs, passing through the door that doesn’t securely
shut, I suddenly remember arriving via a hole in the fence by the road rather
than through the estate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I find the gap
and squeeze through it, jumping down the last few feet to the pavement making a
passing dog walker jump.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Sorry,’ I mutter but he just scowls.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I’m still not sure where I am, but start walking
anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The morning is already warm and
I feel empty, deflated of food and energy, but with an empty walk is what I must
do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After a while I find a road I
recognise, round the back of the refuse centre you pass on the train between
New Cross and London Bridge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The faint
waft of composting rubbish floats on the air.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This is not exactly my finest hour, but by the time I have
arrived home I am at least starting to feel human again, and there is something
from all the tumbled up emotions that I can feed off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I shower, make myself two sausage sandwiches
with brown sauce and a pot of coffee and go to work, funnelling all the
weirdness into words on the page.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Several hours of writing flow effortlessly, the click-clack of the
keyboard creating a stomach settling rhythm.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Early in the afternoon she texts me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do I want to meet for a drink later?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I politely decline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her response is furious and so I keep on
typing.</span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-27628153477654722462015-11-28T17:21:00.003+00:002015-11-28T17:21:52.958+00:0025-ish (Ages of David, Part 5 of 8)
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje52Fj1XE0lJAZQmHfHWr0lkvqadJjk1FaET4n5ZSRCPb8_Vi72gCDPr_QcdSzOOqjrBen6UE_GVT5EeV88boUQKu9Mjs_Xk1YGK5fDHV0VnewgU1J8bAq6gLf3M4LOty1wRyottRw8V_8/s1600/WP_20151128_004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje52Fj1XE0lJAZQmHfHWr0lkvqadJjk1FaET4n5ZSRCPb8_Vi72gCDPr_QcdSzOOqjrBen6UE_GVT5EeV88boUQKu9Mjs_Xk1YGK5fDHV0VnewgU1J8bAq6gLf3M4LOty1wRyottRw8V_8/s320/WP_20151128_004.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘I want to have a baby,’ she declares one Tuesday night, sat
at the kitchen table with an Ikea catalogue open in front of her at the kid’s
bedroom page.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m doing the washing up.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Er,’ I reply, continuing to towel a plate in as nonchalant
fashion as possible wondering where to start.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘It’d be so cute.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘I think working with so many babies everyday is clouding
your judgement.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘I’m not broody,’ she says, mock offended.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She looks away and smiles slightly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Maybe a little. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’d be amazing.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘I guess.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘You don’t sound super convinced?’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And she’s right, I don’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Because I’m not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Twenty-four
hours previously we were embroiled in an almost violent argument, verbally not
physically, about who knows what.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Something so fleeting that it should barely have been worth commenting
upon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is nine o’clock on a Tuesday
and tomorrow morning I have to get up at half four and drive to Bolton for a
meeting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I should be going to bed, not
having this conversation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I should be
doing anything other than having this conversation.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘So when are we going to have a baby?’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Are we having a baby?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We have been together, sort of, for eight years, or there-abouts,
depending on exactly when this conversation is taking place, and we haven’t
discussed this before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know my
girlfriend wants kids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She works
part-time with children, she loves children, it’s obvious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The thing is, I’ve never asked myself whether
I do, or not.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘It’s what people are programmed to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We breed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s genetics.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Sure, but things have changed from other generations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not like we’ll be social outcasts if we
don’t.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And why should I have thought about whether I want children
or not?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can barely cope with thinking
about what’s going to happen from one day to the next.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I mean, we’re still young, right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s plenty of time to be taking these
sorts of decisions.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Some of your friends have kids already.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Yeah, but they live in a village.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Wales.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘That’s not really an argument.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘No, I guess it isn’t.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The thing is, I haven’t been very good at taking decisions
of any sort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I loved living in
Sheffield, but moved to South East London to be with her, because that’s where
she was and she couldn’t countenance living anywhere else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only in London, she’d said, could she be an
artist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t really know what that
meant for me and so, unoriginally and like millions of others, I took the first
decently paying job I could find.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a
moment, I went from having dreams of creativity to being a media sales
rep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Against all expectations I was rather good at it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A booming economy works in my favour for
certain, but at the same time barely two years earlier I would regularly find
my fingers shake when dialling a phone number knowing I’d have to speak to whoever
answered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was painfully shy, preferring
the silence of comfortable friendships to actually having to venture an
opinion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are characteristics
rather at odds with someone adept at sales.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So, I made up someone else to do it for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I created a facade of myself to do the
patter, the sales pitch, the charming smile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s all possible if I pretend that it’s someone else doing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can be more decisive, more endearing, more
articulate if it’s not me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because if
it’s all made up, it doesn’t really matter whether it’s right or wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Fakery got me promoted several times until I am national
sales director, selling floor space at exhibitions for the construction
industry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The national bit means I spend
my weeks traipsing around the country, locked in place behind the car’s
steering wheel, and my weekends trying to recoup sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While my peers are out enjoying the delights of
London, I go to bed early.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And those dreams
of writing because less and less tangible, as another month goes by and the
short story I have been trying to will into existence, which in some ways sits
perfectly formed inside my head, doesn’t grow beyond the first paragraph.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">As the woman who will become my wife will tell me several
years hence, I have the job of someone in their mid-forties twenty years too
early.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But I don’t know that yet.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It is only just occurring to me quite how much of my life I
am faking.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘No we don’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">have</i>
to,’ she says, ‘but what if I want to?’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And somehow I don’t say that if I had the opportunity to do the
one thing I wanted to, then it would involve a bottle of whisky and be as far
from a baby as possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t remind
her that I already pay the vast majority of rent and bills and that if I listen
hard to the tiny voice inside me, it tells me how crushed by life’s tedious
reality it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I manage to not say any
of those things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or maybe I do, because
before I can stop the slide we’re arguing again and I’m wondering whether the
glass on the table is going to be directed at me again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re bitter spiteful arguerers, throwing out
often untrue words that can never be taken back.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A few years later I will tell myself that it’d be okay, that
we could have a baby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have refound
myself, given up the sales job to write, but the arguments have increased.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t admit it to myself, but my change of
heart is to try and prevent the inevitable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I never voice my idea, because instead <a href="http://davidmarstonwrites.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/three-weeks.html" target="_blank">she tells me it’s over</a>.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And with hindsight, maybe, there’s more than a smudge of
relief.</span> </span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-91719141771948723782015-11-26T21:59:00.002+00:002015-11-26T21:59:23.611+00:0020-ish (Ages of David, Part 4 of 8)
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The sun is coming up as I walk home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the things I love about Sheffield is
the hills.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love how they shape the
view of the city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The natural contours
scarred with civilisation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sun
rises, sprinkling morning light over the tower blocks on the far side of the
city as the steep incline takes me away from the party, off, at last to bed.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I wish I could stay here forever.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Crookes’ terraces fade into Broomhill’s tall Victoriana,
the houses using the hillside to leer across the streets towards the distant slopes,
evidence of life scratching away at the dawn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m unsteady on my feet, but the calm gentleness of the new morning
gives me a sense of belonging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel
the city speak to me, as though it holds me amongst its bricks and mortar, its
parks and lights, its epic and small lives, the morning milk collected and the
broken dreams of the night before, the hope of youth and the drudgery of all
other ages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Its faded tiredness of the
previous fifteen year’s economic onslaught is finally ebbing and the first
roots of a new life, a different tomorrow, are showing and it wants me to share
in them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I know I am going to
abandon it.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I realise, as I turn the corner, that I am not alone.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Hello Dave.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Hello Mad Andy,’ I reply.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘You’re up very early.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Or late.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Going home
now, Andy.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Did I miss something last night?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I came round, but no-one answered the
door.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He looks genuinely crest-fallen
and I feel, momentarily, guilty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of
us have taken to avoiding Mad Andy as we reach the end of our third year at
university.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not that we dislike
him, it’s just that he’s somewhat inconvenient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He’s hard to get rid of when he settles in.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘We were just down the pub.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Bit of a lock-in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then back to
Kris and Simon’s house for a bit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nothing special.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘It’s not even five thirty,’ he says and I’m not sure what
that is supposed to mean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That anything
which had lasted to five thirty must have been special, perhaps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or is it a prelude to some sort of announcement
as to what he’s doing out and about at this time?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Just a Thursday night, Andy,’ I say, which is true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Staying out all night and drinking too much
beer, that’s sort of the point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not
planning anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There will be time
for plans later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now is just spontaneity.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Andy is wearing his regulation uniform of over-sized
trainers, light blue scuffed jeans, a grubby off-white t-shirt and green wax
jacket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His long greasy hair straggles
his equally long face and remind me of the extended locks I have recently shorn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is warm, even so early, as summer kicks
into high gear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He doesn’t need his
jacket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mad Andy isn’t really mad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not truly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But he is eccentric and somewhat socially awkward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s intense with a concentrated stare and a
disconcerting habit of fiddling with his genitals while talking to you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s currently telling me about the Who’s
1970 Live at Leeds album and I’ve largely tuned out.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We round another corner and the view sprawls out towards the
city centre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We pause, taking in the collective
waking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Things are coming to life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A man is jogging further down the hill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is the sound of car engines
firing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most curtains remain staunchly
drawn, but a fragment of the city is up early, breathing in the new day.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘I’ve loved my time here,’ Mad Andy suddenly says.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘I don’t think I’ll ever leave.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Yeah, me too,’ I reply.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>‘But it’s hard to hold onto these days, right?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It won’t be the same being here after we
graduate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything will be too
different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ll start to resent it for
letting us down.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘I don’t think I could leave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t imagine living anywhere else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve discovered who I really am here.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘And who’s that then?’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Why, it’s me. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of
course.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He smiles and barks a sort of
laugh and I think, of course you’re right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>None of us can be anyone else, after all, can we?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Mad Andy can be comfortable in his own
skin and accept that everyone thinks he’s a little odd for having different
thoughts, then I should be able too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Convention is just a mask.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Where
are you going, Dave?’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Eh?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh, London,
eventually.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Why London?’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Good question and I don’t really know the answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t particularly like the capital.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s too flat, too busy, too big to wrap my
head around and yet I know I’ll be moving there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘It’s where my girlfriend lives.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘You should insist she comes here.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘It doesn’t really work like that Andy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t just insist.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘But she’s making you move there.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Sort of,’ I pause.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>‘I want to as well.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m
defensive because I’m not certain I do.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘What are you going to do there that you can’t do here?’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Andy’s constant questioning is spoiling my drunken elegiac mood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s right, of course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like him, I owe the previous three years more
than can be explained.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’ve helped me
decide that who I am is not defined by anyone or anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t have to listen to what people expect
of me.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So why am I running away?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘I don’t know,’ I concede.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Well then,’ he says looking triumphant.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I have been thinking about what I will do in London, but I
am still none the wiser.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not sure
what a medieval history degree will have prepared me for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My inability to grapple foreign languages
means that an academic career does not beckon and other related jobs are few
and far between.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my head, when I
imagine the future I can see where I am and who I am with but not what I am
doing.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I hope to write, I guess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I have been lazy over the past few years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve concentrated on my studies, my drinking,
my terrible dancing and my daytime television watching and have neglected
constructing fiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A dozen or more
short stories, scraps of ideas for things, remain incomplete or barely worked
up in notebooks discarded at the back of my desk draw.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But life will be different in the
capital.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will be creative, amongst other
creatives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There won’t be easy
distractions.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But, then again, neither will there be hills or my friends or
beautiful mornings after a heavy night’s drinking that help you edge your soul
closer to heaven, that bring a sense of lightness whereby anything could be
possible.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We reach my house and I put the key in the lock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘What are you doing, Andy?’ I ask, realising he is standing
too close, right behind me.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Coming in,’ he replies decisively.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘I’m going to bed.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘So?’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Good morning, Andy.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I close the door on his crestfallen face and realise I never did ask
where he’d been all night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe he’d
just been wandering the streets hoping to bump into someone he knew.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or, rather, knowing that if he kept at it,
he’d bump into someone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘And good luck never being mundane,’ I add
quietly.</span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-37396191392606853022015-11-25T22:20:00.002+00:002015-11-25T22:20:08.389+00:0015-ish (Ages of David, Part 3 of 8)
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU3-h4hYqzLNanc5mqsT4xUDsjQCHafRNLNQT1jgwouQoSGVRJo166nlhfsfjJ92LtoEPqhQRLXj-MSFTTKLH43-nURMT6-G7zVMrPkasGdBHUUXJLxIe17ulPt9qKPLn64B1vTcvRsIqu/s1600/WP_20151125_004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU3-h4hYqzLNanc5mqsT4xUDsjQCHafRNLNQT1jgwouQoSGVRJo166nlhfsfjJ92LtoEPqhQRLXj-MSFTTKLH43-nURMT6-G7zVMrPkasGdBHUUXJLxIe17ulPt9qKPLn64B1vTcvRsIqu/s320/WP_20151125_004.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Someone’s parents have made the mistake of going out for a
Saturday evening so we’ve all descended on their house, clutching our four
packs of cheap lager, our plastic bottles of cider and maybe a half bottle of
supermarket brand spirits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dad’s
expensive stereo has been co-opted, all the levels cranked up the maximum to
force the music to rattle the windows in their frames.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’d go to the pub, but it’s both a touch too
expensive for serious drinking and there are those who find it harder than
others to get served.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The August night is hot in a way that life will never seem
to be again. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The return to school is still
far enough away to be abstract, but inertia has begun to settle in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All those plans of doing something useful,
something creative over the holidays have dissipated into a cycle of
unconstructive hanging out, drinking too late and sleeping in until almost
afternoon.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Just before midnight and I’m drinking gin and woodpecker
cider, talking in a slightly incoherent fashion. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With a girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Drunkenness and nerves make my conversation veer around wildly in a way
which I hope seems eccentrically interesting but probably is just as weird as
my drink choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not a choice really,
but a necessity having drunk all the Guinness I arrived with.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘I need to go,’ the girl says as it trips from Saturday to
Sunday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Dad will go spare if I’m not
back by twelve thirty.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Half an hour is more than sufficient for her to get
home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m pretty certain she lives about
two streets across.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My brain makes some
leaps and despite it being perfectly safe to be out of the suburban roads alone
I say, proper gentlemanly like: ‘I’ll walk you back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you like.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">She nods and stands up from the dusty grass.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I follow.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The night is so warm that I’m not wearing my long grey
trenchcoat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Normally I persist with it
all year round, like armour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without it I
feel exposed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s both thrilling and
disconcerting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We talk about
inconsequential things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About
Bowie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I try to show off by making stuff up that
sounds unusual but not completely darkish, although I’m stealing it off other
writers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m desperate to appear
different. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to be the same.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Standing just along from her front door, up close to the
high bushes and clear of the streetlight so we’ll be unobserved should anyone
glance out of the window, the conversation lapses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve rehearsed this a moment in my mind a
million times. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not necessarily with this
girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The face has always been
interchangeable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this is the first
time I’ve actually got.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s unmarked
territory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know where I want to go, but
not how to get there.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Eventually I feel obliged to do something. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I lean down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She’s much shorter so the definite tilt of her head back is a sure sign and
my confidence is fuelled through to the point where our lips meet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And they part, willingly but with just enough resistance to
make it feel a conquest. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sweet apple
and juniper fizz licks back. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A tongue
flicks and I realise I am actually doing it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am actually kissing a girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We separate and look at each, and I find myself, for the
first time, truly paying attention to her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I have never considered this particular girl in this way before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘That was nice,’ she says and, still feeling confused as to
how we ended up here and whether both of us genuinely think it was nice or just
something we were socially conditioned to do, I lean in again, without saying a
word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This time I slip a hand behind her
head, just to keep her in place a moment longer, to keep kissing her, to avoid
having to talk to her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we move and slide
across each other’s lips, readjusting our heads, I hear a little gasp of
pleasure out the side of her mouth and feel unduly pleased that it’s me causing
it.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This time when we part, she says: ‘I better go inside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Will you call me?’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Sure,’ I shrug trying to be nonchalant, already wondering
what will happen next, what will be the next first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘What’s your Dad’s name?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll get it out the book.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘We’re not in the phone book.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She tells me the phone number.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I repeat it back to her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She smiles and goes inside, ushering me away
from the light and back to the party.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The following morning I awake in my friend’s garden, sitting
in a plastic chair, my jeans covered in vomit, a lightning strike through my
head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rest of the house is still
asleep so I hose my trousers down some and let myself out the side gate,
wondering how I am going to sneak past my parents in such a state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is only a hundred metres down the road
that I remember my midnight kiss and a small bulb of pride bursts in my
gut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel unreasonably smug with
myself until I realise I have, of course, completely forgotten her number.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It takes a couple of days to build up the courage to knock
on her door, but from then she goes from being my first kiss to my first
girlfriend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Three months later she
thinks that I’ve broken her heart as I leave her crying in the drizzle under a
weeping willow’s arms in the park.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
feel like an utter shit and it is, perhaps, the first time I realise that there
are worse hurts than those fists can produce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Although it wouldn’t be the last and nor would it be last time I felt
ashamed for it.</span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-44218986770727503682015-11-24T21:14:00.001+00:002015-11-24T21:14:25.691+00:0010-ish (Ages of David, Part 2 of 8)
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Two boys hold me in place, one on each arm bracing to keep
me rigid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The other boy squares up in
front of me, shouting taunts in my face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They’re laughing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They find it
funny, these boys my own age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
entertainment to tease and mock the fat kid. The one who can’t run, who doesn’t
know how to play football, who isn’t interested in same things they are -
whatever they are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I never could
properly connect with the enthusiasms of everyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At school I appeared stupid, easily
distracted by the worlds inside my head, uninterested in the chalk marks on the
board or the equasions and formula in the text book, illustrated to make
learning engaging, I find myself being dismissive of the poor quality
cartoons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hardly the point.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Wham.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first punch
connects with my stomach, the air floods out of my lungs and I feel tears prick
against the edges of my eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t
want to cry, I don’t want to give them the satisfaction, but it is anger and
frustration as much as pain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t
want to be fat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t want to know who
is playing up front for Aston Villa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
don’t want to be hit again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t want
to come to school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not even sure I
want to be normal.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I’m not stupid but school is boring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am completely disengaged from what is
happening around me and I tend to be lumped with other boys who look blank when
asked a question, but aren’t cool enough to overtly play it up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I prefer looking out the window, letting the
grassy slope up to the playing field transform before my imagination’s eye into
something else, somewhere else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
gangplank to a pirate’s ship, so clear I can smell the seaweed hanging from the
chain holding it in moor, like salty dreams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The base of shuttle launch site, bellows of steam rising, the heat so
intense there’s a prickle of sweat in the small of my back even in the dead of
winter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somewhere, anywhere so long as
it is away.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Back at the ends of the playing field there’s another taunt
about who knows what.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The hate feels
real enough as though everyone that age must loath something even if there’s no
real reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At what age do we start to
understand and tolerate difference?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why
do we expect conformity? I don’t know, but these boys think they do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m superficially the same as them, but there
are things which don’t quite match and that makes me ripe for punishment.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So I flex.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I plant my
feet firmly on the ground and tense my muscles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With a sudden surge of strength I throw off those holding me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A solid roundhouse fells the ringleader and
his sidekicks are finished off with some swift punches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am triumphant.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Of course, that doesn’t happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That only happens in comics and TV shows,
where the bullied are miraculously able to vanquish the bullies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone always says that a bully is a
coward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you stand up to them or hit
them back they run.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my experience
that doesn’t happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bully hits you
harder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then his friends join in and
you find yourself in this sort of situation.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Another punch to side of my head leaves my hearing rattling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My cheeks are wet and flushed now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The indignity makes me wince even twenty-five
years in the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The one boy holding
me breathes heavily, as though prepubescently aroused.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s odd what people find normal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The ringleader lifts my chin up to swear in my face some more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I haven’t completely given up though and
close as he is I manage to hoik a fat green globule of spit square into his
eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I try to follow up with a kick to
the testicles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I miss and only catch his
thigh, not hard enough to do any real harm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m too held in place to get any weight behind it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘You are fucking dead,’ he snarls wiping the snotty spit
from his eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know he means it but
the disgust on his face as he looks at the mess left in his hand gives me a
faint dose of joy and I smile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just a little
bit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">His henchmen let go and the three of them lay into me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I get a few blows out, but it’s largely
ineffectual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only larger than life,
comic-book heroes can beat more than one man at a time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For rolly-polly weaklings, there’s no
hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It doesn’t take long for me to be
on the floor and the punches continue, but I curl up and cover my head,
resigned to the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their target no
longer fighting back, they lose interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There is only fun to be had in the failing to escape, the pathetic
nature of the counter-struggle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
stop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I glance up just in time to see
the heal of the shoe coming straight in to my face.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I lie on the sunburnt grass as their cackling laughter
disappears into the distance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of
me hurts, but that’s nothing new.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
rewind the scene in my head and I play it out again, only this time, again, I
get a lucky blow in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my imagination,
I find myself pinning the ringleader down my knees into his shoulders and I
punch him again and again in the face until the skin on my knuckles cracks and
my own blood mixes with the pulped mess under my hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Violence begates violence, but I am young and
I hurt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I deserve revenge, don’t I?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The sun is warm and slides across me as I lie there, it
offers a warm respite, and suggests that maybe the world isn’t so bad after
all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe there’s hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Slowly I get to my feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nothing seems too badly damaged. I touch my face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is sore, but I don’t appear to be
bleeding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I start to walk home, home
where I can lose myself in a book, drift into another world, another life,
before coming back to this one again, tomorrow, when it will all be the same
once more.</span> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-7353437974794307122015-11-23T21:37:00.003+00:002015-11-23T21:37:47.959+00:00Scar Tissue (Ages of David, Part 1 of 8)
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2hg7Ko2-1YvyUOkVuUHQt8EV7nTtHRFRRa_eNnxoWcKf6bZTYl3VQIK66DzqgFt7VTwWl3mhDcHy-hfaiDcGAEEHADBocHq3KQoOVq1x0YpM4q3I1LFmXIjnCQKZu8BFFCeNJBKEPl7n-/s1600/DSC_0083.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2hg7Ko2-1YvyUOkVuUHQt8EV7nTtHRFRRa_eNnxoWcKf6bZTYl3VQIK66DzqgFt7VTwWl3mhDcHy-hfaiDcGAEEHADBocHq3KQoOVq1x0YpM4q3I1LFmXIjnCQKZu8BFFCeNJBKEPl7n-/s320/DSC_0083.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Hold on,’ I said, finally looking up from my work iPad and
paying attention to the nurse I’d been following, ‘this isn’t a consultation
room.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Of course not,’ she replied and behind her the four other
people, all dressed in light blue scrubs, gathered at the table, ‘we’re going
to operate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remove your shirt please.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Despite my surprise, I complied, more worried about whether
I’d be able to ride my bike home from the hospital than anything else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://davidmarstonwrites.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/ouch.html" target="_blank">Given the long drawn out process</a>, the
eighteen months of confusion, to get to this point it would have been churlish
to demand a more convenient, or at least forewarned, slot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moments later I felt the needle slide into my
skin and knew the local anaesthetic was being driven into the nerves around the
lump in my back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I continued to feel the
hands prod and probe as they tested the waters and then the gentlest pressure
as the scalpel began to slice my body apart.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">There was a tugging and gouging as fingers dug under the
skin, as blades separated muscle and flesh from the lump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’d been there a long time and had become
embedded in me; had bound itself to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It struggled, refusing to give up its home easily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I imagined the scalpel snatching through
individual sinews, watching them ping back limply, as each one fell the lump
was prised a little further.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was
uncomfortable and unusual, the feeling of fingers inside me, but not painful.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The consultant chattered away, explaining what he was doing
to the registrar, prompting the nurses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I may as well have not been there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I couldn’t see anyone’s face, just the tray of instruments in front of
me and, if I glanced down my body, an array of legs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No-one even warned me when I saw him adjust
his pose, brace himself and there was the distinct feeling of frustrated
pulling. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When all the muscle and flesh
pinning the lump in place had been cut away and still it refused to budge, the
last option was to wrench it out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A grunt, a final tug and a silent rush as air filled the
cavity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A surgical gloved hand dropped a white quivering blob
stained violent red down right in front my eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It sat and shuddered there, amongst the
gleaming silver of the various tools and prongs, like a shell-less egg finally
forced out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was surprisingly big;
much larger than the raised patch of skin would have suggested.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It must have gone deep, deep into my back.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘All done Mr Marston,’ said the consultant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘My colleague just needs to stitch you back
up.’ The gloves scooped up the bloody egg and popped it in a piece of
Tupperware, the sort of thing I’d use for some left-over soup.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile, I was tugged again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could feel my skin being dragged together,
two edges pulled to meet and persuaded to knit back into a single piece
covering my body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘I am certain this is
a cyst, but we’ll send it off to be tested to be on the safe side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Otherwise, there are no problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe you will have a little scarring, but
nothing major.’</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">More scar tissue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m
acquiring quite a lot these days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://davidmarstonwrites.blogspot.co.uk/2014_12_01_archive.html" target="_blank">My knuckles, shin and forearm still show the marks of my run-in with a four by four last year</a>; my knees the tumble the previous February; my lower back shows
an ill-conceived tangle with a rose bush when I was eight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fading and barely visible are the patchwork
from a thousand other encounters; the end of my fingers from sloppy vegetable
chopping, childhood fights and scrapes, long completed operations, scolds,
bites, scratches and skids, a mesh of a life lived.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the near future, there will be one across
my toe where a nail fell off and regrew into the skin and had to then be hacked
out.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And then there are the ones below the surface; the ones
which never can be seen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both those that
were done to me and those which I did to myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can trace each one and say here is where
I won, here is where I fell, this was me, that was her, that one was him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are a map, a map to the man I have
become.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘You’ve bled on the sheets again,’ my wife told me one
morning when my back was stubbornly refusing to heal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mainly this was to do with its position
running onto my side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every time it
looked as though the dressing could come off, as though it had bound itself up
properly, I rolled onto it in my sleep and the pressure opened the wound
slightly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I left little memories of
myself on the sheets, on my shirts; tiny droplets of blood marking a trail away
from the crime to the perpetrator.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Scar tissue tells a story, but as it fades the story becomes
blurred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My back itches.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-6680556862218149342015-09-15T21:57:00.001+01:002015-09-15T21:57:57.889+01:00Jez they did (but was it the right thing?)<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8FOO9X3Vmb1db8fP5APKz6UfARJsnOVzb92UdMsruvL3sc3Bfg1fB3g5iKIBu5Hv9jbjWinkLMlI5viYBWEXlahC8vvcdcCYHvuzqVrWAF3W0rX92nyzWcZGqz8mxQrVBoGF9jaDNfF4d/s1600/P1013595.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8FOO9X3Vmb1db8fP5APKz6UfARJsnOVzb92UdMsruvL3sc3Bfg1fB3g5iKIBu5Hv9jbjWinkLMlI5viYBWEXlahC8vvcdcCYHvuzqVrWAF3W0rX92nyzWcZGqz8mxQrVBoGF9jaDNfF4d/s320/P1013595.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Tuscan sun is hot in the square.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The afternoon has dragged on since we watched
the pageantry on the steps to the church, all checked blurring colour and
flying flags against the fourteenth century stone and neon bar signs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The locals of Castel del Piano, perched atop
a hill, shaped from rock and memory, have all disappeared for an extended
lunch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our place is further out of town
so we linger with ice-cream and books, following the shade as it ticks around,
moving from tree to house to fountain, the soft catch of water on the backs of
our necks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We wait, the whole town holds
it breath it seems, for the race.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Several hours later, later than planned if only because it
is Italy, the procession restarts. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
drummers and the crossbowmen, the lancers and the ladies, the clergy with their
books and banners, all perform their way steadily around the square and
finally, eventually, the horses follow them in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Only three, one less than expected. One family unable to take part it
appears, at least that explains the desolate face on some of the teenager taking
part.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Disqualified, or an injury,
maybe?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The horses are bareback, wild,
rearing to their riders, sleek coats and white spittled teeth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tension mounts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We weave our way to the front, near the start line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The man in shades and dark suit on the raised
platform talks through the PA system, a mix of excitable cheers and calm white
knuckles reply. And they’re off. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
crowd roars. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A pistol is fired. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The crowd groans. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The riders rear their mounts. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A false start.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Back to the line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>More chatter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The small blonde
girl next to me wails in the fading sun as dusk encroaches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tired and bored, restless and irritable, we’re
all a little emotional.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Again, a surge, a bang, another false start.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The crowd is starting to get restless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The paramedics race over to the other side of
the track.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A man has collapsed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps just for something to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My wife and I have run out of water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tension growls, the people furrow their
brows, the horses shake their manes, the riders jostle each other, the man in
the shades and the dark suit chats to two young women, his smile just the right
side of lechery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Go.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Success this time. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
horses shoot forwards, around the first corner and up the hill. They come round
for the second lap, the leader staring to open a gap, but the second horse is
still tight on his tail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They go so fast
that even on sports setting my camera captures but a blur, the end of a tail disappearing
from the frame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The crowd roar as the wind
whips past them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Entering the third lap,
down the slopes, careering round the corner, the gap being closed between
leader and also ran and then it happens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Unclear at the pace, but a slip of some sort, the second jockey is flung
from his horse in a kuffle of dust and a crunching thud into the hoardings. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The horse continues, riderless, panicked by
the noise, propelled by the motion, the agony of its sickeningly bent foot
driving it mad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Someone vaults onto the
track to bring it to heel. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The race finishes. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
triumph for one house, anguish for the other three, one in particular.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Family members surge through the masses and
crowd round the house, its foot sticking upwards in the air, walking on its
calf.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A woman turns away, her hands over
her mouth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A plastic tarpaulin is pulled
over its head, I lead my wife away; we don’t need to see its end.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Later, my wife says she feels bad, that she feels
complicit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As if by not watching the
palio, it might not have taken place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
tell her no, that none of it is our fault, but quietly I agree with her.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Much later still, as the darkness shrouds the farmhouse
where we’re staying, just black outside amongst the vines, some bleak analogies
occur to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That the race was like the
May General Election, the fallen horse the Liberal Democrat party, the tossed
jockey Nick Clegg.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not funny, but I
chuckle with bitterness anyway.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In May it felt like the end of Liberalism’s long slow death
in the UK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Liberal Democrat MPs back
down to the numbers of the sixties and seventies, their ideals put out of their
misery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Conservative majority, a
triumph of individualism and selfishness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The challenge now is to ensure that Labour doesn’t go the same way,
consigned to the insignificance of small number political parties, lost amongst
their principles.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I find myself greeting the news of Jeremy Corbyn’s ascension
to leader of opposition with hesitation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I am unsure how to feel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On one
hand, Corbyn believes in many of the things I believe in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A fairer society based on equality, social
security and state ownership of essential infrastructure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He supports nuclear disarmament and
environmental initiatives that take the long-term safety of the planet over
short-term capital gains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other areas
are concerning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is ambivalent about
the EU, which is a major worry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
appears to be suggesting that promoting a return to industry will build us out
of economic mire rather than trying to cut our austere way of it which, while
admirable, seems slightly naive to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re
too far from pits and factories and docks to voluntarily go back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has an alarming tendency to associate with
less than savoury characters on the international scene and I don’t believe
apologising for the invasion of Iraq (no matter how misguided or downright
wrong that action was) should be high up the priority list.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His only prior experience of leadership is as
head of Haringey Council, but that’s more than Tony Blair had when he succeeded
John Smith.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But the big question is, can he win the 2020 election?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is he electable?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Much of the right-wing bias press and
Blairite factions of Labour say not, and suggest that Labour only wins
elections when it lurches towards the centre ground, as with Blair. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This feels intrinsically wrong, too
simple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Milliband, although left of the
centre, was hardly the Marxist painted by section of the press and he lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was not filled with confidence by Andy
Burnham or Yvette Cooper – despite admiring them both on an individual
level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Burnham was an excellent health
secretary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To say nothing of Liz Kendall
who seems to have accidentally been elected to represent the wrong party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It also ignores the elections won by Clement
Atlee which gave Labour the opportunity to implement the original
nationalisation programme in the late forties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Harold Wilson may have been in
the centre of the Party’s ideological spectrum but his social reforms remain at
the cornerstone of today’s easier society.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">To say that a left-winger is fundamentally unelectable is too
simplistic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearly Corbyn has
galvanised a significant proportion of the Labour party and, in particular, a
youth vote typically disinterested in politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whether it will still be flocking to his banner in five years times is
another question altogether.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Five years
is a long time when you’re young.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">No-one can be unelectable unless they are not standing for
election.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone has the possibility
for their beliefs and policies to chime with the electorate and therefore be
return to office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Corbyn’s heart on sleeve, emotional rather than strategic
focus group tested politics feels refreshing, as though we’ve all seen too much
shiny suited, fine-tuned sound-bites to actually believe what we’re being
told.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Corbyn’s calling it a new form of
politics, but really it’s a return to old school politics where our leaders
were able to say and be judged on what they thought rather than spout some
bland humdrum that had been vetoed, checked and tested to death until it was safe
enough to be meaningless.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">While fixed term parliaments do mean we’re stuck with the
current crop of bastards until 2020, it also means the opposition have five
years to prepare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They know when the
deadline for making a difference will be approaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Corbyn does turn out to be like Iain
Duncan-Smith – voted to Tory Leadership in 2001, against expectation, by
grassroot support but ultimately useless – then Labour knows it has time to,
for once, commit regicide, but I genuinely hope it won’t come to that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If he continues to talk the right talk and
backs it up by walking some of the harder walks you don’t have to do when you
have a rock safe seat like Islington North; if the unexpected growth of people
feeling that Labour now offers something to believe in, to vote for, something
compassionate and fair rather than just a different shade of Toryism, then
he’ll have my vote, back from over a decade coloured Green.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The early signs aren’t good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A flock of talented ministers refusing to serve, seemingly washing their
hands of the whole display, as though that’ll somehow give them credit in the
future they imagine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A shambolically
assembled shadow cabinet based on favours for mates: a shadow chancellor who
doesn’t believe in consensus politics and only Burnham and Hilary Benn still
standing from the heavyweights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No
matter how much I like Heidi Alexander and some of the others it feels
inexperienced and like it or not they’re going to have to engage with the media
in a sensible, though out way, at some point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Unfortunately, an idealistic youth vote (which may or may not flutter with
the wind), die hard Labourites and hard-line lefties tempted back from the SNPs
and the Greens are not going to win a general election alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least a few of the middle aged, Citron
Picasso driving, mortgage paying, Tesco shopping, Friends reruns watching,
Coldplay listening, Pinot Grigio drinking, two children raising, suburban
dwelling people will need to vote for you too.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Jeremy, you’ve got the best part of five years to show that
you have not only the ideas (like Ed did, if you ignore that stupid headstone),
the passion (like Kinnock, but without coming across a windbag), the hope (like
Obama, although please remember that every aspiration should have a caveat around
how hard it’ll be else you’ll look like another failed messiah)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and the persuasion (like Blair had, once,
before the blood and everyone recognising the scripted tics).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Good luck.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And don’t screw up because if you’re another Michael Foot
and Labour lose even more seats next time round, we’ll be stuck with Tories
ruling the roost until at least 2030.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’ll be a solid twenty years of social division, privatisation, the
promotion of greed and the erosion of what makes society, rather than the
wealth individual or the corporation, function and I’m not sure we could come
back from that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether we realise it or
not, we’re all depending on you to give us something better</span>. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-36638270954096438972015-05-06T20:15:00.003+01:002015-05-06T21:37:39.064+01:00For tomorrow's tomorrow<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEintX4JQTqKzkbje9J29ixWQyPSN0aEsDd1wIhWvhTmOSW6Ap-zfjnilrJ_lqP6xjI8hRuvFBXaPq24IjqHo8fAAgOjnbHucBfZ7Zm3HyozuDci0teIfajzUCEkdMmlfHZ0jHiyqfBzbZfQ/s1600/WP_20150506_001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEintX4JQTqKzkbje9J29ixWQyPSN0aEsDd1wIhWvhTmOSW6Ap-zfjnilrJ_lqP6xjI8hRuvFBXaPq24IjqHo8fAAgOjnbHucBfZ7Zm3HyozuDci0teIfajzUCEkdMmlfHZ0jHiyqfBzbZfQ/s1600/WP_20150506_001.jpg" height="320" width="180" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>When Jenny comes home, late at night, exhausted from the overtime
she won’t get paid for, she only turns the one light on to cut through the
gloom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The table lamp and her laptop
screen offer the only illumination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
doesn’t turn the heating on either even though frost is starting to crinkle on
the inside of her thin windows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
could afford it, really, but the last two months have been tight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her old car needed a new starter motor, and
she needs the car to get to her shifts at the hospital, nine miles away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Often she has to be on before the buses start
running, or at least before the first bus on that route would get her there in
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The unplanned expenditure means
that she feels as though she needs to save.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She knows it’s a false economy, that not keeping warm will probably make
her sick and unable to work, but she has to feel as though she’s doing
something to help the situation, to make a dent in the credit card bill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s just the way she was brought up.</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Jenny warms some baked beans and slaps two slices of
own-brand bread under the grill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the
third night running.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’ll add some
grated cheese tonight to make it a bit more interesting and there’s some
Tabasco left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s that bottle of
wine her sister bought a couple of weeks ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jenny really fancies a glass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her
knees and her back hurt from being on her feet all day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her head throbs and every time she closes her
eyes she sees that office worker, smashed out his skull, calling her a fucking
slag because she wanted to clean the gash in his hand where the glass had gone
through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She keeps seeing that memory
and a premonition of the same again the next day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The endless, repetitive churn of people who
need different care to what she can provide and those who should just be a bit
more grateful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The old ladies who view
her with suspicion, clutching their handbags close.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The angry drunks and the middle-aged guy who
needs a friend as much as a nurse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
thinks about all these things in the gloom of her one bed flat, shovelling
watery beans into her mouth, a Youtube video playing in the background, a song
that’s too sad really; she should have searched for something livelier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She chews her beans and thinks about that
glass of wine, but it’s for Saturday so it stays there, on the counter,
undrunk.</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>*</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Michael is a good student.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or he tries to be and that’s more important.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He enjoys school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He likes learning, even maths, which is
boring, but every so often, when he finally sees the beauty in the calculation
it is all worthwhile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Michael tries to
get to school every day, but sometimes it’s hard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes his Mum or his brother, Jermaine,
will ask him to pick some stuff – always stuff, always vague - up for them from
the other side of town and then, by the time he’s walked there and back, it
feels too late so he just watches TV instead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But he prefers school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of
his friends hate school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They think it’s
pointless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re going to be Premier
League footballers or a name of some sort, whatever that means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What do they need to learn for?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re better off out on the streets
practising, learning their trade.</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Michael’s Dad always tells him to go to school, when he sees
him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Michael promises he will and
usually he does, even though his sister, Danielle, calls him weird. </em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mister Colbeck is
Michael’s favourite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He teaches drama
and even though Mister Colbeck’s classroom is always cold, because the
radiators don’t work, Michael looks forward to his class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Michael likes studying, working through text
books, but sometimes it’s good to get out of your seat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Michael likes pretending.</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>But Mister Colbeck hasn’t been seen for a couple of
weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not since there was the trouble
with the Year 11s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something about a boy
and a girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something about
respect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It always is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No-one’s seen Mister Colbeck for a while and
they’re having extra English lessons rather than drama and on the cold dark
mornings Michael thinks that maybe he should just stay at home.</em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>*</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Samuel kicks his heels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A funny turn of phrase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One that
he hadn’t really understood before, until he had enough time on his hands to
learn how to kick his heels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These days
he has more time than he knows what to do with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He left school with four GCSEs and grand hopes of an apprenticeship, but
then so had half his year and there weren’t that many going round.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Three years later and he was pretty much
happy to do anything for anyone, just to fill the hours, just to make him feel
a little less utterly reliant on his parents.</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Samuel changes target from his heels to an idle pigeon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pigeon dodges with the onrush of wind and
Samuel curses.</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>The sportswear shop on the retail park had offered him a
contract.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Zero hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something his Dad had been worried
about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were all over the news,
apparently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Samuel didn’t know about
that and, frankly, he didn’t care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
just wanted work, to get some money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
the first couple of months it was okay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He worked most days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was
even a little bit of a bonus when the store hit its sales target.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’d been enjoying himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jack from the year above at school worked
there too and there were a couple of girls Samuel had his eye on, just for a
laugh like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then Brian, the rota
manager, stopped calling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They didn’t
have a slot for him that week, or the next, or the next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His contract meant he had to give two weeks’
notice if he wanted to leave and find another job, not that there was anything
else, and when he’d mentioned going Brian had promised there’d be some hours in
the next couple of days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></em></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>That was three weeks ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>The job centre wouldn’t give him the time of day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even though he wasn’t getting paid he was
working, they said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Samuel doesn’t see
how that makes sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can’t they
understand that he’s desperate?</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>There’s no life left in Samuel’s town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every day he thinks about heading to the big
city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’d heard there were jobs to be
had there, but he doesn’t have the money for the bus, or anywhere to stay and
besides he’d miss his mates and his Mum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With a sigh, he kicks his heels one more time for luck.</em></span></div>
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</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>*</em></span></div>
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</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Catherine wakes like the bed is on fire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s early, too early.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The light is barely sneaking under the
curtains and, even without checking her phone, she knows it is hours until her
first lecture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Last night’s wine and the
dancing still race through her blood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She should still be sleeping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s what the rest of her house is doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But she was awake, woken by the sudden,
creeping memory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Most of the time, it is all right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She can get on with life, be like a normal
person, but it’s always there, deep inside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And after a while it starts to grow, the sense of dread mounting like
cranked pressure, pushing down on her shoulders, a steady weight on her chest,
the constant ringing in her head, the ker-ching of old cash registers she’d
seen on that old show her parents watch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Ker-ching.</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>It’s the debt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’s
done the sums.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clocked up how much her
three years of being young with some learning on the side had cost her, or will
cost her at some point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her Dad keeps
telling her not to worry about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He keeps
talking about what a liberating and enriching experience his years at
university had been, even without studying that much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it had been different for him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had been free for one thing and after he’d
come through he was one of few graduates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A job was almost a foregone conclusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>It isn’t like that for Catherine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her cousin Max, two years older, had
graduated eighteen months ago with a first in biochemistry and still hasn’t even
had an interview.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Catherine can’t help
but worry whether she’s done the right thing, saddling herself with so much
baggage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even when her head isn’t
pounding, her throat sticky and dusty at the same time like it is that morning,
it consumes her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Has she just spent
three years messing her life up?</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>*</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Paul looks at Ali’s mound while she sleeps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her sleep is deep and soulful, snuffles of
caught air exhaled into the early morning fuzz of streetlight sneaking between
the curtains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul looks at them, at his
wife and the shape of his unborn child, and felt awash with love, and worry.</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Ali had wanted the baby more than him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, that’s not true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’d wanted the baby imminently more than he
had.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul wants children too, and with
both of them aged thirty-six, he knows that time isn’t on Ali’s side, but there’s
part of him that felt irresponsible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
feels callous to be bringing another life into the world simply to fulfil a
biological urge to parent and pass on genes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>He sighs, quietly, rolls over and looks at the wall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because that’s the only option.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their flat is so small that the bedroom only
just accommodates a double bed, shoved into the corner, and with Ali struggling
to sleep the night through they’d recently swapped sides and Paul suddenly
realised why she’d always complained of feeling pinned in at night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They both had good jobs and, even when Ali went
on maternity leave, they’d be earning more than he’d thought possible when he’d
graduated with idle dreams of being an artist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Funny how life works out, funny how enticing working for a media company
can be when the money’s right.</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>And yet still, this shoebox of a flat was only rented.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The idea of owning a place had been permanently
shelved; both of them had been unable to overcome the compromise of location
versus ownership.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To stand even a chance
of buying somewhere they would have to live somewhere they didn’t want to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’d looked into it, a couple of years ago,
but had been repelled by the eye gouging bloodbath they’d seen to buy flats which
weren’t much better than this one they already thought of as home and in a
nastier part of town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the contract
was up for renewal and the landlord kept leaving odd messages on Paul’s
voicemail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, it was an irrelevant
dream: they didn’t have a deposit anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Not for the first time, as the magnolia walls burned boredom on his
eyes, Paul regrets quite so many holidays and frivolous nights out in his
twenties.</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Paul’s childhood had been somewhat idyllic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a teenager he’d thought the tree-lined suburbs
had been a particularly tedious form of hell, but with hindsight the relative
comfort and carefree nature of life had been a blessing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wanted to give his children outdoor space,
safe and reliable schools, but he also wanted them to be exposed to a range of
culture and for their father to not spend nearly fifteen hours a week
commuting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That was a lot of their
growing up he’d miss.</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Margaret looks at the letter again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There must be some mistake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How could they be cutting her housing benefit
because there was a bedroom unoccupied?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
wasn’t a spare room, it was Jacob’s room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Didn’t they understand?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s only
been gone a few weeks.</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>It hadn’t been unexpected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Indeed, it had been his whole life coming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Slowly it had ebbed him away until there was
nothing left but a husk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That didn’t
make it any easier, though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had been
her whole life and now he’s gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’s
bereft.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Becalmed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unable to summon the energy to get dressed in
the morning and now this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Margaret hasn’t been in paid work for years, not since
Jacob’s Father had left and caring for their son had become a full time
occupation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That was what Mothers did,
wasn’t it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They care for and nurture
their offspring no matter what.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if,
all along, you know it isn’t going to be forever.</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>Margaret looks at the calendar on the wall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It shows a picture of daffodils.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spring for April.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The letter in front of her is dated
June.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe it has been longer than she
realised.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s hard for her to keep
track.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Time has become both unmoving and
rapid now that her days lack structure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Still, such a big cut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She knows
she can’t make the difference up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Somewhere inside her head, she knows she’ll be moved on, away from the
memories, the last things she has of him.</em></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><em>
</em></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">*</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The final few hours of an election are occasionally decisive
but this time feels as though we’re entering the last act of a seaside
farce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Russell Brand has gone back on
his previously militant, tour ticket selling position that we should all
abstain from voting and come out for Labour, helpfully after registration has
closed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is as though he suddenly
stopped listening to just himself and thought, “oh, maybe some of those ideas
about improving the country aren’t so bad, after all.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meanwhile, should Ed Milliband take the top
job his first act ought to be firing whichever idiot came up with the idea of
planting a stone in the Downing Street garden with some policies carved on it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The policy stone would beggar belief were it
not easily outstripped by the latest UKIP suspension.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The latest in a long line of disciplinary
actions, which is beginning to make me suspect the only candidate still
actually endorsed by the party is Nigel Farage, takes the biscuit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/05/ukip-candidate-suspended-threatening-bullet-tory-rival" target="_blank">Robert Blay was filmed by a journalist threatening to put a “bullet between the eyes” of his Conservative rival forNorth East Hampshire, Ramil Jayawardena.</a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Seriously, the latest act of bigoted, sensationalist,
moronic “telling it like it is” is the absolute pinnacle of what is so wrong
with the right hand half of the political debate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Murder may be as extreme as the rest of
UKIP’s views, but let’s not forget that Boris Johnson had a rival journalist
beaten up in his youth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are people
vying to be in charge of the country who are deeply unpleasant individuals and
who will go about their political careers in the same unpleasant fashion.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Politics should be inclusive, not divisive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
should bring people together not create suspicion, resentment and
distrust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are a modern, first world
nation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should have opportunities to
make things better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should be seeking
to establish how we want to live in the twenty-first century not still holding
onto to a redundant twentieth century model, not still have the same boring
arguments about the basics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We should not be interested in the self.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We shouldn’t be voting for low taxes, for
small government, for a system which relies on individuals to make the most of
themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead we should vote for
something which allows us all to work together to make something greater than
the individual parts.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Margaret Thatcher famously said that there was no such thing
as society, that there are just men and women and the family unit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is nothing but society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without society we have no systems or
infrastructure, without society nobody looks out for anyone other than their
immediate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Society provides us with
homes, with jobs, with culture, with entertainment, with industry, with
innovation and with greatness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without a
society as advanced as the one we are blessed with, we would be little more
than cavemen scrambling around for food and warmth at the expense of others.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I don’t know about you, but that isn’t how I want to live.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Will Hutton in How Good We Can Be writes about a
compassionate capitalist society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He calls
for the system whereby corporations are bound to the communities, the society,
from which they spring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Corporations
which pay tax, which are not subject to the piracy and short term gain of the
management buy-outs, that become embedded in delivering what they set out to
do, that offer apprenticeships and sustainable growth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The renationalisation of essential services
from utilities to the internet, from transport to the stock exchange, of
reminding business that its subject is to serve society, not the other way
around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">That’s a good start.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Then let’s create sufficient homes for people to live in by
building sustainable, affordable rental properties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can create a more diverse approach to
living that doesn’t see everyone scramble to get on the housing market by
limiting the amount a property can increase in value in a given annual period,
by taxing profits from house sales, introducing rent controls and removing tax
benefits for buy to let landlords.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Let’s see a return to fully comprehensive education which
gives all children the same opportunities in groups of mixed ability allowing those
who struggle to learn from their peers as well as teachers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s end university tuition fees and accept
that a well educated society is to everyone’s benefit and so we can all pay for
it through taxation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s push our
universities to be centres of academic excellence, striving for world leading
research for the benefit of the nation, not because it makes more business
sense.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Let’s stop this petty, futile squabbling with Europe and
internally with ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s
recognise that the problems the country faces are because of our own greed and
the failure of the state to properly regulate and support society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are nothing to do with immigration.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Let’s properly invest in the NHS, both clinical and
non-clinical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rich can continue to
use private providers if they wish to skip queues for non-essential procedures,
but they can help pay for a system that they will invariably use at some point.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Let’s increase the minimum wage so you can actually live on
it, scrap zero hours contracts and ensure that everyone working gets a just
reward for their efforts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And for those
who can’t work, either temporarily or permanently, let’s end the stigma they
face and treat them with respect and dignity. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imagine yourself in their shoes: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>how would you want to be maligned in the
national press simply for caring for a relative?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Let’s have high quality armed forces, but let’s take the
moral stance of ending nuclear deterrent and foreign intervention unless it has
the express support of the United Nations.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Let’s seek to end our reliance on fossil fuels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s seriously strive to be the country that
leads the world back from the brink of extinction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of the above is pointless if the world
chokes to death within a generation or so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We started this mess with the industrial revolution; let’s have the
courage to try to end it and with advanced green technology be at the world’s
vanguard again.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Let’s be a shining light, a beacon for the world to
admire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You want to put the Great back
into Great Britain?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then let’s doing by
becoming the fairest, kindest, greenest, most moral, most supportive nation in
the world not by whinging, moping, blaming others, over-hyping the handcart’s
destination or harking for a bygone idyll that never existed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Sure, this isn’t going to happen overnight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It probably isn’t even going to happen in a
single five year term, but over the course of a generation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obama’s big failing was to give too much hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His slogan should have been “yes we can,
but...”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’ll be hard, it’ll take time,
but, you know what?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s good enough
for me.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Are you secretly a communist?’ my wife asked me in the
candle flocked Copenhagen bar over the weekend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’d been verbally thinking through some of the ideas above, and some
slightly more radical ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘I wish
you’d just think before you speak,’ she sighed, not unreasonably.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Do I believe in five year plans, state control of
everything, the suppression of creativity and response to challenge, no wages,
complete theoretical equality for all and gulags on Orkney?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, of course not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not an idiot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I may be naive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Okay, I can live with that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Common theory holds that I will regress into selfish, small-c
conservatism as I grow older, so perhaps allow me one final naive, ideological
flourish, okay?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m mean, what do I
know?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The above might not be
feasible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not a politician.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not an economist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not even a journalist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m just someone with hopes and a computer who
reads a lot.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In the end, this isn’t about me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It isn’t about you, either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It isn’t even about some abstract,
half-formed idea I may have of future children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When you vote tomorrow, this should be about all of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope that your decision will be one which
helps to bring about the best and brightest future for every single person in
this country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It should be for all of
us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Together.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">When asked why he wanted to be Prime Minister, David Cameron
famously replied that it was because he thought he’d be good at it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even by his own targets, he hasn’t been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, over the last five years he has been ostracised on the world stage, seen the union at the heart of the United
Kingdom stretched to what feels like an irretrievable breaking point, and
created a less equal, less tolerant, less wealthy and more fearful society.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“A new dawn has risen, has it not?” Tony Blair smiled that
sunny May morning nearly twenty years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The past five years have felt like a particularly bleak, dark and cold
night for many.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It might not be dawn
just yet, but surely we can at least switch the lights on?</span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-392876462491056452015-04-28T21:33:00.000+01:002015-04-28T21:33:44.479+01:00The cracks<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwYPd_VqrmXwIrBlKNyBhdAlUVjueszUWkSyKfQGprA1dK8GVMtrowxsCAhxKMxK9kpGMs8vihKlBFnyGbtX-4EXKu8WhDfLRcuo2QM6hzVjSKNRWsI4F9HSPLMzQjSP8KR-3HXqa_Muzv/s1600/WP_20150428_002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwYPd_VqrmXwIrBlKNyBhdAlUVjueszUWkSyKfQGprA1dK8GVMtrowxsCAhxKMxK9kpGMs8vihKlBFnyGbtX-4EXKu8WhDfLRcuo2QM6hzVjSKNRWsI4F9HSPLMzQjSP8KR-3HXqa_Muzv/s1600/WP_20150428_002.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In 1945 the country was at war, but by the summer it was a
far off war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The streets of London had
already filled with celebrating masses, the sailor swooping up the nurse in his
arms, the airman and soldier clambering atop the Trafalgar Square plinths,
bottles of ale in each hand, the monarch and family had appeared on the palace’s
balcony and waved, next to them the pug heavy, cigar chomping, steel eyed Prime
Minister had taken his moment of glory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Half a world away, men still fought in the sweaty jungles, under the
Pacific sun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sons died every day, but
maybe enough of a war was over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Churchill, confident that the cries of “we want Winston” would continue,
called a snap election.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And lost.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In one of the most surprising results of the twentieth
century, a short, bookish politician who had served in the war cabinet led the
Labour Party to power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clement Atlee
would be the first Labour Prime Minister to command a working majority and he
was determined to make the most it.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Labour’s 1945 victory was against the odds, but it occurred
for a variety of reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Conservatives bet everything on Churchill’s popularity not even bothering with
a manifesto just “Mr Churchill’s message to the people”, but to the public he
was a war leader and they were tired of war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The soldiers still fighting in Asia weren’t impressed at seemingly being
forgotten, as though their conflict was just a side show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But perhaps more than anything, having stood
on the brink, the country looked around and thought: you know what? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I fought for it; I deserve something better
than what was here before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In five years, and in times of more severe financial
catastrophe than in 2010, Labour undertook the most exhaustive series of
societal and political reforms ever seen in this country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Scores of industries essential to the
infrastructure of the country, and for the benefit of the surviving people,
were nationalised – British Power, British Water, British Telecommunications,
British Steel, the mining industry, British Rail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The NHS was created.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A phenomenal scale of council housing was
built and new towns constructed as a land was raised up from the rubble.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Five years was all it took to try and make
the country a fairer and more decent place to live.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Thatcher began the dismantling of this in the eighties and
the current government has followed, piece by piece, privatising each component
part.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I think Ed Milliband is right when <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/07/ed-miliband-labour-tackling-inequality-wealth-creation" target="_blank">he says that the greatest challenge facing this country is inequality</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We have a small minority getting significantly richer, a vast majority
stumbling along with various difficulties and growing number of people
seriously struggling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Yes, you are always going to have disparity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, someone running a multi-national
corporation should be better paid for the responsibility they shoulder than
someone sweeping the streets, but the divides shouldn’t be so stark.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should not live in a world where some
people are able to buy a watch worth the same as a flat and tens of thousands
of people are reliant on charity to ensure they have enough to eat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The inequalities aren’t just monetary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/apr/18/david-cameron-fear-of-single-parents-sophie-heawood" target="_blank">Sophie Heawood’s article for the Guardian nails another marginalised group: the unmarried</a>, and while she specifically
focuses on single mothers it can apply to anyone not in wedlock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The current government has boosted tax
credits for married couples and introduced the, admittedly admirable, legislation
that allows gay marriage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The latter is
another important step forward following civil partnerships, but it is also
small c conservatism, part of a continual mandate that marriage is best.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It implies that any alternative, for whatever
reason people choose it, is to be derided.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Marriage, like the market, is sacred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The current government is, essentially, saying that anyone not like us
is wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t get married because
of social expectations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I proposed
because I wanted to tell the world how much I love her, but in many ways,
there’s a part of me which would have liked to buck the trend a bit more, lived
a bit different, and that difference should be celebrated not discriminated
against.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Then there’s gender inequality in general, which is a
subject too big to tackle here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shortly
after my wife and I first moved in together we argued as to whether I needed to
identify myself as a feminist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My theory
was that I didn’t for a combination of legalised equality and an assumption
that everyone thought the same way I do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Everyday casual sexism, only a small minority of companies willing to
open their accounts to demonstrate equal pay, Page 3’s been replaced by the
Daily Mail’s website, whenever Theresa May leaves Downing Street her outfit is
scrutinised, but the media never mention what William Hague’s wearing, disproportionately
small numbers of women in senior leadership roles and a work-life imbalance to
society which means women are fundamentally disadvantaged in the workplace have
persuaded me otherwise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The situation
can be epitomised by the tiny number of senior women MPs in the cabinet, the
fact that austerity hits women significantly harder than men, and even David
Cameron’s dismissive “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13211577" target="_blank">calm down, dear</a>”, none of which set the example expected
of government.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And the problem is that the ideal Conservative, the pinnacle
of the “us”, is that one percent often talked about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For this government in particular, it is the
Cotswold village second home dwelling, privately educated, exclusive minority
who own most of the wealth and create an increasingly divided, dispirited and
desolate world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a victimisation
of the poor, be it <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/18/defensive-architecture-keeps-poverty-undeen-and-makes-us-more-hostile" target="_blank">installing spikes in shop doorways to stop people sleeping rough</a> to the right wing media’s sustained assault on anyone claiming benefits,
from zero hour contracts to the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/apr/23/sir-alan-moses-politicians-ignoring-effects-legal-aid-cuts-election" target="_blank">withdrawal of legal aid</a>, the Conservatives,
like UKIP, are have set up someone to blame, only this time it’s from within
our own shores.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This is one of the main reasons why large portions of
Scotland want to get divorced from the rest of the country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://davidmarstonwrites.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/borders.html" target="_blank">I wrote about why I hoped that wouldn't happen last year</a> and while the result went the way of remaining in the union,
rather than settle the issue it seems to have galvanised the Yes vote to try
again, to try harder. </span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Some polls are suggesting that Labour will be wiped out
north of the Tweed which would be a disaster, but on the current offering why
wouldn’t people vote SNP?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nicola
Sturgeon has excelled on the national stage and doesn’t have quite as much
odious baggage as Alex Salmond – a man who has been in politics since the
eighties and yet claims to despise professional politicians – and they are
championing a better deal, a fairer way of life for Scotland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe the sums don’t add up, but the message
in one far more joyous than that being peddled by the Conservatives who,
frankly, don’t, and haven’t for generations, cared what happens in
Scotland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re only interested in the
people like themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In England, I worry that we sleepwalked our apathetic way
into accepting this.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A few years ago, I was stumbling my way to London Bridge
from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_Olde_Mitre" target="_blank">Ye Olde Mitre</a> on Holborn Circus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>One of my favourite central London pubs, this tiny boozer has a good range
of ales, sufficient variety but not so many that you can’t try a pint of each,
and some serious pork pies, even if you invariably end up outside doing your
drinking in the alley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’d like
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cutting down a side passage laced
with glass and steel, the dark of closed up cafes sucking the light in, I
emerged the other side into a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_London" target="_blank">sea of canvas</a>.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">All around me on the hard concrete slabs were tents huddled
close together in the spring breeze, from inside the occasional throb of
torchlight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few people milled around,
looking gortex glad and sporting weeks of stubble, more like they should be a
field than underneath the soaringly majestic dome of St Paul’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The constant low murmur rebounded off the
mighty oak doors as I picked my way through the encampment, an accidental
intruder, my progress monitored. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The occupy movement stuck it out for eight months creating a
steady yet sustained awareness of their cause, but this aside protest over the
past five years has been limited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There’s been the odd polite march to Hyde Park and occasional bit of
student violence, but nothing as widespread or sustained as, say, the poll tax
riots, with one brief exception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In the spring of 2009 I started to write a novel which was,
amongst other things, about what I feared a Conservative victory would bring in
2010.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my dystopia I imagined that, by
2015, the economy’s continued stagnation would have seen a deliberate attempt
to create divisions in society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To
create an us and them identified through their wealth, position in society and
politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought that these
purposeful divides between tribes would, eventually, erupt; that London would
burn in a crescendo of anger which couldn’t be directed anywhere except against
each other.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In 2011 London, and large parts of the rest of the country,
<a href="http://davidmarstonwrites.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/londons-burning.html" target="_blank">briefly exploded in a cacophony of rioting and looting</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the middle of it, I went for a walk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The night before the Brockley air had been
alive with sirens and rumours as ramraiders went for TK Maxx in New Cross, a
group occupied a bookies and a Gregg’s in Deptford, running battles were held
on the streets of Lewisham and claims were falsely made that the enormous,
iconic (of a sorts) plastic cat that sits above some shops in Catford had been
burnt down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next evening though it
was still and silent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bars and
restaurants had their steel grills securely fastened and I was almost the only
person out on the streets as the early evening sun calmly flattered the
unexpected quietness of the city, the anger dissipating as quickly as it had
flared.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Unlike my novel the riots of 2011 were not politically
motivated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were mainly carried out
by bored, frustrated youngsters in a hurry to get a new pair of trainers, TV or
drunk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There seemed to be an almost
contagious spread of resentment, theft and violence and yet, no matter what
they thought, the rioters weren’t actually rebelling against anything, just
taking the shortcut to the uber-capitalist dream they’d been sold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And as soon it was over, as soon as the storm
had ceased, the system rolled into gear not to understand and address the
issues of youth unemployment and messaging that you are only successful if you
own a house a fucking big television but to demonise and judge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Since 2010 we have seen a systematic implementation of
policies which appear to hamper the majority while greatly benefiting a monied
minority and while we may all grumble and mutter about it we have been
reluctant to take action as the basic cost of living spirals yet wages are
becalmed and tax avoidance amongst the wealth becomes routine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe we’ve become a meeker society or maybe
the assault has been so quiet and subtle many of us simply haven’t noticed. </span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In 2010 you could
almost taste the change and the tension.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This time round we seem happy to just let whatever anyone else wants to
happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Walking the streets you hardly
see a single placard in the windows of houses and flats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Five years ago, there was a scrum at the
stations as campaigners tried to picket you with the leaflets of their masters,
now I just see weary commuters trudging to a job which is only just keeping
them afloat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s as though political discourse has been
reduced to asking <a href="http://www.mtv.co.uk/charlotte-crosby/news/omg-charlotte-crosby-says-shed-suck-off-david-cameron" target="_blank">reality TV survivors which party leaders they’d shag, suck off or punch</a> and deciding the election that way, as though 140 characters on
social media is sufficient to convey a anything other than a hollow platitude. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">David Cameron used the phrase “the good life” so many times at
his <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2015/apr/14/david-cameron-good-life-conservative-manifesto-video" target="_blank">manifesto launch</a> that you’re powerless other than to think of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv3YWHaTJrU" target="_blank">the seventies sitcom</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But no matter what you think of
the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bomygz1Ygkk" target="_blank">smugly nice teatime TV fare</a>, on our current trajectory you can be certain that
he didn’t mean for everyone.</span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-77565053338476956942015-04-23T21:13:00.002+01:002015-04-23T21:13:45.030+01:00Land of No-Hope Nonsense
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">For some reason Britain, or at least that mythological
middle-Eng-land at any rate, have had an uncomfortable relationship with
Europe. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Edward Heath took us, dragged
many, into what was then the EEC and for his troubles not only got sprayed with
ink on his return and was duly ejected from office at the first available
opportunity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thatcher, while perfectly
willing to play up to the nationalistic press when it suited, maintained a
pragmatic relationship with the rest of the continent which her authority at
home permitted, but then quickly descended into Conservative civil war under
her successor, John Major.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For Blair it
was rarely an issue, but away in the background were the “swivel eyed
fruitcakes, looneys and closest racists” congregating under the UKIP banner.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In the summer of 2001 I was walking from the DLR station to
my then-office in Docklands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sun
glittered off the stagnant dock waters and straight into my hangover.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I walked with my head down wondering about
the dreadful dreariness of the day to come, when I stepped on some
breasts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I paused and looked again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To my surprise, underneath my shoe, were a
pair of large, naked breasts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I looked up.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Fluttering in the morning breeze, clumping, sodden in the
corners of the docks and slipping under the heels of commuters were hundreds of
loose pages from pornography magazines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As far as you could see, the flickering, flustering and floating images
of boobs, bums, strained smiles and everything in-between.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In those days Richard Desmond’s publishing empire was based
on the same block as my office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
specialised in a range of specialist, cheaply assembled porn magazines: Asian
Babes, Mega Boobs, Readers’ Wives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While
those titles were sold in2004, he remains the publisher of the Daily Express
and the Daily Star, hardly the best regarded parts of the national press, and
has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/20/daily-express-richard-desmond-ukip-nigel-farage" target="_blank">recently contributed £1.3million to UKIP</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is the sort of person the party attracts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Five years ago, UKIP’s only significant action was when
Nigel Farage, then standing in John Bercow’s, constituency against the
convention that the impartial Speaker goes unchallenged, crashed his private
plane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://davidmarstonwrites.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/ollie.html" target="_blank">Five years ago the BritishNational Party was the menace from the sidelines</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Abhorrent as the BNP are, and despite Nick
Griffin’s sudden widespread media exposure, the threat level turned out to be
exaggerated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or Griffin was given enough
rope to hang himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take your pick:
either way, the party managed to finish the 2010 election with less elected
representatives than it had started with, widespread condemnation from the Tory
voters it had been wooing and dissolved into in-fighting from which it has yet
to emerge from.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">However, in the past five years racist, xenophobic politics
have not gone away. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, they have
swelled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>UKIP have, somehow, managed to
go from an anti-EU protest vote given MEP status by the power of proportional
representation to a significant political party afforded equal billing in
political discourse and with two sitting members in the House of Commons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the media have been playing a strategy of
assuming the party will combust if given enough airtime, it has spectacularly
backfired.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Farage and company will consistently deny that they share
any characteristics with the BNP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
are not, they claim, a racist party, merely one that believes the UK to be
“full” and therefore a policy of rigorously controlled immigration is required,
only enforceable by an exit from the EU, and that every other aspect of
political discussion – from health to housing – follows this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">One could easily disagree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Okay, so the councillors who admit, on camera, that<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31565770" target="_blank"> the “only people”they “have a problem with” is “the negroes” are suspended</a> from duty, but when
Farage says <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/19/nigel-farage-next-door-romanians-ukip" target="_blank">he wouldn’t want to live next door to Bulgarians or Romanians</a> it is
difficult to feel that nationality isn’t the first step towards differentiation
by race.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the really frustrating thing
is the issues they identify, that the seduce voters with, are not caused by
immigration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their claims are based on
half-factors and wilfully misinterpreted data.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Farage claims that there are schools in London where none of
the children speak English.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A further
investigation of the figures, show that they are referring to schools where a
majority don’t speak English as a first language, but they make no claim on
their fluency in it as a second language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Presumably, as Farage is married to a German his own children are
bilingual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Farage cites extended waiting times or difficultly in
securing an appointment with your GP as proof that we are past peak population,
ignoring the fact that changes to how GP practices are regulated have meant
they can set their own hours, and many now choose to operate shorter working
hours than they did in the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
coupled with the late nineties/early noughties drive to get medical students
onto other specialities, such as anaesthetics, has seen a reduction in the
number of qualified GPs coming through the system – an issue already being
addressed through an expansion of GP training posts around the country – and
you see the issue is not necessarily an increase in patients but a decrease in
the number of doctors and the hours in which they are accessible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It’s hard not to get livid with Farage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He claims that the left wing media
metropolitan mafia elite – and presumably everyone else whose opinion differs
from his – live in a fantasy where people of different nationalities hold hands
and skip through our perpetually sunny multi-cultural society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In painting such an absurd picture he
suggests the reality is that people are hunkered down, living in fear as invading
hordes from a variety of countries and religions burn down merry olde
England.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Neither are true,
unsurprisingly, but I shouldn’t be surprised that Farage’s extreme views get me
so enraged for UKIP is playing the politics of division.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">They are correctly identifying some of the problems in
society, but not the causes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Poverty,
unemployment, poor standards of public services, disengagement from the
political discourse, education and health standards, these are all things that
need to be tackled and addressed, but by simplifying the cause to immigration
and membership of the EU, UKIP are just looking for someone to blame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Nazis did the same thing in the 1930s:
making Jews the scapegoats for a range of socio-economic fault-lines which fell
out the First World War and crossed the globe. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I hated writing that line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Comparing UKIP to the Nazis belittles my argument.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I too am making this all simplistic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet it is hard to avoid the similarity in
their cultures of blame.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The truth is that we always want someone else to blame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the easy solution. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not our fault.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it wasn’t for someone else, we would live
in the land of milk and honey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they
go away then everything will be perfect again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Not only is that naive, it is self-deluding.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So, instead of having sensible, structured debate around the
causes of social deprivation and economic inequality, all the parties have been
forced to respond to the finger pointing of UKIP and talk about immigration and
Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the Conservatives are
returned to office, their manifesto promises a referendum on EU membership by
2017.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the debate in the run up to that
referendum will not, unfortunately, be about the value of EU membership – the
benefits of free travel and a shared market – but the fallacies that curbing
immigration will fix a whole raft of problems which aren’t even related to it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">UKIP cites the cost of remaining a member of the EU as a
negative without recognising the clear benefits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>EU migrants into the UK are net contributors
in taxation and to society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The majority
of migrants not working are students, not benefit claimants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A diverse, elegant and progressive society
can only be a good thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We cannot
return to the 1950s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Too much has
happened in-between.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In last Thursday’s
election debate, Farage claimed that the NHS had become an International Health
Service doling out free healthcare to anyone passing by, that health tourism
was causing it grind to a halt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps
its ignorance or perhaps he’s twisting the facts to suit a pre-determined
argument, but there is no health tourism in the UK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>NHS services are free at the point of
delivery and A&E services will never check your passport on entry, but it
only remains free for residents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you
don’t live here, then there will be bills to follow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The much quoted figure of £55million per day
that it “costs” Britain to be a member of the EU ignores the money coming back,
including multi-billion rebates and the mechanism for trade it creates which
<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/19/nigel-farage-next-door-romanians-ukip" target="_blank">saw British companies enact 12billion Euros worth of business in September 2012alone</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In Farage’s nightmare of 2015 companies are able to suppress
wages by immigrants being prepared to work for less than minimum wage, putting
other people – UKIP voters<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- out of work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, this is not immigration’s fault.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paying less than the minimum wage, operating
a gang-master type racket, is simply illegal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s not to say it doesn’t happen, but we can improve the paypacket of
everyone by enforcing the rules that are already in place. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But the point of all this is that immigration and membership
of Europe is not really a financial question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It creates diversity which should be celebrated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a tiny island nation which once had the
nerve to carve out an empire upon which the sun never set, we should welcome
the world, embrace it and learn from it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Britain, Europe, continents, countries; these are artificial
constructs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Humanity is based on the
principle of migration, of freedom of movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even over the comparatively short past two thousand years, the
population of this tiny lump of land in a northern ocean has been fluid, mixed
and all the better for it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And yet, some people are clearly persuaded by UKIP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The constituencies that are most closely
contested by UKIP – Clacton, Thurrock, Rochester, South Thanet, Castle Point
and Great Grimsby – are areas clearly facing challenges and difficulties in the
modern world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are parts of the
country left behind, left in a different generation, but blaming the rest of
the world is not the answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We need immigration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Our universities are run as businesses and so they require high quality,
fee paying foreign students from around the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The NHS staff shortages are not because there
are queues of British passport holders being denied opportunities to join the
workforce, but because the demand is not there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A diverse and multi-cultural health service reflects the population it
serves and so staff – both newly qualified, trainee and experienced – should be
taken from wherever they are available.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Like it or not, thirty years of Thatcher and her heirs telling us that a
man using a bus in his twenties should consider himself a failure, means that
many people are not willing to work on building sites, to serve coffee, to
drive buses, to start at the bottom and work up and so the workforce is imported.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Immigration doesn’t cause the problem: it
offers a solution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it is a solution
you’re not happy with, or don’t agree with, fine: what’s your idea? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">What irritates me most about Farage is his fag dangling,
pint swinging image as a maverick outsider, a real man, not a polished
politico.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This facade is
ridiculous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Private school educated,
he’s as working class as David Cameron is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Note earlier in this post that he had a private plane, until he crashed
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He earned a fortune working as a
metals trader in the City, where he was famed for his twelve hour liquid
lunches, and has the audacity to say he represents the “working man”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his years as an MEP he has claimed the
maximum travel allowance (otherwise known as expenses) in each and every year,
refusing to submit his claims for voluntary assessment, and yet berates his
counter-parts in Westminster as having their snouts in the trough.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Remaining part of the EU is beneficial to us as a country
for a whole range of socio-economic factors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The only things one can miss about the years when there were looser ties
was the old inter-railing experience of carrying a wodge of multi-coloured,
different currency around and more frequent stops along the borders where smartly
capped men would parade the carriage stamping passports.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bouncing through a few old Warsaw Pact
countries for a few days rapidly filled the pages up, giving you the look of a
more far flung traveller than you really were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Conservatives are, of course, hardly pro-European
themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The party has a notorious
number of hardliners determined to raise the drawbridge and bring an idea of
self-sufficiency back across the English Channel, having somehow failed to
notice that the world has moved on since the 1930s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This has been charmingly portrayed during
this government by the sight of Go Home vans trundling around seaside
towns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Designed – allegedly – to
encourage either illegal immigrants or those who have stayed beyond their visa
to return home, the small print somehow hasn’t come across as clearly as the
more fundamental xenophobic message which might make those here legitimately to
feel somewhat unwelcome.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">1979.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the writing
of these blogs, so frequently have I come back to the year of my birth and
wondered what might have happened if the nation had voted the other way, if the
Conservatives hadn’t embraced advertising, if James Callaghan hadn’t responded
to a journalist with a pithy “crisis, what crisis?”, if oil and interest rates
hadn’t been spiralling out of control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>All those, and many other factors, put her Margaret Thatcher in office
and nothing was ever the same.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It’s easy to portray Thatcher as some sort of wicked witch,
a demon hell bent of crushing the country (and, occasionally, members of her
own cabinet).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need to remember the
dire straits things were under in 1979, the country verging on a general
strike, with economic strife beholden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yes, the unions needed their powers curbed so that the right to
legitimate industrial action wasn’t abused; yes, it was bizarre that the state
owned all the pubs in Carlisle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
there are strong arguments against nationalisation – ones I don’t happen to
agree with, but they’re not entirely irrational or filled with malice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But, as we have seen with Asquith’s early twentieth century
governments, there are ways to introduce reforms and modernisation and Thatcher
didn’t use them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was a divisive not
an inclusive politician.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She pushed
through an agenda by creating scapegoats and enemies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She lined up targets that included the poor,
society, the left, gays, the unions and, yes, anyone who wasn’t of a certain
sort of Britishness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this way, Farage
resembled her, even if he lacks her political acumen, ability and intelligence.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">People felt betrayed by Blair’s aggressiveness in the Middle
East, but they weren’t producing assassination fantasies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hilary Mantel has been criticised – and
praised – for her short story the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/the-assassination-of-margaret-thatcher-review-hilary-mantel-collection-short-stories" target="_blank">Assassination of Margaret Thatcher</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the eighties such works were not uncommon,
from post-punk music to comics, such as Grant <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Swithin's_Day_(comics)" target="_blank">Morrison’s and Paul Grist’s StSwithin’s Day</a>, a story about a teenage fantasy of justified murder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may have led to questions in the House of
Commons and condemnation from the Sun, but the publishers simply used it in the
publicity material: her potential murder was a selling point.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This is not how it should be.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And yet, Thatcher remains one of the most influential
politicians of the twentieth century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Her reforms changed Britain fundamentally and, for better or for worse,
underpin where we are today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the
loosening of the regulation of the financial markets, to nationalising
electricity, water, gas, oil, trains, the telephone lines and almost everything
else bar the Post Office and the NHS (one of those sacred cows was flogged off
by the current crop; the other waits in the slaughterhouse); from denouncing
society and promoting the notion of the selfish company to beginning the shift
to student debt with the reduction of grants and the introduction of loans
(followed today by massive fees).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Aside from the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/22/the-magnificent-shapps-will-crush-his-critics-but-what-about-poor-contribsx" target="_blank">extended existential identity crisis Grant Shappsappears trapped in</a> and the shocking revelations that<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/10/ed-miliband-politician-genitals-shocker-daily-mail-labour-love-life" target="_blank"> Ed Miliband had sexualintercourse with an attractive woman before he met his wife</a>, the 2010 political
highlight of last week was the BBC debate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There was an odd feel to this one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>With David Cameron refusing to attend – an action which if he was
seeking any other job than Prime Minister would have seen, under the rules he
introduced, his job seekers allowance cut for not actively trying to gain
employment – and BBC seemingly forgetting to invite Nick Clegg the balance
ended up with Farage on, appropriately, the far right of the stage attempting
to debate four varying levels of left leaning parties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The debate ended with Natalie Bennet, Nicola
Sturgeon and Leanne Wood enjoying a group hug before shaking Miliband’s hand
while Farage stood alone, the little boy who smelt of wee and nobody would play
with.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In complete fairness to Farage, with the Tories absent and
the centre ground of the Lib Dems not represented this was not a true
representation of the country’s political landscape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, his attempt to dismiss the audiences’
negative reaction as being because they were specially selected by the
left-biased BBC was ridiculous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The BBC
is renowned world-wide as an impartial news source.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You only have to look to the USA (or almost
every other country in the world) to see what partisan reporting and political
presentation is like. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Here’s the thing, Farage: Possibly the audience was
selected, by the independent polling company, to be representative of the
parties debating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or, it could be that
everyone appears rabidly left-wing compared to UKIP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or, just maybe, it could be that believing in
a fair, equal and just society for all is how most people think. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The country is a very different place to what it was in
1979.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In many ways it is better: a
fairer, more tolerant society, but much of that came through thirteen years of
Labour government easing a relaxing of attitudes to difference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of the so-called improvements just look
shinier on the surface.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People still
moan about the trains; power costs are spiralling again only we’re paying for
it direct rather than through taxation; infrastructure is creaking at the edges
and a cavalier financial sector plays high stakes poker with the whole
economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">There are many things we can do to improve our country, to
improve the society in which we live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Leaving Europe will not help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All
it will do is leave us isolated, poorer, inward looking and still mourning for
a perfect life in a past that never really existed.</span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-62277050762222987952015-04-15T20:51:00.002+01:002015-04-15T20:51:53.096+01:00Right to Live
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">When we were looking to buy our first place in the winter of
2012-13, I met one of the most odious men I have ever had the misfortune to
encounter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://davidmarstonwrites.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/leyton-road.html" target="_blank">He was an estate agent who showed us around a bizarrely modified Victoria terrace in New Cross</a>, where part of the
garden and rear of the house had been sold off to next door and made it an
oddly cramped space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were,
understandably, less than enthusiastic about something so compromised and right
at the top of budget.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘You just need to buy something,’ he told us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I bought my first flat, twenty years ago when I was a waiter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few years later I sold it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Big profit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So I bought another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then
another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s how it goes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s the only way to make money in this
country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the only way to survive.’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘What about the waiters of today?’ my not yet wife asked,
aware that someone in similar circumstances is highly unlikely to be able to
afford a flat.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Who cares?’</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Thus we summarise the country’s selfish attitude to
property; the British obsession.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I never saw myself as a property owner, and yet here I
am.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To some extent pushed into it by my now
wife, I none-the-less find myself pleased with the outcomes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not so much the owning itself – that causes
anxiety and worries that people will notice how painfully bourgeois I really am
– but because we live in the area I want to live in and should only find
ourselves moving in circumstances of our choosing (or more general financial
catastrophe) rather than the whim of a third party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Following five rented flats (including two
from which there were unexpected exits) in London over twelve years, I have
developed a pathological hatred of moving, of packing all my stuff up into
boxes and lugging it half a mile down the road.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I am sure the stress of being homeless for two months last time when
everything went tits up didn’t help, but, whatever the psychological
motivations, I’m keen on stability for the foreseeable future.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The big problem is that such a simple desire should be possible
without having to buy a property.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
notion of short term renting until you’ve saved a deposit to get onto the
mythological housing ladder is a construct of the eighties and the sell off of
council housing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The media highlight
generation rent, those poor sods a few years younger than I (and many of my
peers) who are trapped in a maze of rising private rents permanently preventing
them saving for that manufactured dream, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/18/generation-rent-home-ownership-generation-britain" target="_blank">but being a majority nation of owner-occupiers is an invention of the late twentieth century</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the past – the time of William Thackery’s
Vanity Fair, for example - even the wealthy rented and long-term, even
lifetime, rents were not uncommon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The release of council housing stock for sale, ideologically
framed as helping people secure their futures through home ownership ignored
the fact that council renters were secure anyway and hid the market aspiration
of speculation propping up a flailing economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Sure, there were restrictions on modifications to a council home, but
compared to the draconian measures imposed by private landlords where bluetack
is forbidden to even cross the threshold, things were positively libertarian.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">By refusing councils permission to utilise the small
revenues from the sales to build new homes, Thatcher’s government created the
mess we’re currently in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Insufficient
purchase stock and unregulated rental stock pushes up prices with no security.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/16/new-era-tenants-fear-eviction-christmas" target="_blank">We find whole communities threatened with seasonal eviction because an American venture capitalist company has bought their leases as an asset and sees too small a return on their investment</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That particular assault on our basic right of
having shelter was fought off – <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/live/2014/dec/01/new-era-estate-russell-brand-protest-against-eviction-live" target="_blank">unfortunately with the support of Russell Brand</a>
- but there will be others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>London in
particular is becoming a bank. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bricks
and mortar hold savings rather than bank accounts, pushing out people who
actually want to live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Swathes of West
London are deserted, streets abandoned of life, boarded up shop units being
converted into a studio flat for foreign investment which no-one will ever
actually occupy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never mind not being a
society I want to live, that isn’t a society full stop: it’s an investment
portfolio.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">There are some easy wins, solutions which would not be hard
to introduce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We could to tax empty
properties, regulate the rental market and instigate a programme of building
affordable housing: not just affordable to buy, but affordable to rent. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But it would also help if we ended this national obsession
with property ownership as the only way to get on in life (he says, conscious
of his hypocrisy as he sits in owner-occupied house).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need to look to Europe in particular for
more innovative ways to live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
current trend of unsustainable housing bubbles fuelling credit sprees and
inevitable crunching bust has to end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At
the moment we’re a nation of high stakes gamblers betting our homes on future
pensions and wealth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s just fucking
nuts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Campbell-Bannerman" target="_blank">Henry Campbell-Bannerman</a> has been referred to as Britain’s
“first and only radical Prime Minister.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s not an assessment I completely agree with, as we will see over the
coming two weeks, but at the dog end of the Victorian era it is easy to see why
contemporaries may have thought so.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The early twentieth century Liberals were great reformers
and Campbell-Bannerman swept to victory in 1906 on the back of a large majority
following a failed Tory bluff at the polls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The reforms introduced were wide ranging and reaching, from education to
free school meals, from protecting children from abuse to introducing pensions,
health and unemployment insurance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Suddenly the poor, the great majority of the country, had champions at
the highest reaches of power.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Campbell-Bannerman resigned due to ill health in 1909, dying
mere days later, and was succeeded by HH Asquith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Asquith along with the new Chancellor, David
Lloyd-George, drafted the People’s Budget.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A budget for a war, as Lloyd-George described it, a war with
poverty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>High rates of taxes for the
rich were designed to finance further, greater reforms, bringing Britain into
the modern world whereby all of its citizens were cared for equally, in
principle at least.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Conservative dominated House of Lords blocked the Bill,
much against the run of contention, but then they stood to lose the most.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Asquith called an early, snap election in the
spring of 1910 and while his majority was severely dented, he was able to form
a minority government with support from the first Labour MPs and the Irish
Nationals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the Lords began to block
the budget once again, bringing the country to a standstill, George V supported
the government and threaten to flood the upper house with 500 new Liberal
Lords, obliterating the Conservative majority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Lords duly let the Bill pass, and Asquith went back to the
electorate in the winter seeking a mandate for reform which would change how
the House of Commons and Lords interacted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Aside from laying the foundations of the welfare and social
state that were built on in 1945, it is admirable that whenever serious change
from policy or dramatic reforms were required the government was principled
enough to ask the voters what they thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Despite this backfiring for the Tories in 1906 and the slim minority
government of the Liberals this was still considered to be the decent thing
to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is noticeable that over the past
five years, which have seen some of the fastest, most sweeping changes to the
state in a generation, the current government neither has a mandate nor has had
the courage to seek one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Buried within all this Liberal reform were changes to the
Agricultural sector.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Agricultural
Holdings Act and the Smallholdings and Allotments Act were both designed to
limit the interference of landlords on the quality of rural life and the
capacity of individuals to farm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
latter even gave permission for local councils to purchase land and to lease
out at controlled rates, bringing down the costs elsewhere in the system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The purpose of this was not only to improve
the quality of life but to regulate a sector seen as a critical cornerstone of
both society and the economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Just over a century later, it feels like we need something
similar for housing and we need a political party principled and dignified
enough to do it rather than <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/14/tory-election-manifesto-right-to-buy-housing-association-properties" target="_blank">the resurrection of Right to Buy in the Conservative’s Tuesday manifesto release</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Ed Milliband managed to sound <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/13/ed-miliband-new-statesman-blink-voters-boris-johnson-thelma-louise" target="_blank">surprisingly statesman</a> like in launching
the Labour manifesto Monday and it was a solid, reliable pledge with a couple
of kicking the very rich in the balls headline grabbing policies, but
ultimately it didn’t go far enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Tories, meanwhile, hark back to the eighties and rehash old ideas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right to Buy?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11535234/Extending-the-right-to-buy-is-economically-illiterate-and-morally-wrong.html" target="_blank">That’s what caused most of the housing mess in the first place.</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/14/right-to-buy-children-tories-pledge" target="_blank">Indeed, all Right to Buy did was create a new generation of private landlords, not home owners</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
majority of Right to Buy properties were flats and small houses in inner city
locations, sold at a significant profit as the original owners retired to the
country or moved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A significant volume –
over 40% in one London borough alone – are now in the hands of private
landlords, sometime being leased at far higher rates than the council owned
equivalent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In some cases, the rent will
subsidised by the state through housing benefit meaning that we, the tax payer,
are paying more for something we once owned as an asset because of a political
whim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The son of Thatcher’s housing
minister, unsurprisingly, owns 40 former Right to Buy properties.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">What we really need is a building programmes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All the parties make promises to build a
modest number of (often sustainable, except UKIP, obviously) homes, although
the Conservatives promise to encourage the private sector to build more homes
rather than actually build many themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s what <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/mar/16/help-to-buy-one-year-on-homebuyers" target="_blank">Help to Buy</a>, the last Parliament’s flagship housing policy,
was originally supposed to do, until it became apparent it wasn’t going
anywhere because the industry hadn’t flooded its own market with newly built homes
to buy so they extended it to all properties exasperating the problem, but
giving the economy a leg up. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Lib Dems’ policy of introducing <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/10/help-to-rent-scheme-for-young-people-proposed-by-liberal-democrats" target="_blank">Help to Rent</a> is going in
the right direction by aiming to get people in their twenties out of their
family homes and into rented accommodation therefore encouraging the parents to
sell and downsize thus freeing up housing stock for those just starting a
family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nice idea, but it fails to
recognise that no-one’s going to do that because the one-way housing bet is
shoring up people’s pensions and their possible old age care home costs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no incentive to downsize.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, the Tory promise of Inheritance tax
cuts, of ensuring housing’s value is safe from the tax man just supports this
whole fragile house of cards.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">An Englishman’s house is no longer his castle, it’s his bank
account. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cameron keeps blaming the 2008 recession
on Labour, but hold on: wasn’t an over-inflated housing market and sub-prime mortgages
something to do with it too? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But no-one wants
to hear that story.</span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-4332578081700120162015-04-08T21:54:00.001+01:002015-04-08T21:54:10.672+01:00Ouch
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">There’s a lump on my back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">There’s a lump on my back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is hard and protrudes out my ribs, under the skin like a shark fin.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Five years ago I walked towards Tower Bridge with snow under
my boots and hunkered down in my old duffel coat, the hood pulled tight over my
head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From a high billboard, on the side
of a newsagents, David Cameron sneered down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Remember those adverts?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were
the ones that sold the Conservative Party on the back of their supposedly
modern, compassionate leader; a man more adept at hiding his less savoury
characteristics than many of his colleagues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Those posters promised many things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This one assured us that the NHS would be safe in Tory hands.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tories-deleted-past-broken-promises-from-party-website-8937435.html" target="_blank">“No more top down reorganisation of the NHS,” he pledged</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He talked about the dedication of the doctors
and staff who had cared for his terminally ill son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe, we thought, this is a Tory who
understands the value of a free and accessible to all health service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His praise was almost certainly genuine, but
it has been trampled by what has come since.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">No top down reorganisation?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The 2012 Health and Social Care bill introduced by Andrew
Lansley was the biggest, most fundamental reorganisation of the NHS, from the
top down, since its inception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Healthcare in the UK has been radically altered and aligned with the
ideological priorities of the market rather than advice from professionals.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The bill is a confused combination of localism and
centralisation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has abolished the
strategic health authorities leaving just NHS England and a few associated
bodies hanging onto the reins, therefore centralising strategy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Simultaneously it has abolished the network
of Primary Care Trusts which, amongst other things, purchased their area’s
health services through the internal market.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The intention was for the purchasing power to go extremely local, into
the hands of GPs who would make direct decisions about their patients.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This, as one would expect of this government, ignored the
fact that all those people employed by the old PCTs were doing something with
their days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Daily Mail likes to
paint the picture of bloated NHS managers, civil servants and local authority
employees collecting salaries while working reduced hours and messing around on
the internet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reality is that the
vast majority of people going to work do actually engage in work, and often have
specialised skills, like contracting and health service commissioning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are skills which GPs, professional
doctors who have spent their working lives caring for the sick and not getting
to grips with how to put together a multi-million pound contract for cancer
care, do not have.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Consequently around most of the country we find Clinical
Commissioning Groups, units carrying out the actions of the powers granted to
GPs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Similar to the PCTs, but more
under-resourced and less strategically clear of what they should be doing, a
centralisation of a localised service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Five years – just the latest five years, but five tense years
none-the-less – of continual structural realignment has seen some of the best
and brightest talent flee the NHS for a more stable working life.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This lump on my back has been there for a long time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe as long as fifteen years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s clearly a fatty cyst of some sort, but
in recent years, when I lost weight, it has felt more prominent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe it’s grown somewhat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It rubs on my shirt and gets second
glances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It juts, like the peak of an
iceberg, making me wonder what’s below the surface.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">January 2014, and I finally decide to see my GP about my
lump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He suggests a scan and that it
should probably be removed to be on the safe side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While I’m there, my first visit for years, I
update my address.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The hospital sends my appointment details to my old
address.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually, I go in for an
ultrasound scan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s a follow-up
consultation where they seem uncertain by the ultrasound and recommend a CT
scan.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Labour, in attempt to create a realisation of the true cost
of healthcare services, created an internal NHS market whereby, essentially, one
area of the NHS, for example a PCT, needing access to services delivered by
another organisation, such as an acute hospital, purchased or commissioned that
service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The commissioning process
allowed bodies to purchase based on value for money and quality standards while
working collaborative to drive the later up and maintain the former.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Arguably, it was a flawed idea, but you can
see where they were going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In any
sector, even a publically funded one, cash is still king.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having the option to move to an alternative
service provider, and thereby cut the income of your existing provider, is a
powerful tool.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Conservatives have, however, taken it one step further
with the introduction of any willing provider into the mix.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This means it is no longer an NHS internal
market, but one in which any organisation offering healthcare services may bid
to be awarded a contract, often successfully so by offering unrealistically low
costs. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Make no mistake, these companies are
not in healthcare to ensure the future well being of the local population.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is, quite simply, to make a profit,
because that’s what the private sector has to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Make money.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The assumption was that the NHS was flabby, inefficient,
unnecessarily expensive and over-staffed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Any private contractor would simply have to cut back some non-essential
staff, create some systems that were not bogged down by public sector
bureaucracy and, once related services had been acquired, efficiency savings could
be made by streamlining.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reality has
not been so smooth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many have found that
the previous NHS service was running about as efficiently as a system with
unpredictable outcomes could be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Staff
were already stretched and over-worked, propping up the system by good
will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unsurprisingly, that good will
falters when you cut wages and reduce annual leave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The body length tray glides into the narrow tube of the CT scanner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXt56MB-3vc" target="_blank">UB40 sing through the headphones I’m wearing</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My shoulders, scalp and the tip
of my nose all touch the walls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s hot
and uncomfortable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My arm throbs where a
drip pumps dye into my blood.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Red, red, whiiiiine.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The scanner roars to life, like a jumpjet taking off,
drowning out Ali Campbell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rattle
pounds at my brain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The screech is
relentless and in my claustrophobic tube there’s no way to even try to block it
out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">After what feels like an hour, the thunder grinds to a halt.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLpmj059JFA" target="_blank">I’ll stand by you,’ sings Chrissie Hynde in my headphones,‘I’ll staaaannd by yew.’</a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The hospital sends the follow up appointment to the wrong
address again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In the next consultation the surgeon says it is just a cyst,
but the radiologist is uncertain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
picture from the scanner is unclear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They decide to refer me to a specialist cancer centre.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Private companies are already proving to be a failure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-30740956" target="_blank">Hinchingbrooke</a>, the first NHS hospital to be
given private management has been placed under special measures and Circle Holdings,
the US company bought in to save it has fled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-26049360" target="_blank">Serco</a> have defaulted on several multi-million pound clinical contracts
leaving the Trusts to swoop in a pick up the pieces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This happens, because healthcare, in this
country, doesn’t make a profit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The NHS
makes a loss in the internal market system and because they’re all, ultimately,
part of the same organisation it just about stumbles along.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And that’s fine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good
will and dedication hold the whole thing up and, frankly, it shouldn’t be any other
way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What Labour – and the Tories – failed
to understand is that care and compassion can be more important than cash.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This week the 2015 election campaign has been dominated by
the leaders’ debate, not least for the fact that David Cameron pulled himself
from out behind the sofa and actually took part.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suspect that viewing figures were lower
than last time around, not only because of the lack of novelty, tedious will
they/won’t they soap opera build up and mildly confusing seven way battle, but
it was broadcast on the Maundy Thursday, the equivalent of a Friday night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the nation will have been out drinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My wife and I, though, were off cycling
around Normandy the following day and so had a quiet evening in swearing at the
television.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">As proved by Cleggmania turning into a net loss of seats
last time around, it is foolish to read too much into these things, but there
some intriguing indicators, and rarely around anything anyone actually said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The trending google search during the debate
was, apparently, “what’s wrong with Nigel Farage’s face?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, Britain’s most famous xenophobe
looked particularly sweaty and pale, with a tendency to roll his head around on
his neck, swivel his eyes (in a fashion currently prohibited of UKIP members)
and have an elastic mouth which contorted regularly into a upside down moon,
much like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Eagle" target="_blank">Sam the Eagle from the Muppets</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>From out of said mouth came the expected barks of a worn down record
failing to find anything which couldn’t be blamed on a single issue.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Alas, Nigel wasn’t the only one to have an unfortunate
physical tick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ed Milliband’s pinched
fingers being thrust towards the camera at every opportunity was pure Blair,
but the Blair that Harry Enfield was mocking as long ago as 1998 in the St
Albion’s sketches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like Ed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think he’d make an excellent Prime
Minister, even though I intend to vote Green, but he struggles on stages such
as this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe that’s okay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe we’re tired of the too slick and overly
polished politician, but I suspect most people will find it problematic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He looks old, grey, jowly and haggard
compared to the fresh faced young kid who barged his brother aside five years
ago.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Cameron and Clegg’s sniping came across like parents
bickering in front of the kids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a
little demeaning, as both struggled to take credit for the government’s mild
successes and to divert blame for most of the crap (although, in fairness,
Cameron shoved most of it on the previous Labour administration, an argument
which is, surely, becoming a little tired – if he does win a second term, will
he try to do the same in five years time, a decade after coming to power and
twelve years after the economic implosion of 2008?).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None of it was very convincing and they
seemed to both be refusing to shoulder responsibility while arguing semantics
and whose fault it was they left the heating on while they went on holiday.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Frequently, though, the debate descended into men in similar
grey suits yelling at each other leaving it to the women leaders present to
return the discussion to the meat of the question posed and to provide
something of substance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Leanne Wood at
times looked shell-shocked to be on the national stage, but gained applause, in
our house at any rate, for telling Farage he should be ashamed at his lack of
humanity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Natalie Bennett,
unfortunately, still seemed short of confidence following her brain fade
earlier in the year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was the only
leader to obviously refer to notes in her opening and closing remarks, and yet
she had a clear and decisive handle on the detail when speaking off the
cuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Confidence is, however, important
in these matters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even with some
excellent contributions she was unable to steer the discussion to the elephant
in the room of the crumbling environment, her only opportunity being when she
was able to voice her opposition to fracking when a heckler raised it. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It was Nicola Sturgeon, though, who whipped everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An established politician in the way that
Wood, Farage and Bennett are not, Sturgeon was witty, engaging, forthright and
determined not to take any bullshit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
may be a strong believer in the need for Scotland to stay in the United
Kingdom, but if the SNP were standing in South East London I’d be sorely
tempted to vote for them: a clear message of society being improved for the
masses with an articulate and principled leader.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Unsurprisingly no-one, not once, said “I agree with Nick.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The cancer centre promptly makes an appointment for me, but
this is my legal wedding day, so I call to rearrange.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While my wife and I are in Wales immediately
following the nuptials, the consultant reviews the images and decides that it
is definitely a cyst.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cancer centre
refers me back to my local hospital.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Except they don’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Somehow they manage to refer me to myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A letter arrives suggesting that I remove the
cyst myself and if there’s any concern to drop the cancer specialist a call.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I go back to the GP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I get referred to the hospital again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The hospital sends my appointment details to the wrong address.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I go back to the GP yet again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somehow my notes from the CT scan now say
that I am suffering from second stage bowel cancer with liver metastases.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I otherwise in perfect health and the CT
scan was now nine months ago, we assume this is a mistake and move on.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Aside from the infringement of the private sector, the NHS
is creaking at the seams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The failure of
many Trusts to meet Emergency Department waiting times hit the news over the
winter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Short-term investment was thrown
at it to make the problem headlines go away, but while the NHS budget hasn’t
had the same mauling as many other departments, in real terms it has been
reduced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inflationary rises, a growing
and aging population, harder targets and diminished resources mean that the
system has suffered the biggest funding cut in twenty years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A drive for more care in the community, for people
to be cared for in their homes rather than lingering for weeks in another ward
is admirable and, possibly, cost-effective but reconfiguring the staffing mix
will take longer than the system shift is allowing for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes years to train healthcare professionals,
not less than a parliamentary term.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Before Labour came into power in 1997, the NHS was a
mess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hospitals appeared to be dirty, were
often falling apart and the harried and maligned staff struggling to keep the
lights on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Labour turned it around;
turned it into something for the country to be proud of, but it only did by
pushing unprecedented levels of funding through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that’s it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Health costs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And so it should.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Nor should we mind paying for it through universal taxation
that ensures it is there when we need it regardless of our circumstances.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So, the big questions become:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did Cameron not know?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When he promised the electorate that there
would be no significant changes and that he would safeguard the NHS, he either
had no idea what Lansley was planning or he lied.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Neither of which is very appealing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In early 1974 the latest in a series of miners’ strikes
plunged the country into darkness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
mines were still state controlled, power and electricity generated by burning
coal fell under the auspices of the government, but miners have always had a
bad deal and strikes over pay and working conditions were common.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Edward Heath, sitting Conservative Prime
Minister and arguably the rudest man to hold the top office, had been trying to
break the effectiveness of the unions for the duration of his parliament.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Union power was probably out of control,
resulting in a stumbling economy and industrial walk outs for the smallest
affront.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Heath’s radical response was not to back down, but to
introduce the three day week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All
non-essential electricity use was to be reduced to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Day_Week" target="_blank">three days a week</a>, including
the majority of businesses, and domestic use was strictly limited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even on the active days, the country went to
bed at ten-thirty.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">After three months, with an increasingly hostile and bored
population (and an expected high birth rate for the end of the year), Heath
called a snap-election for February 1974, with the three day week still in
place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He ran with the slogan: “Who
governs Britain?”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The electorate responded, “not you, mate” and Harold Wilson
found himself back in Downing Street with a minority government.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The lesson here:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>there are essential services, core infrastructure which should be free
from political arguments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thatcher sold
most of them off, but health (and education) still remain with the state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are too important to play ideology with,
too fundamental to our well being to continually reorganise, restructure purely
for a new health secretary to say they’ve done something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A steady hand, more money and time to get to
grips with the challenges our wellbeing throws up should be a big enough job in
itself.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Fifteen months after starting first going to the GP, I still
have a lump.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The retention of my lump is not the fault of the NHS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a failure of money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Greater investment in support systems which
would mean that staff weren’t under-resourced and appropriately trained,
talented people would take administrative tasks away from clinical staff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the Leaders’ Debate, Cameron referred
derogatorily to NHS managers as people with clipboards getting in the way of
doctors and nurses healing the sick. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
he misses the point that clinical and non-clinical staff are not mutually
exclusive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re all part of the same
system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The NHS is the envy of the
world, one of the finest, most cost-effective healthcare systems anywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It just needs a little bit of help.</span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-89429607695625760642015-04-01T21:31:00.002+01:002015-04-01T21:33:39.252+01:00Education, Education, meh.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx6a3kJ3V1h-OPKV-tQGneeMz9BQ6cj87yiIOzgcDMR4iSsh-ckx8tP_erxuATdm0hP0_P517BOhXopoaY0My98h0CpMoOiSetCTBcv2IGnIBJGh99Dx8fC3tI3T4zDdgetSJ-kzu_Q6tZ/s1600/19062011080.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx6a3kJ3V1h-OPKV-tQGneeMz9BQ6cj87yiIOzgcDMR4iSsh-ckx8tP_erxuATdm0hP0_P517BOhXopoaY0My98h0CpMoOiSetCTBcv2IGnIBJGh99Dx8fC3tI3T4zDdgetSJ-kzu_Q6tZ/s1600/19062011080.JPG" height="320" width="179" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Let’s get one thing clear: I am not that bright.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I read voraciously and have a good memory for
factual snippets that interest me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
like to think I can construct clear and occasionally concise sentences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything else is largely bravado coupled
with being able to recycle parts of the Guardian I’ve read recently.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The school I went to between the ages of eleven and sixteen,
I utterly loathed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a school on an
upward trajectory, one which had come through difficult times it probably now
refuses to admit ever happened and was determined to make the most out of its
burgeoning reputation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consequently it
was, I think with hindsight, great at supporting the high flyers it wanted and
at tackling the disruptive kids who threatened to derail everything, but less
good at dealing disinterested middle ranks like myself.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And a lack of interest was the real killer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Science, maths, woodwork, geography all
failed to fire my imagination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Languages
I was – and still am – too bad at to take seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Art I liked but was, again, somewhat crap and
so lacked proper engagement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t
see the point of IT lessons, after all: what would I ever need a computer for?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, the only subjects which really fired
me up were drama, history and English.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Like any of this is a surprise, right?</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I went on to achieve middling GCSE results.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After the shock of an appalling performance
at the mock exam stage, I was sufficiently spooked to get my act together and
limp over the line with grades which are by no means bad but hardly
spectacular.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went on to A Levels and a
degree, both of which I performed to a much higher standard, not least because
I wasn’t bogged down by stuff which bored me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Yeah, yeah: me and every other teenager in the country.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My point is this:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
got away with being disenfranchised with my own education for first twelve years
of it due to the system and generation I was lucky enough to be in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got away with not bothering to do any
homework largely because my teachers didn’t seem to care, but nor did they look
to find ways to interest me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got away
with all the mistakes you should be allowed to make at a young age, realised by
myself the importance of being able to read, write and formulate arguments and,
for me, that’s worked out perfectly fine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Had I been born a generation earlier, before comprehensive education, I
would almost certainly have failed my eleven-plus exams and found myself in a
secondary modern school, rather than a grammar school, from which it was
notoriously difficult to advance to the next stages of education once you’d
woken up to the fact that life was more comics, camping and coca-cola.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Grammar schools, so beloved by many parents, are a divisive
tool of an unfair system which, by design or not, embed social inequality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They expect children to be plugged into a
life plan and the importance of their actions at an age when they are unlikely
to have thought of schooling as anything other than an inconvenient block
between playtimes and half-term holidays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So it is no surprise to know that Michael Gove is a distinct fan of
them.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Gove may have been sidelined in an attempt to make the
Conservatives more electable but his dogmatic, ill-judged policies are
festering through the department he was jettisoned from and the education
system as a whole.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I’ve never been a fan of Gove, ever since his leaky smugness
oozed over the TV in 2010, but his single minded lurch towards the eighteenth
century seems baffling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s championed
moves towards nationalist biased programmes in history and English, backwards
approaches to science and maths, the promotion of something as poorly defined
as British values and a shift away from external quality assessments, leaving
schools to be as high or low performing as they can be bothered to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gove may be gone, but this sort of crap is
still there.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The system has become incompressible (although in fairness,
it is not all the Tories’ fault).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>State
schools, free schools, faith schools, academies, public-private
partnerships.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All this is supposed to
generate choice for the “consumer”, as though your child’s education was like
buying a washing machine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, it
just creates confusion and inequality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Muddled half myths like the maybe introduction of radical Islam
teachings in some Birmingham schools – which caused <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYrFpY-SLy0" target="_blank">one American idiot to mindlessly proclaim that Birmingham was a no-go city for non-Muslims</a>, the
muppet – or statistical fact, like the underperforming of many of the free
schools which were supposed to be saviours of some area’s education
opportunities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In fact, it seems that the whole Free Schools’ idea only had
the purpose of giving Toby Young more unwarranted airtime.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Who has got the time to wade through all of this
mis-information?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who would be confident
they were sending their child to the right school for them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All choice breeds, in these circumstances, is
indecision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Choosing a school is more
monumental than choosing cheese.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Spies" target="_blank">BBC drama series, Cambridge Spies</a>, about the group of
students who went on to fill major roles in the secret service while still
being double agents for the Soviet Union, the Kim Philby and Antony Blunt
characters are sitting in the sunshine by the Ely, the tranquilly gorgeous
college buildings behind them.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“Do you really want to tear all this down?” asks Philby,
still unsure of his motivation.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">“Tear it down?” replies Blunt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“No, I want this for everyone.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And that’s the point: education is one the key corners of
society which should be free and of an equally high quality for everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every single pupil should get a fair start.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Meanwhile, the private schooling system sits happily on the stockpile
of cash its mysterious charity status allows it acuminate tax free knowing that
its alumni will ascend to the top and continue to look after its interests.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The restructuring of how money flows down to education means
that the free schools and other currently in vogue initiatives hoover up the
cash, while institutions like sixth form colleges <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/feb/13/sixth-form-colleges-we-are-an-endangered-species" target="_blank">suffer enormous funding deficits</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I fully believe that the
transitional nature of sixth form colleges, a place which treats you like an
adult, a university without having to leave home, was enormously important in me
connecting with the point of learning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
was there because I wanted to be; I came and went as I wanted; no-one told me
what I had to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what I wanted to
do, at last, was learn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Taking A-levels
as just another two years at school feels massively introverted and largely
pointless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You might as well skip
straight ahead to university.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Aside, from you know, the massive fees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://davidmarstonwrites.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/its-economy-stupid.html" target="_blank">I’ve already touched on the economic foolishness of saddlingthe young with debt</a>, but there is also the affect it has on the learning
experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am old enough to have gone
to university before any fees were introduced, the last academic year to do so,
but it allowed a freedom to go and study for the sake of studying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A degree in history which focuses on
inheritance law in Plantagenet Europe and the reliability of the sixth century
Merovingian scholar <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_of_Tours" target="_blank">Gregory of Tours</a> has been of absolutely zero practical
application in the years since I graduated and yet I hold onto the knowledge
gained dearly and the skills developed rifle through everything I do.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Student opposition to the government’s policies was,
initially, reassuring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were
flashes in 2010 – when London undergraduates <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11726822" target="_blank">stormed Milbank House</a> and attacked
Prince Charles’ car – which hinted at a generation of rebellious ideology
finally returning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People were prepared
to stand up for what wasn’t fair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
rather than be entrenched in protest, when the instant gratification the
twenty-first century expects didn’t materialise, interest faded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Flashes have continued around the country,
but those have been more discrete, more subdued.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The desire for change seems half-hearted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Case in point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I work
close to University buildings in central London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over the past few years there have been
protests against the University by students, largely focussed on the management
of the union rather than any larger, nobler, political issue, but still protest
is protest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On one such occasion, I left
the office and found myself amongst a small sway of rowdy students.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unusually I was on foot and in a suit and yet
I passed through the swathe with no confrontation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The crowd dissipated the closer I got to the
road, but some hesitant hangers on lingered.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Hey!’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A voice
shouted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I looked up at a young, tousled
haired, skinny man in a light grey cardigan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>‘Yeah you.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Four eyes!’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">For various reasons, I’d had a really shit day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I looked at him, but maybe my gaze
asked:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘What’re you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fucking six years old?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You moron, come here and say something
meaningful.’</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Er...’ he said out loud, before scuttling away and jumping
into a parked, bright yellow, bran new Mini-Cooper.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">UKIP has ideas on education, as well as immigration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know, I was surprised too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently they’re trying to style themselves
as an actual political party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The plan
is to offer free place at universities provided, obviously, you are a British
passport holder and provided, less obviously, that you do a degree in science,
maths or engineering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My initial thoughts were of ridiculousness, but the more
I’ve read, the more it, worryingly, seems in trend with the current
government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s a full on assault
taking place on the humanities, languages and social sciences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Universities are being pushed, through lack
of public sector funding, to become more business focussed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To not be centres of learning, but to be
engines of profit, and that means an enhanced focus on maths, science,
technology and engineering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Learning for
the sake of learning, knowledge and understanding which encompass the full
range of the human psyche are being edged aside. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11221081/Nicky-Morgan-pupils-held-back-by-overemphasis-on-arts.html?mobile=basic" target="_blank">Nicky Morgan, Gove’s successor at the department for education, effectively called a degree in humanities worthless.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In 1923, just 209 days after winning a significant majority,
the Conservative Prime Minister, Andrew Bonar Law, died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His heir, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Baldwin" target="_blank">Stanley Baldwin</a>, introduced a
series of protectionist economic policies, directly contrary to the promises of
the 1922 campaign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Baldwin is one of our
most under-rated politicians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prime
Minister three times, he straddled the national stage for the best part of twenty
years in times of extreme national instability – the great depression, the
great abdication – and yet was so anonymous he is said to have been travelling
on a train, while in service as PM, when one of his fellow passengers turned to
him and asked: ‘So, what do you do?’</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Anonymous, under-rated and Conservative maybe, but Baldwin
was also a man of principle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recognising
he was introducing policies no-one had voted for, he voluntarily went to the
polls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And lost.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">While he retained the largest share of the vote, and the
largest number of seats he did not have sufficient to operate as a majority
government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Labour and the Liberals
combined had gained seats and outstripped the sitting government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was on Baldwin’s recommendation that
George V summoned <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsay_MacDonald" target="_blank">James Ramsey MacDonald</a> to the Buckingham Palace and asked him
to form the first, minority, Labour government.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Politics at least appeared more civilised in those days; I’m
sure that behind closed doors things were just as spiteful and barbarous, but
there was at least a sheen of decorum that seems lacking in 2015.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The election campaign proper kicked off this
week with Cameron developing a nervous tick that required him to say “Ed
Milliband” and something unfounded, usually around tax, in every other
sentence, ending any hope that the Conservatives will make this election about
anything other than personalities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Labour launched their campaign in a more buyout mood atop
the Orbit Tower in the Olympic Park; that’s probably supposed to be as symbolic
as the 2010 Conservative launch outside the ruins of Battersea Power Station, I
just can’t quite understand the metaphor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Party though was filled with bravado, Milliband having won the
recent TV not a debate debate, whereby both Cameron and Milliband were
interview by Jeremy Paxman in sequence, but were never in the same room as each
other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe Milliband didn’t quite win,
but maybe he did better than expected which is the same as a win.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe Cameron won. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It depends which paper you read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d forgotten how mildly tedious the
twenty-four hour news cycle debrief makes everything.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Nick Clegg, meanwhile, managed to get a selfie with <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/31/joey-essex-nick-clegg-political-system-crisis" target="_blank">some bloke from The Only Way Is Essex</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Said
bloke though that Clegg was called Nick Leg and that he was the leader of the Liberal
Demo-cats.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nobody is that stupid,
surely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or anyone genuinely that stupid
has no idea what country they live in let alone who the Deputy Prime Minister
is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So Nick Clegg has managed to get a
selfie with someone who makes pretending to be stupid a living for as yet
unclear satirical (or maybe just mindless entertainment) purposes, as though he
was surprised five years had actually passed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Ramsey MacDonald, back in 1923, didn’t waste time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He may have only managed to hold a government
together for eleven months, but in that time most of the policies and reforms
he managed to implement were around education.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They introduced a new secondary school system for all children from 11
to 14, converting the poor law schools into state funded institutions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Funding for education across a range of
initiatives drastically increased with the aim of ensuring that education, good
education, was not just within the gift of the wealth but available for all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ahead of all the other reforms Labour planned
on, educating the young was top of the list.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Five years ago, my then new girlfriend and I were on our
sixth date.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were starting to relax into
being a couple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’d seen each other the
previous weekend and had plans to meet on the following Saturday, but had at
the last minute slipped an additional mid-week meeting in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A spurious excuse of wanting to see a now
forgotten exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall was thrown out, after which we
went for a drink on the Thames and then for dinner a Tapas place in the back
streets of Waterloo where I’d once had a bordering on violent disagreement with
the owner over the bill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It was a warm night and we sat in the courtyard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Already dark, the air was lit by scattered
candles and the streetlight glow sneaking over the wall and under the shadowing
railway arches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was so warm that it
felt as though the very air gave off light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Political discourse had already begun to fill our
conversations. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s one of those things
you’re definitely not supposed to do when you first meet people, but if you can
get away with it then it will set you for life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I was on some tirade about the Eton dominance of the cabinet the
fundamental wrongness that private education creates.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘I went to private school,’ she said, cutting me off before
I really got going. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Secondary only, mind.’</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘Ah,’ I replied and went silent, the zeal somewhat taken out
of my sail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I felt like I’d said too much,
a common mistake, but what frustrates me is inequality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While a lack of funding for buildings and
facilities mean that many school infrastructures are falling apart – and no, Mr
Gove, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/may/15/michael-gove-king-james-bible" target="_blank">personally issued copies of the King James Bible</a> do not help - private
institutions are continuing to receive and pass on disproportional legs up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Okay, so there’s always going to be people
willing to pay for systems which are better (or perceived as better) than the
state funded alternative and I should probably just accept that as part of
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But maybe rather than shrugging
and resignedly admitting that the private schools are offering something better
we should look at what needs to be done to redress the balance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If all schools were to have the same
teacher/student ratio as Marlborough does, then the number of teachers needed
would be triple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If every school were to
have the same facilities as Marlborough then 33 million acres would need to be
developed, roughly half the English countryside (stats courtesy of Polly
Toynbee and David Walker’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cameron’s
Coup).</i></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">That’s not feasible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fair
enough. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What’s the alternative? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To concentrate on where the problems lie? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To improve that we’ve already got until it is
a level playing field?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Free Schools,
driven by ambitious middle class parents (and hostile, smug journalists), are
not the answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only 19% of free schools
places offered were in areas where there was an identified educational place
shortage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The other 81% just means more choice,
diluting the existing system. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know
people only want what’s best for their children, I understand that: all I want
is the best for everyone.</span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-48215154435344311782015-03-27T09:41:00.001+00:002015-03-27T09:42:27.125+00:00War (what is it good for?)<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh06PAQ4cXEN1-_K13NL_URWMQsZPlIOZatJUFO9XPTksPZnR9zIfzL07pzlUlEzGEdhpUTvY9kvRF08Ho7fP8yJ3vtv3IY7fVU80adlFmEVdOeZ1Ymm3auTvQKUfCUW5FSXuE_vVR7bOab/s1600/P1013116.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh06PAQ4cXEN1-_K13NL_URWMQsZPlIOZatJUFO9XPTksPZnR9zIfzL07pzlUlEzGEdhpUTvY9kvRF08Ho7fP8yJ3vtv3IY7fVU80adlFmEVdOeZ1Ymm3auTvQKUfCUW5FSXuE_vVR7bOab/s1600/P1013116.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We live in interesting times when it’s possible to say that
the Conservative led coalition of the past five years have led us into less
armed conflicts than the preceding Labour government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While Blair’s excursions into the Balkans
were done for the right reasons, as was the intervention in Sierra Leone, the
Iraq and Afghanistan wars were far from as clear cut and, ultimately, have tarnished
his reputation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His legacy stands little
chance of being for the social reforms he ushered through, rather two costly,
morally debatable, and fruitless conflicts.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The current government have been more timid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Probably this is partly to do with the
complicated nature of coalition politics – although they seem to have been able
to steamroller their way through everything else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we have to give credit to Ed Milliband
for keeping us out of Syria.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If his
brother, David, had been leading the Labour Party in 2013 it is hard not to
suspect our armed forces would find themselves back in the Middle East
embroiled in another complicated conflict where you’re never too sure who the
enemy is.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">That’s part of the problem with the twenty-first
century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not clear who the goodies
and the baddies are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not that it’s ever
been, but as a boy raised on black and white war comics and simplistic films
starring <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUofV_D1-1g" target="_blank">John Wayne as a marine</a> or any number of stiff lipped, firm chinned
British actors flying Lancaster bombers, World War Two offered an easy
narrative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Nazis and other Axis
powers were aggressive, power hungry and the SS’ use of skulls as insignia gave
a clear idea who was evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I think a lot of the Conservative party have the same
hangover of upbringing, but every other war in this history of man has been
more complicated than that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Arab
Spring uprisings initially gave us a clean story that plucky down-trodden
citizens armed with twitter in one hand and an AK-47 in the other were throwing
off the yoke of oppression all around the Mediterranean circle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was easy to send in the Typhoons as air
support.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as Libya continues to tear
itself apart, Egypt threatens another bloody coup and Syria begins to resemble
hell on Earth the narratives are confused.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Isis’ sudden emergence as a new caliphate making lighting
strikes which defied the nation borders drawn up by a French civil servant in
the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire defied expectation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, the despicable actions of its soldiers
on unarmed prisoners and civilians shift them towards the baddie side of the
spectrum, but we need to recognise how much their existence is our fault.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How much have our follies in the Middle East
over the past century given ammunition to the cause?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://davidmarstonwrites.blogspot.co.uk/2008_08_01_archive.html" target="_blank">I first wrote about Putin’s aggression in 2008</a> so it is
particularly depressing to find him still on the agenda seven years later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the annexing of Crimea and shadowy
supporting of Ukrainian rebels along the Russian border have to be put in the
context of the Cold War’s aftermath and the continuing expansion of NATO as an
organisation making itself essential to protect the West from the threat it
antagonises.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Still, our withdrawal from the occasional unnecessary armed
intervention is a relief as the current government have slashed expenditure on
the military to such an extent that we barely have one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We find ourselves a nation with a new fighter
jump jet but the two aircraft carriers which will maximise their effectiveness won’t
be operational until 2022, in the meantime they sit in a field somewhere on the
mainland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our armed forces are de-motivated
and verging on the demobbed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As someone
who leans heavily towards pacifism, this is not one of my biggest concerns –
although it does seem unfair to send under-resourced and under-supplied
soldiers into battle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we’re going to
have to go to war, I want it to be under circumstances where we have the
highest likelihood of success with the minimal number of casualties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And yet, here’s the hypocrisy:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>we under-resource in terms of conventional
forces and continue to invest in Trident.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A missile system we can never use except in an instance of mutually
assured destruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A deterrent to a
threat no-one’s entirely sure is still out there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A typically Conservative investment which
benefits a small number, including themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The claim is that nuclear weapons keep us in the premier league, helps
to retain our permanent seat on the UN security council.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a fallacy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For a whole raft of reasons, not least our
cowering in the face of difficult decisions, the current government is not seen
as an international world leader.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
rest of the world isn’t smiling at us out of benevolence or respect; they’re
trying to stifle their giggles.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Nuclear weapons are too dangerous, the margins for error too
tiny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The 1962 Cuban missile crisis is usually
referred to as the closest we came to mutually assured destruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most will cite the gamesmanship and political
acumen of both Kennedy and Kruschev for averting disaster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/john-gray-steven-pinker-wrong-violence-war-declining" target="_blank">Not many know that had submariner Vasili Arkhipov not disobeyed orders to launch a nuclear torpedo, then the chances of us being here today are slim.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Tories traditionally sell themselves as military men,
always men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Along with the economy, they
have liked to paint themselves as safe hands, as keepers of the imperial flame,
their ranks littered with former soldiers, sailors and airmen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paddy Ashdown stood out as an anomaly, a
major politician with an armed forces’ past not joining the Conservatives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe it’s a generational thing, but the
current crop doesn’t seem to have the same natural instincts to grab a rifle and
order someone else to storm the barricades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">However, military types still lurk at the edges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cameron may be in need of special forces
ministers to launch a Save Dave campaign while he’s losing a strategic hill to
Age UK’s boos and heckles, the only social group over than the nauseatingly rich
this government has actually helped, but others around the country are striking
decisive action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/mar/22/tory-candidate-afzal-amin-accused-of-edl-plot-urged-fess-up-go-now" target="_blank">Afzal Amin cited his army background, his inherent skill at divide and conquer, in seeking to justify his attempts to get the English Defence League to threaten staging a rally in Dudley,</a> which he would then talk them out of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A scheme of ludicrously Scooby-Doo stupid that even the monumentally
moronic leader of the EDL, Tommy Robinson, thought it was daft and shopped him
to the cops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would you really put these
people in charge of a kettle much less a government department?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">When I was a young boy I wanted to join the army.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A ridiculous idea, in retrospect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was short and tubby with little
athleticism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I may have grown up tall,
relatively scrawny and with good stamina, if nothing else, but I also abhor
violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was swayed, at the time, by
what I saw as heroism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was the fault
of all those war comics, John Wayne’s wink and actors’ square chins, who had
probably seen it for real their own active service, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmzrz7zZyUo" target="_blank">stoically going down in black and white glory.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">War is not glorious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The armed forces are full of heroes, but they’re also full of broken,
traumatised men and women who can no longer cope with the horrors humankind is
capable of inflicting on each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
data suggests that the twenty-first century is proving to be uniquely peaceful,
but that’s not telling the real story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nations rarely sweep across borders in petty moments of ego driven mania
– Russia aside – but wars feel more protracted, more all encompassing and more
destructive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It’s a long limp to hell, just like the end of the Liberal
party, no matter what Nick Clegg thinks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Clegg may persevere with the idea that Liberalism is alive
and well in British politics and there is no arguing with the back from the
brink work done by him, Charles Kennedy and Paddy Ashdown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Down to five members in 1957 and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/18/jeremy-thorpe-review-michael-bloch-gripping-insightful-biography" target="_blank">led in the seventies by a closest homosexual who may, or may not, have murdered his male lover</a>, it is a remarkable turnaround to be the junior member of the coalition
with 62 seats, but make no mistake: the compromises forced upon it mean that
this is no party of traditional liberalism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Liberalism has been disappearing over the horizon ever since
David Lloyd-George staged his coup in 1916 against HH Asquith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Asquith had become increasingly muddled and
desperate as the First World War dragged on. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trapped in indecision as every wrong move led
to greater piles of bodies on the battlefield his inertia was crippling the
country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was a man more suited to the
gentle, innocent peacetime of the early century when he could indulge in his
preferred habits of glamorous parties and feeling up the ladies. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Lloyd-George, on the other hand, self-styled himself as a
human dynamo. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was a walking, talking
ego who ousted Asquith by pushing through a war committee, which he chaired, and
that quickly turned into a cabinet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
led a coalition government for the remainder of the war and called a snap
election after the armistice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
decision to field a national coalition government on the ballot was a triumph which
swept him back into power, but a disaster for the party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_1918" target="_blank">The Conservatives took the majority of the seats in 1918, but the Liberal Party split in two, Lloyd-George’s coalition pragmatists versus Asquith’s loyalists.</a></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Asquith lost his seat and returned a mere 39 MPs, many of
which defected to the coalition, but steered by a Conservative weight on his
back Lloyd-George fudged much of the next four years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The 1922 election again saw two Liberal
parties fielded, led by the old adversaries, and both were over-hauled by
Labour, never to return to the front of the political pack.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It remains to be seen whether Clegg’s affair with the
Conservatives over the last five years has done lasting harm to the party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of their supporters will feel betrayed
that they voted Liberal Democrat to keep the Conservatives out, but instead
helped them to a working government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remember,
tactical voting is a dangerous game; like all battles it depends on the bravery
of the foot soldiers as well as the genius of the generals.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Politics can be a noble profession, but perhaps it should
not be a heroic profession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or, at
least, not in the way my ten year old brain imagined heroism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not about self-sacrifice against
insurmountable odds, about lobbing a last gasp hand grenade and bugger the
consequence, about defeating the opposition and subjecting their supporters to
the economic equivalent of marshal law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Politics should not be divisive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It should be collaborative and inclusive, about having the best ideas
and bringing the majority of people along with you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Politicians need to remember that and leave
the machismo at home.</span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-33184938066257904192015-03-18T21:42:00.002+00:002015-03-18T21:42:57.206+00:00All this green crap
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-XMNdT0GxH8H3_weXbNk1AC7t5y3Vs_kgBlFO7HU8ozMQG3DXnSnFDZITrkymWr8sK7P6Th_S4il_y_BWSX6Seh2ps4ddcfvLeDcC-Nj6TW-8YX1bCMyuhQ_lGJepm1r7C3SMi61pptNv/s1600/Greenwich-20130330-00041.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-XMNdT0GxH8H3_weXbNk1AC7t5y3Vs_kgBlFO7HU8ozMQG3DXnSnFDZITrkymWr8sK7P6Th_S4il_y_BWSX6Seh2ps4ddcfvLeDcC-Nj6TW-8YX1bCMyuhQ_lGJepm1r7C3SMi61pptNv/s1600/Greenwich-20130330-00041.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Pretty much every teenage boy will, at some point, indulge
in reading fantasy novels, or comics, or participating in role playing games,
or become over-excited by films based on any of the above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is something about a realm filled with
smelly, grunting orcs and elegantly refined elves which speaks to the pubescent
male psyche.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For my own sake, I read
Tolkien one summer holiday round about thirteen and then put it to one
side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, though, I came back for
more, I felt the grizzly pull of dwarfs clanging tankards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where Tolkien felt like a drudge, I whizzed
through Terry Pratchett’s novels, but then those were both fantasy and not
fantasy.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I was greatly saddened to read of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/13/my-hero-terry-pratchett-helen-lewis" target="_blank">Pratchett’s death last week</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His Discworld novels were an
important part of my teenage reading and were partly the inspiration for the
dreadful fantasy novel of my own, which I wrote aged fifteen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My book poached many of the scaffholding
concepts Pratchett used for his deliciously realised universe -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a strange realm reflecting, like a cracked
mirror, our own, provided you were on acid when you looked in it - only I
managed to do it with a significant lack of humour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, at some one hundred and fifty closely
typed pages it was, at least, a novel of sorts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The first part of a trilogy, obviously, for all fantasy novels have to
form part of a larger tapestry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even
this Pratchett managed to better than most with his Discworld series comprising
some forty odd novels.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But of course Pratchett only used fantasy as window
dressing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are really satires of the
modern condition and the human frailty; monumentally funny, at times bordering
on the simply silly, but delightfully so. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are propelled along by an acute sense of
drama, dialogue and the core stages of a novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To an extent, they were formulaic but wonderfully executed none the less.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyone wanting to understand how to
structure a novel – and to enjoy a few hours of blissful mirth – could do no
worse than read a Terry Pratchett book.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Meanwhile, our current Lords and Ladies, led by an Eton educated
variation of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Havelock_Vetinari" target="_blank">the Patrician</a> with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granny_Weatherwax" target="_blank">Granny Weatherwax</a> in the Home Office and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unseen_University#Librarian" target="_blank">theLibrarian</a> in the Treasury are happily self-satirising themselves in an endless
spiral to oblivion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 2010 the
Conservatives campaigned on the slogan of vote blue, get green.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The stressing of their environmental
credentials was crucial to helping sway portions of the middle ground, swing
voters concerned about the impending environmental catastrophe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In the five year run up, from Cameron’s ascendency as leader
of her Majesty’s Opposition to the last election, he positioned himself as the
champion of the environment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His much
covered trip to see the melting of the ice caps and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ed-miliband-david-cameron-has-gone-from-hug-a-husky-to-gas-a-badger-8884084.html" target="_blank">hug a husky</a>, which probably
overall caused more harm than good as trips to the Arctic are hardly carbon
neutral, attempted to show his caring and sensitive side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All that’s gone by the wayside now, little
more than a barely remembered fantasy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Or a satire on how to present politicians as electable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve gone round in circles so many times
now, I’m no longer sure which it is.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Admittedly the realities of government were always going to
bite into a party’s ideals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just look
across the Atlantic for the disappointments of Obama, who turned out, after
all, to not be the messiah but a politician forced into compromise like
everyone before him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So any ecological
aspirations were always going to be tempered by legal issues, big business
pressures, pandering to backbenchers in marginal seats, but still it is hard
not to be surprised at how utterly toothless the promise to be the greenest
government ever has ended up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/mar/23/budget-2011-george-osborne-green-bank" target="_blank">The Green Bank</a> which could have been such a force for good,
has been totally handcuffed by Austerity Osborne.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is unable to act like any other financial
institution, not even permitted to borrow money to generate revenue to invest
and supplement the paltry budget gifted to it by the Treasury.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So rather than pump-priming new businesses
and giving initiatives that could be a real force for change the investment
they need, it shuffles around the halls of power offering snippets of advice, a
reassuring clap on the shoulder but no actual, real cash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a pointless waste of space other than to
allow the coalition to say it met its election promise in spirit if not in any
meaningfulness.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Instead we get exasperations of let’s “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/10464415/David-Cameron-reportedly-tells-aides-to-get-rid-of-the-green-cp.html" target="_blank">get rid of this green crap</a>”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, fuck the planet,
screw the promises we made to the electorate, let’s just make life easier in
the short term.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Governing shouldn’t be
about making easy decisions in the face of adversity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It should be about identifying the right,
honourable and best path to everyone’s future and leading us there, despite the
braying hysteria of climate change deniers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We’ve had a government that tried to sell off the national
forests, because of course nothing could ever go wrong in selling a commodity
like land the economic potential of which wasn’t being reached.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The buyers were being asked, like those who
took over the Post Office, to give a gentleman’s agreement that they would
maintain them as they are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What could
have possibly gone wrong?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We’ve had a government which has permitted the introduction
of fracking for shale gas, despite the data coming out of the significantly
less densely populated regions of the United States suggesting serious
environmental subsidence as a result.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t
worry, the whole island might just sink.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And even it doesn’t, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23505723" target="_blank">as Lord Howell pointed out</a>, there’s nothing in the
desolate North East to be affected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Aside from, y’know, Newcastle, Sunderland, Peter Lee, Middlesbrough,
Durham and countless other towns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh,
no, he meant the North West.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s okay,
then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The residents of Manchester and
Liverpool will be fine with the earthquakes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A few tidal waves will liven up the jewel in the natural beauty crown,
the Lake District.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fucking idiot.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">At times it has seemed as though the only person in
parliament to recognise how insane this is, is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/28/caroline-lucas-im-not-playing-about" target="_blank">Caroline Lucas</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The UK’s solitary Green MP had the courage of
her convictions to the point of being arrested protesting against fracking in
Surrey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Lucas has a banner in her office which reads “Well behaved
women rarely make history.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m reminded
of a Pratchett quote:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Something is only
worth doing if someone, somewhere would rather you didn’t.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘I think I love Caroline Lucas,’ my fully paid up Labour
party member wife said the other weekend over breakfast, a dreamy glaze coming
over her face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘No, I mean really love
her.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s what real leadership
inspires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s what it means to take
the difficult decisions, Dave.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Rather than sort out – ie renationalise – the existing rail
service, this government has embarked on the biggest programme of road building
in decades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We do get HS2, a London
centric service which obliterates a stretch of the countryside hitherto
relatively unblemished by industrialisation, but refreshing and rejuvenating
the existing rail network should have been the way forward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To encourage rail travel – and therefore not
car travel – we need a system of reliable, cost-effective trains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It should not cost two adults going to Devon
by train triple what it would in my eleven year old Honda Civic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The only fully functioning, profit making rail service in
the country is the East Coast Mainline which was state run after a bungled
attempt to retender the contract, caused by Civil Service lay-offs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except now it isn’t; the tender has been
redone – at great expense reminding us that people employed generally do have
things to do (even if you disagree with what those are) - with proper
governance and regular users can look forward to a rapid decline in service any
week now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Similarly, the row over airport expansion is framed in a
distinctly non-environmentally friendly fashion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The dispute is predominately over whether to
expand Heathrow or somewhere else (Manchester promoting greater diversity,
Boris’ ego rubbing island out in the Thames estuary, Gatwick or Stanstead on
the flimsy evidence that less homes would be under the flypath) but nowhere do
we seriously question whether the extra capacity is needed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyone who suggests as such is labelled
anti-business, willing to surrender our status as a hub to Frankfurt or
Amsterdam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Of course, as I write this I can see a steady chain of
planes entering the Heathrow queue over Oxleas’ wood, banking at Lewisham and
heading right over Hilly Fields where we got married and, before then, our
house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At their current height, some
twenty miles out, it is not the noise levels which is problematic but the
persistency of their passing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One every
fifteen seconds or so creates a continual low drone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I barely notice the noise, but it drives my
wife mad and what cannot be disputed is the volume already fills the sky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we have a vested interest in less not more
traffic through Heathrow – or, even better, varied flight paths which share the
pain around the city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">With one hand we’re continually told that business is
modernising; that it is all Skype calls and cloud computing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That physical infrastructures are
increasingly unnecessary and yet we must build another runaway to accommodate
more and more expensive, international business travel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>t makes as much sense as Jeremy Clarkson’s
continuing employment with the BBC.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">At my parents’ house last weekend I found a blue ring-binder
with The Seventh Son scrawled in black marker on it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My first pseudo-Pratchett novel. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d been thinking about it during the week, but
hadn’t expected to stumble across a copy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I opened the folder to find reams of black paper.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The old dot matrix print had faded over the
intervening years leaving just the faintest intent to suggest that something had
once been there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">This lasting impression is the sort generated by Cameron’s
choice of Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Caroline Spelman was so effective a minister
that her Wikipedia entry doesn’t even mention the highest office that she
held.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Owen Patterson is a climate change
sceptic who refused to accept a scientific briefing while in post.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">UKIP MEP for Scotland David Martin called climate change and
environmental efficiency a “middle class obsession” on Radio 4’s Any Questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He appears to suggest that a preoccupation
with planetary survival bears no relation on the lives of ordinary people, as
though we all don’t have children and grandchildren whom we might like to live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To not act is to betray our children.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In 1931 Ramsey Macdonald was seen as a traitor to the Labour
Party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The man who had led the first
party to its first government, the first Labour Prime Minister, was vilified
for becoming PM again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He did so as the
head of a National Unity Government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
majority of the three parties went to the electorate and said the country was
facing an emergency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rolling
shockwaves of the Great Depression were continuing to cause instability and
strife across the world and extremist groups to the furthest right and left
wings of the political spectrum were making merry havoc in the ruined
wake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was not, Macdonald declared,
a time for playing party politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
was a time for unified, concentrated national action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Not everyone in the three main parties agreed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>David Lloyd-George and his massive ego were
still hanging around and led a smattering of Liberals against the national
party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Labour Party saw Macdonald’s actions
as pandering to big business and the established class structures, of
abandoning the working man to his doom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The National Government won the election by a phenomenal
landslide and despite the predominately Tory make-up of the party, Macdonald returned
to Downing Street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we want to save
the planet, this is what we need again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A national – and international – concentration of leadership.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A unifying presence which doesn’t bicker over
the detail but which focuses on making systematic structural changes which will
reduce carbon emissions and build a sustainable future for us all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Climate change isn’t going to be saved by the
small number of businesses willing to stick their neck out to be potentially
punished by their share holders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
doesn’t make a difference, in the end, whether individuals put their rubbish in
different colour coded bins and cycle to Norfolk for their holidays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What we need is fundamental change and
legislation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The state needs to lead the
way and force, if necessary, people and business to follow suit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything else is like believing in magic,
it’s charming, but it isn’t real.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Most of Terry Pratchett’s best lines were given to the
skeletal personification of DEATH who crops up in many of his novels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Good Omens it says DON’T THINK OF IT AS
DYING.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO
BEAT THE RUSH.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d rather we all were
able to hang around and enjoy the view a bit longer, thanks.</span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-1464330146646434022015-03-11T21:54:00.003+00:002015-03-11T22:00:59.086+00:00It's a dog's life<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In the late winter of 2000-2001, I was back living with my
parents, having finished University and just returned from adventures in Turkey
to a sense of directionless confusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
was, as is often the way when little else offers itself, tending bar <a href="http://davidmarstonwrites.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/hops.html" target="_blank">in the pub where I was born</a>, but had little idea what I wanted to do with the rest of my
life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I have a cat now, but growing up I was a dog-boy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I was seven years old, I remember
spending hours one Cornish afternoon throwing stones into the sea for a passing
Collie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not a stray, just a local dog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In and out of the cold water he rushed, and I
was utterly smitten with his enthusiasm to endlessly play and the way his eyes
appeared to be telling me something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
was, apparently, that moment when my parents decided to acquiescence to my
pestering for a dog of our own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few months
later, for my eighth birthday, we acquired Sally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Sally was a mongrel, rescued from the Dog’s Trust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She wasn’t a fancy breed; a nothing special
dog, fuelled by an insatiable greed (demonstrated by a tendency to slavishly
drool), disposition to honk of sweaty socks when wet and a cantankerous
aggression towards any other dog which ventured into a square mile of her
presence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But she was fiercely loyal,
adoring and grateful for her home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
was always keen to play, go for a walk or simply hover while I bemoaned
whatever minor crisis my small world was enduring, head cocked seemingly
listening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I loved her to bits.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Thirteen years later, that post-Turkey winter, she was
deafer, fatter, less mobile and missing one toe, but still devoted to her owners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’d had a good day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’d been for a decent walk, long pink
tongue slavering the way round, argued with a neighbour’s dog and chased an old
tennis ball around the hall, the rebounding scuffing marks onto the freshly
painted skirting boards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was fast
asleep, sprawled on the lounge rug when she began to fit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A series of sharp convulsions and an almost
silent whimpering.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">She’d had a stroke, but survived, of a sort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A shadow of nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the morning, my Mum and I took her to vet,
knowing she wouldn’t come back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
almost twenty-two years old and inconsolable.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It was those feelings which returned when I read about the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/mar/08/dog-world-asks-whodunnit-over-death-of-irish-setter-after-crufts" target="_blank">Red Setter “murdered” at Crufts</a> last weekend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whoever is responsible is, presumably, involved with dogs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They must know what they mean to their
owners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All that grief, just for a petty
trophy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some people have lost all sense
of perspective.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Iain Duncan Smith is another man who has lost his sense of
perspective.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A few years ago Duncan Smith had a much <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/08/duncan-smith-poverty-benefit-sanctions-easterhouse" target="_blank">reported epiphany in Glasgow</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was – he said at the time –
a Damascus moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The media held it up
as compassionate Conservatism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was
how the party had changed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It could hold
Tory values, but still want to help the most desperate in society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Instead, it seems to have been a disguise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Duncan Smith has been at the spearhead of a
concentrated assault on the poorest people in the country, those most in need
of our help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He must be one of the few
politicians to lead a consistent maligning in the press of the electorate while
holding major office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An eroding of
benefits, ending in the absurdity of the so-called spare bedroom tax, have seen
the government gleefully embrace their reputation as the nasty party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There has been no pretence; their role has
been to kick those already down.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Glasgow seems to not have helped Duncan Smith to realise
that the death dive circle of economic hardship makes it even more imperative
that the state support those in need. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead he seems to have seen people who would
be only too willing to help themselves if only the government would stop giving
them money and leave them to buck their own ideas up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">He seems to have fundamentally misunderstood what life on
benefits is like and who makes claims.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Most people want to be in work and are actively looking for work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Duncan Smith wants an end to the so-called “life
on benefits”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He assumes that there are
people who see making claims as an alternative lifestyle and they will be given
short shrift.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The right wing media
paints a picture of whole areas of inner-cities and run down rural communities
awash with people putting their feet up and waiting for the cash to
arrive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, in 2011 of the 1.5 million people
claiming jobseekers allowance, only 4,220, or 0.3% had been claiming for five years
or more (stat courtesy of Polly Tonybee and David Walker’s Cameron’s Coup).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Tories want to reduce the benefits bill but refuse to
acknowledge the two major elephants in the room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By far the largest proportion of social
security funding goes on pensions and related costs, free TV licences, free bus
passes, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The demographic most likely
to vote Conservative has, unsurprisingly, had their benefits protected. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Of the remaining benefit pot, the biggest pay out is for
housing benefits – again, unsurprisingly as this is most people’s largest
expenditure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Housing benefits payments
have spiralled massively over the last thirty years thanks to right to buy
reducing the social housing stock and pushing people into the unregulated,
over-inflated private rental market, increasing the cost to the tax payer and
decreasing the security and standards of living for many.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A Conservative government is never going to instigate
significant social housing construction nor sufficiently incentivise developers
to build real affordable housing – <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/25/poor-doors-segregation-london-flats" target="_blank">as opposed to the sort that grudgingly does so to comply with planning regulations and installs a separate entrance for theless desirable tenants</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An increase in
housing stock would move young high earning professionals who can’t scrape
together a deposit because all their money goes on rent into ownership, but the
lack of supply of housing is one of the factors pushing the prices ever
upwards, especially in London.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
sustaining the whole false economic recovery Austerity Osborne is betting the
election result on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The so-called spare bedroom tax is absurd.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Leaving aside the very sensible reasons
people may have for requiring a spare room and that their housing benefit
payments may or may not be long term, it completely ignores the importance of
people’s communities and assumes that there is an abundance of choice to be
made in housing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There have been stories
of people being relocated to one bedroom flats in different cities because
nothing is suitable in their current one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Can you imagine how destructive to confidence and life it must be to be
forcibly uprooted in this way, moved away from family, friends and a
familiarity with the infrastructure which those already struggling need to help
get them through it all?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The assumption here is that the state prevents people from
working by offering them an alternative, but the real data doesn’t back this
up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of opening up labour markets
and incentivising people to go to work, all this government has managed to do
is kick people when they’re down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has
eroded away the support we offer those at their weakest, lowest moments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People having gone through the shock and awe
of being made redundant no longer have the benefit of getting their head
straight for a couple of weeks with the state looking after them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have to go straight back out to seeking
work, even if that work is a poor use of their skills.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ten years experience in digital marketing and
just laid off?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never mind, here’s a zero
hours contract for JJB Sports, now piss off.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Meanwhile Universal Credit stutters towards hugely expensive
delays, another ludicrous government IT system no-one really understands nor
necessarily needs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plus it assumes that
you’ll have a computer and an internet connection at home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those are going to be sacrificed before food,
I reckon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Job Centre staff <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/mar/25/jobcentre-newsletter-sanctions-targets" target="_blank">allegedly have secret targets</a> to remove claimants from the benefits register for the most
spurious of reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mantra piles
down: we don’t care; we shouldn’t care; let them sort themselves out; they’re
better off alone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">All this ignores the fact that national insurance, into
which we all pay, is an insurance policy for when we’re down and out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are entitled to make a claim on it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s how insurance policies work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">For someone who abhors claimants of aid as much as
Duncan-Smith does, perhaps he should think twice before submitting a £100
expenses claim for wet wipes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unless
they’re provide sanitation for Cameron as he hides out from the country’s
media, and refuses to enter into televised debates he insisted become part of
the national discussion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Back in the autumn of 1964 Sir Alec Douglas-Home, the
Conservative Prime Minister, could hold on no longer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In audience with the Queen he asked for
permission to dissolve parliament and seek election by the public.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Conservatives’ thirteen years in power
had hardly been smooth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From Churchill’s
bumbling towards retirement, showing himself to be ill-suited to peace time
leadership, Eden’s disastrous rose-tinted Imperialist invasion of Egypt and
while MacMillan may have been one of the most cultured, intellectual and moderate
Tory leaders, even he couldn’t survive the Profumo scandal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Douglas-Home had taken the reigns barely a
year earlier and had been trying to generate a resurgence since the
Spring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t coming and he was out
of time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Harold Wilson didn’t exactly romp home to victory, though.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Labour majority of four was not to help him
drive through reforms his predecessors had instigated in 1945, but a win was a win;
power, however tempered, is still power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Two years was enough to create a feel good atmosphere and a majority of
98 in the snap election of 1966.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The curious thing is that, like in 1997, Labour came to
power at times of adversity – when the world looked, at least, politically,
bleak - and steered the country through periods of social reform.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When outdated morals and misguided opinions
are loosened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the notion of an
uber-cool swinging society was mainly confined to London, in 1964 the rest of
the country resembled something more akin to the Nottingham of Saturday Night,
Sunday Morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A grind of back-to-back
terraces and manual labour, interrupted by heady drinking and simple distractions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the decade progressed, the world lit up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We approach 2015 in a similar state, only rather than an
ill-informed view of pop music, the young, drugs or homosexuals the current
government has fostered a hatred of the poor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If we let them keep going, we we’ll have regressed back beyond 1964,
back before national insurance was introduced in 1911 and to a time when being
out of work meant being on the streets, being unable to pay your debts meant
going to prison and being disabled meant you were better off dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Governments are like dogs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They’re supposed to do what we tell them, but always insist on heading
off in their own direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the ones
you have the longest leave the most lasting impression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s leave this tied up on the motorway hard
shoulder.</span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-23647450745093083052015-03-04T20:50:00.000+00:002015-03-04T20:50:50.630+00:00It’s the economy, stupid
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Our kitchen was installed in 1986.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is fair to say it has seen better
days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The work surface is starting to
come away from the wall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a
relentlessly brown colour which my wife was appalled by when we first saw the
house, but I have become used to over the past two years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, it needs replacing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I never thought I would be the sort of person
who buys a kitchen, although I also thought that I’d never own a property, so
there you go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It with some surprise,
therefore, that I find myself heading to Croydon Ikea on a grey, miserly
Saturday morning and as we grind through the slow moving traffic, I find myself
thinking about politics in a grouchy, frustrated fashion.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">1992 was a strange election.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was the first I sort of understood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I was aware of 1987, but it felt too vague.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had no real comprehension that anyone other
than Mrs Thatcher could be Prime Minister.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>By 92, on the cusp of adolescence and beginning to listen to the six
o’clock news, I at least realised that there were alternatives.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">No-one expected John Major to be victorious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A man seen as a bland compromise for a party
unable to countenance Michael Hestletine’s flamboyance at its head, but recognised
that Thatcher had gone past the rational.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It had no idea of what life after her would be like so played it safe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Major was an experienced politician, but not considered
his own man, many expected him to be a puppet for his forcibly retired mistress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was so anonymous that Spitting Image portrayed
him as physically grey, saggy eyed and having a passion for boiled peas eaten
in the gloom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">On the other side of the floor, Neil Kinnock appeared
confident of over-coming the characteristics middle England seemed so appalled
by: being Welsh, ginger, left-wing with the misfortune to have, once, fallen
into the sea at Brighton.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even with
those disadvantages it seemed inconceivable that the public majority wouldn’t
swing for him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The election process was
merely going to be a coronation.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We all know what happened next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Major, against all expectations, proved to be
an exceptional campaigner trawling around small towns and cities carrying a
soap box and a loudspeaker, willing to engage with and argue his case with
anyone passing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a piece of public
engagement one can’t imagine David Cameron being willing to conduct, with his
preference for carefully staged photo opportunities which add to his “I met a
man” repartee on his travels “up and down the country”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Backed up by a clever marketing campaign –
“What can the Conservative party offer a working class boy from Brixton?” – and
the support of Murdoch dominated press (If Labour win, will the last person in
Britain turn off the lights?) the Tories managed to suggest that the party
could be something for all people, that it had more than the interests of its
wealthy backers at heart.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Kinnock, meanwhile, flew around the country by helicopter
like some erstwhile President, shook triumphant fists with Roy Hattersley in
arenas like he was in Simple Minds and preached to the converted with dull test
group vetted phrases and not like the conviction politician inside him and
probably not like a Prime Minister.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not
in those days, anyway.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Sigh.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Another missed opportunity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Although to my young mind it simply felt like the natural order had
reasserted itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of something
new we got another five years of Conservative government leading us into
financial crash with Black Wednesday, a housing market bubble (again), and MPs
who seemed less interested in supporting and developing public services than
finding ways to discredit themselves through their personal fetishes and
tearing their party apart over Europe.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">It seems like nothing changes.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Ikea is as hellish as I remember it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Insanely busy at ten o’clock, the majority of
customers share the same dead-eyed, desperate expression for the whole
experience to be over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s a
smattering of young couples setting up home for the first time, finding cheap
furniture for their rented flat. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
seem to be enjoying themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let
them; it won’t last long.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Conservatives managed to keep the keys to Downing Street
in 1992 even though the economy was sinking into recession, but it was close.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we approach May this year, the current
government are rushing out as many dubiously snaffled together statistics as
they can to show that the economy is buoyant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The reasoning is that if they could win twenty-three years ago with the
country’s finances in the doldrums then harping on about wealth and growth
being back up to pre-financial catastrophe levels will only help this time
round.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they’re right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nothing sells change like a recession, or a
major scandal and they will do everything possible to prevent either occurring
over the next few weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So, growth back to 2008 levels they cry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The highest number of jobs created for any
parliament.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what does this mean, is
any of it real and are we all better off than where we were in 2010?</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The economy has undoubtedly improved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Personally, my financial situation has never
been more secure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But both measures have
to be put in the context of things being about as bad as they could possibly
have been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fault for which rests,
partly, with Gordon Brown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Taking a
greater interest in financial regulation at some point in the decade running up
to 2008 would have helped, although 2008 was a global disaster and much of it
was out of the UK’s reach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Besides,
Brown’s decisive action to refinance the whole system cleared some of the blame
from his shoulders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In reality, just like every other statistic, the message
being used for is one of over-simplification.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We have an economy and economic confidence (the latter of
which is arguably, in political terms, the more important) overly reliant on an
financial sector, which still (still!) sees itself as some sort of desperado
ranger on the wild frontier with scant regard for anyone else, and that old
British institution the value of our house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Anyone would be excused for thinking that the global meltdown of seven
years ago, which was caused by these two factors plus our own greed, never
happened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the political market never
changes, it would appear the economy’s chief drivers don’t either.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">More jobs?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well,
probably, but that doesn’t mean they are the jobs which people want, or
need.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There has been a significant
growth in part time positions and the insane idea of zero hour contracts which
not only put employees utterly under the thumb of companies but also, handily,
restricts the benefits they’re entitled too because they are in work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But not being paid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The defence of this is that it creates a more
flexible society suitable for the twenty-first century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No longer should we just be expected to work
nine to five, later for pub landlords.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Work is whenever you want it to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Except it isn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The majority of data
shows that those in part-time work want more hours to be financially
stable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Part time positions and zero
hour contracts are skewed massively towards low paid and minimum wage roles,
where less money on a weekly basis makes all the difference.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">At my most financially stretched, I once ate boiled brown
rice infused with gravy granules and some frozen spinach I’d had to scrape out
of the freeze.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For three nights in a
row.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An extra £20 would have made the
difference.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">If the rate of inflation for the minimum wage had risen to
the same degree as senior directors, then it would be £15.30 per hour not
£6.30.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In real terms, those on the
minimum wage are a £1,000 a year worse off than they were ten years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s not so far away from when I was last
on the minimum wage and not so long ago that I can’t remember how little it
felt in my pocket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re creating a rich
economy or those already rich.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">So, average take home pay remains in doldrums and pay-day
loan companies with interest rates worse than the Wiemar Republic’s inflation plug
the gaps as people struggle to fill their shopping baskets, pay their gas
bills, get their kids a new pair of shoes because the soles are hanging off the
old ones, and besides they’re too small.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the past few months prices have started to come down, but that’s more
to do with economic sanctions on a Russia more interesting in dusting off the
seventies approach to diplomacy and chaos in the Middle East both messing up oil
prices than the economic genius of Gideon Austerity Osborn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is, however, fortunate timing and people
are, understandably, more interested in the cost of their weekly shop than the
global political picture. </span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Meanwhile, youth unemployment is stratospherically high as
people emerge blinking and battle scarred from a university environment so
terrified at the life buggering level of debts incurred that they’re <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/15/students-smart-drugs-higher-grades-adderall-modafinil" target="_blank">turning to drugs, not for fun or escape but to get better grades</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How is this not storing up problems for the
future?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Saddling everyone with levels of
personal debt impossible to pay off when no-one wants to give you a job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So what if it expires after thirty
years?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’ve still got it hanging
around your neck like the heavy corpse of learning for a generation.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if you could get
a job, it would never as highly paid as expected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some politicians seem to think every graduate
waltzs into the equivalent of a managing director’s chair when in the end,
they’ll start on something around £19K just like everyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, people’s credit rating is screwed which
will scupper their ability to buy a property – which they’ll be desperate to do
because everyone tells them it’s the only guaranteed way to make money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when the property market, which is
propping the whole fragile economy, tanks then where are we?</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I can’t decide whether the current government really doesn’t
care or just doesn’t get it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether
they’re verging on downright evil, only interested in short-term enrichment, or
whether their world view is so distorted to their own privileged Cotswold set
that they genuinely can’t see how much damage this sort of thing does to
ordinary people.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In a recent speech, Cameron called on the private sector, on
business to give Britain a pay rise. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except
Austerity Osborne has frozen public sector wages so he’s suggesting that the
market should do the opposite of the government.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unsurprisingly the market pretended not to
hear and hoped everyone would forget about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s not how the market works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>High salaries erode profit margins, but if public sector wages look more
desirable then the private sector will offer increases to keep hold of its best
people.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">There’s no reason for the public sector to be seen as inferior
to or worth less than business, unless, of course, you have an ideological objection
to the whole thing in the first place. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
so that means they have an ideological objection to me. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To you. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To everyone else, except those on the inside. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The poor only have themselves to blame, they say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they don’t have enough money for what they
want, then don’t buy it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Except for when
what you want is food for the first time in three days and there isn’t a penny
in your bank account.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eric Pickles has
clearly never been in such a scenario.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A booming economy does not have <a href="http://www.trusselltrust.org/foodbank-figures-top-900000" target="_blank">a million people reliant on food banks</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Success is not having <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29686628" target="_blank">child poverty rates increasing</a> for the first time in twenty years.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The Tories will say that we are recovered from financial disaster
because their mates are doing okay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There is a fundamental problem when this government gives, rather than
loans, money to financial institutions for it to then be loaned to small
businesses to kick start the economy, but when the banks kept the money instead
the government simply gave them more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On
the flip side of the coin, local councils around the country are being denied
permission to take on loans, not tax payer supported gifts, to invest into
infrastructure projects.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">My wife and I have never been to Ikea together, a fact she
find remarkable and I attribute to careful planning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘We should have done this before,’ she said when the South
Circular ground to a standstill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘It’s
one of those tests all couples have to undertake to check they’re
compatible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If it all goes to hell this
morning, it’s too late.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re already
married.’</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Inside, we don’t argue, but I do become grumpy and bored as
for over two hours we examine the numerous barely distinguishable mocked up
kitchens, with the same curiously uninspiring shiny cabinets and sympathetic
lighting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At one point I get my hand
stuck in a handle, my wedding ring snagged between the curved aluminium and the
slick drawer front.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s a metaphor
in here somewhere, I think while I struggle to extract myself and my wife looks
on, faintly embarrassed, once again.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘What have you done?’ she asks, mildly exasperated.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Quite. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What have we done,
indeed? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And more to the point: what are we
going to do to fix it?</span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6772169672449298437.post-4424716071983433792015-02-26T21:53:00.002+00:002015-02-26T21:53:28.781+00:00The Professionals
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">‘A new dawn has broken, has it not?’ Tony beamed that
morning, even brighter than he had all the time before that the camera clicked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His smile, so parodied along with those
overly sincere hand movements, symbolised mid-nineties politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Against all the odds, against the ravages of
the previous eighteen years, the systematic assault on our cities and society,
there was hope in that smile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
millions of people, myself included, from May 1997 we believed things could
only get better.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">We were right.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And we were wrong.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">New Labour bought a new hope for politics to Britain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a time of economic boom, there was the
opportunity to rebuild, to care not only about our immediate families’
prosperity but for the rest of the country’s wealth as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And yet despite the unprecedented funding being washed into
education, the NHS, the establishment of the minimum wage, reductions in child
poverty and a significant improvement in the standards of living for most people,
you can’t help but wonder: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With a
majority that big, was it enough?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the
terror attacks of September 2001 hadn’t happened, if Blair hadn’t become
distracted – and ultimately all his and Brown’s good work overshadowed by –
costly and of dubious morality wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, should they have
done more?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://davidmarstonwrites.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/exit-music.html" target="_blank">Maybe it’s because 1997 was my election, or rather the one in which I (almost) could vote in. Four days too young, I watched the majority of my friends head off to the polling station and palatable change, for the first time in our lives, was in the air.</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No wonder I’ve become increasingly
disappointed, to the extent that, for years, I carried around an
outline for a short story in my head about someone who assassinated Blair for
letting him down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I eventually discarded
it as too teenage, too emotionally narrow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Military misadventure took over from social reorganisation
and then the financial catastrophe of 2008 swept into town distorting our view
of what had gone before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, a ruling
party which wins successive elections, while its once imperious majority ebbs
away, will inevitably be seen to be hanging on too long, but we forget how
dreadful our social infrastructure was in 1997.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We forget how drastically the country improved, but still, there’s that
question: was it enough?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Though neither
of them, or any of the other New Labour architects, would ever admit to it, I imagine
them privately kicking themselves that the system reforms introduced didn’t go
further.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we’d been marched even
further into a fair society, would we have so meekly allowed the Conservative
government of the past five years to dismantle it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Of course, too many changes too soon and we could have seen
a different story in 2001.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember,
being approached in the pub where I was working, in suburban Birmingham, by an
elderly chap telling me I that I knew which way I had to vote, didn’t I?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To save the soul of the country?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Make no mistake, he wasn’t supporting the then
incumbents of Downing Street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">With the era of Blair and Brown, though, there seemed to
emerge a new phenomena: the professional politician.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Examples of this species, such as Jack
Straw – more of whom later - who was elected to his safe seat in Blackburn aged just thirty-three have always been around,
but since the nineties parliament has been overrun by ex-spads, political heirs
and party machine-smiths with a media profile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And of course, those who never needed a job in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">When Cameron took the top job five years commentators said
that he looked the part, that he appeared to be prime minister material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Old Etonians, they’re all born to rule and
they know it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The House of Commons is
awash with white upper-middle-class men with Oxbridge degrees and private
schools, flush with confidence and an easy manner on the grand stage, but far
removed from the daily worries of normal people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ian Duncan-Smith can see the spare bedroom
tax as just way of reducing the benefits bill, because being married to a
multi-millionaire he has no concept of tight finances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ed Miliband, for all his positive attributes,
talks the right talk about a fair and equal society, but growing up in Primrose
Hill, the child of professional academics, he doesn’t have any idea what it is
to be<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a manual labourer living in Mold,
any more than I do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hopefully he at
least recognises that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In a week where we see long-term politicians, both former
foreign secretaries no less, Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind get caught
pimping themselves out for access to the halls of power one doubts any of them
ever recognise their own failings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">No, that’s unfair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
self-interested snouts in the trough world view of Nigel Farage does us no favours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is better recognise that most MPs are
hard-working and there for the right reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There have always been foolish men whose time in power has gone to their
head, their belief in entitlement shakes their common sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Rifkind even had the audacity to claim he was self-employed,
dismissing his £67-£80-odd thousand, depending on the source, salary as not
sufficient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is, after all, MP for Kensington and he’d
near more than that to afford a shoebox around there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <a href="http://www.unilever.co.uk/aboutus/companystructure/nonexecutivedirectors/sirmalcomrifkind.aspx" target="_blank">Of course</a></span><a href="http://www.unilever.co.uk/aboutus/companystructure/nonexecutivedirectors/sirmalcomrifkind.aspx" target="_blank"> this does ignore the fact of all those other non-executive directorships he holds, which are unlikely to be unpaid.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But neither Rifkind nor Straw are, despite their long
service in the House, the sort of bland professional I’m talking about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both, at least, are identifiable characters
and have some ideological beliefs (aside from their own wallets).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They are not delivered flat packed, assembled at party headquarters and inserted
into some smart shoes and a grey suit before being deployed to the provinces. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somehow, this is another way in which Farage
has managed to pull the wool over people’s eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The privately educated, former hedge fund
manager is somehow presenting himself as a man of the people, as something different
to the establishment he is so embedded in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It seems that people are fooled that, because he likes a fag and a pint
of bitter, he’s of working class stock.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">If politics is, partly, the magic of making people think
they agree with you, then this is the ultimate example of the art.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s nothing but people on the inside, trying
to pretend they’re on the out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s a confidence trick, that’s all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
It</span>’s not real change.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In the second half of the twentieth century, you had miners
inventing the NHS and working class kids from Brixton running first the economy
and then the whole country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31584227" target="_blank">In the 1970sthere were 150 teachers in the House of Commons.</a> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, it’s like we’ve travelled back to the
regency – as though the prime minister could as easily be from the house of
Lords as not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As though elections barely
matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s just changing the badge on
the same people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">There’s nothing inherently wrong with professional
politicians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You would expect those with
whom you entrust the maintenance of, say, your car or your boiler to have the
requisite experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Maintain</span>ing the
country is a little more complex, but it seems to generate people who are
professional election winners, which isn’t quite the same thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a representative democracy we want people
to act on our behalf, not just to offer the blandest least dangerous opinions, scampering
towards the middle ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s starting
to look crowded in the centre and it’s hard to discern a difference at
times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Put it another way, I can’t seen Aneurin Bevan having to
answer charges as to whether the adjustment made to his Father’s will around
the inheritance of the central London property constituted illegal or legal tax
avoidance.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">But it’s okay, because Labour are deploying John Prescott to
“bash heads together”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Whether that is the heads of Labour party workers, ministers and
prospective ministers or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XTiI1e-wVc" target="_blank">the voters</a> themselves remains to be seen. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prescott is old school Labour, one of the highest
ranking politicians of the late nineties, early twenty-first century and as far
from what we mean by professional politician as its possible to get and yet we
mock his rough edges, we ridicule his speech patterns and that he doesn’t
conform into the anonymous dark suit brigade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The poor beggars can’t win, can they?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Part of the problem is that MPs aren’t alone in being greedy.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The whole HSBC scandal encapsulates one
of the growing problems in this country, which the Conservatives seem perfectly
happy with:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Greed, wealth and the
acumination of more booty at the expense of others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It creates the haves and the have nots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It gives us the likes of Rifkind and Straw
seeking their enhanced pensions, either through a desire to be one of those who
have or through envy of them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s perfectly
natural, but the more Ed Miliband talks about creating a country which is fair,
the more it feels as though his challenge will be to reconfigure people’s natural instincts
for self-advancement and preservation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
think he’s right; I just worry not enough other people do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Even my wife and I argue about this, despite both being
comfortably on the left hand side of the political spectrum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I see the payment of tax as a social obligation
and would be happy to pay more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is not to say that my wife
is pro-tax avoidance, but that she has more sensible – and significantly less
pious – views of things like whether having an ISA constitutes secretly wishing
to privatise the NHS.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">(To be honest, I just couldn’t be bothered to do the
paperwork and this was a clutching at straws defence, but ssh, don’t tell her.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I’m easily impressed by people’s stance on
taxation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>JK Rowling – for all her
literary faults – at least has the decency to stay in the UK and pay her
taxes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As she says, the state was there
for her when she was at rock bottom, when she had absolutely nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s only fair that she gives something back.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Blair’s 1997 new dawn did herald in a political day of socialism-lite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An awful lot of good in their thirteen years
in office, but that term was twice that of the post World War Two Labour
government which created much of the social infrastructure which dragged our country
into the modern world, there will always be the question of whether they could
have, should have, done more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re still
having the same introspective arguments we have had for generations, squabbling over
high or low taxation rather than finding a system that works, rather than accepting
that to get a better future for all we have to be good citizens now. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We should have sorted all this out. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead we find ourselves missing the really important
things, like the Ukraine is being torn apart by the sorts of expansionist
aggressive military zeal not seen in Europe for more than half a century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Russian bombers over the coast of Cornwall,
for Christ’s sake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who knows what happens next, but our council tax rate
isn’t going to make any difference.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And, of course, the problem with Blair’s dawn analogy is
that night must also fall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Darkness
shrouded us five years ago, under the cover of which the Tories has
systematically pulled apart systems which it took fifty years to develop, trying
to finish the job started in the eighties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The only question we need to ask ourselves is whether this is a summer’s
night or a winter’s one?</span></div>
David Marstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150238175448596398noreply@blogger.com0