Just a brief note on Ed Miliband . . .

I will now acknowledge that I voted for Ed as my first choice as Labour leader although I felt and still do that all of the candidates were far more capable than either Cameron or Clegg.

Back in our last period of vicious Right wing government I was very much of the opinion that political change created cultural change and that most of the changes in our society that I perceive as being both necessary and desirable would, in the first instance at least, be initiated via Parliament.
 Experience has not supported this view point. Although this does sometimes happen, far more frequently it is cultural change that creates political change. For this reason much of my own advocacy for change is extra-parliamentary   in nature. Nonetheless Government remains centrally important  as does the idea of the enabling state (Neil Kinnock's term, compare and contrast with the vacuous platitude "Small State" which Orange Tories so frequently parrot as some kind of rationale for their actions.)

Nonetheless there is a minimal programme which I would expect any political party to adhere to in order to be considered worthy of my support. Simply this
: (1) To maintain and where possible improve pay and conditions for ordinary working people.
  (2) To support and where necessary defend the maximum possible levels of personal (including sexual) freedoms.
  (3) To provide a consistent, unequivocal and unambiguous opposition to Fascism in all forms.

I have complete trust in Ed Miliband on all counts. I also trust the Labour Party and , amongst major parties, the Labour Party alone on all counts .

Pointing The Finger At Clegg

This is a supplemental entry to the one I did on Friday (See Below) The invaluable Disability Now has done an excellent piece on the Liberal Democrats duplicitous position on Disability Living Allowance. Link
Think about that. Then think about how far Clegg has moved his party to the Right. Another Link
Now bear in mind that we have an ongoing smear campaign against Disabled claimants across the Right wing press that looks very much as though it is being orchestrated. Take into account that Clegg is part of a government that sees fit to employ the deeply unpleasant Andy Coulson as its official Director of Communications.Yet another link As I have stated before there has been a four fold increase in hate crimes against Disabled people while this has been ongoing. People have been driven to suicide by the way Clegg's "Simple Test" wrecks lives. All LibDem members have been compelled to choose whether their loyalty is to their party or their principles. A full third of party members have gone for option B and left the party altogether since the forming of the coalition. We have now reached the point when any of those who have gone for option A (or are pretending that they don't have to make that choice) but still purport to be in any way of the Left will quite simply not be believed.

Thoughts On Becoming A Folk Devil

A little background to the terminology to begin with Folk Devil (Apologies to those who have  reservations about the reliability of Wikipedia but their overview is as good as any and better than most in this instance)

I myself (and many, many others) have recently  acquired this hideous status courtesy of our rabidly Right Wing Government.
So what did I do to become an enemy of the state?

Did I get so overexcited at the prospect of becoming Deputy Prime Minister that I entered a coalition without acquiring power of veto over bad policy formulation by my coalition partners? No. That was somebody else.

Was I appointed as an advisor on public sector economic efficiency despite having evaded £1.2 Billion of taxes? Not me either.

Did I encourage journalists to illegally hack mobile phones whilst serving as a Newspaper editor? Don't be silly.

Did I fall in love with a disabled woman, marry her, give up my career to be her carer, live on a pittance for most of the Major years, get a significant increase to my still very low income under the last Labour government then see myself & my wife and people like us demonised by this government as part of its policy of slashing services at all costs whilst turning a blind eye to bloated salaries & blatant tax evasion amongst its cronies? Guilty as charged. I know, I'm evil. Aren't I?
Actually, I don't think I am. People like me save the country far more than we cost. We are told that people on disability benefits are shiftless scroungers, that disabled people get prostitutes at the taxpayers expense, that Disability Living Allowance is a form of unemployment benefit. (It's not, the clue's in the name)

So why we are being subjected to this abuse? Why has there been a four fold increase in hate crimes against disabled people since this government came to power? Two little completely harmless sounding words: "Small State". That the state should be made smaller, not for some practical function but as a point of principle.
Even when (as is the case here) the state is too small to meet its minimum obligations, you reduce it further on principle. A shopping list contains more thought than went into this idea .


Some would say that this is the logical entailment of a coalition of Tories (Who help the wealthy and no one else) and the LibDems (Who favour sloganeering over analysis in policy formulation & expediency over principle in the business of government) I would not dispute that but it doesn't make the consequences any easier to live with. We're not hypothetical abstracts we are real people living real lives in the real world. Please remember that. As for me, if we ever meet please forget what you have been encouraged to think. If you do, who knows, you might even like me.