A Step Forward

Last night I managed to attend a Labour Party branch meeting, the first time for some months.  Colin Burgon’s most stimulating, inspiring and entertaining speech, “What can the Left learn from Venezuela?”, was followed by a lively discussion. A chance to replenish our glasses, hand-pulled ales being a rare treat for me these days, was followed by the more routine branch business. And, as if that wasn’t enough, I even managed to stay for some post meeting conversation.

Earlier in the day, I’d been seriously wondering whether it would be yet another occasion for me to proffer my apologies. After 13 -14 hours of bed rest / restlessness, it  had required a tremendous effort of both willpower and physical stamina to remove myself from the duvet lair. The gamut of emotions and felt body temperature was extremely broad, both limbs and torso felt shudderingly cold during the first hour or so, applied hot water bottles making little apparent difference. After two discomfortedly restless hours, au lit, the situation had reversed as perspiration oozed from head, torso and limbs.

Cramping pains in the left upper arm, spasmodically accompanied by aches across the upper chest and both shoulders, and a painful tenderness under the chin, conspired along with abdominal bloating to ensure that sleep remained a distant dream, or vain hope, for the next few hours. The gnawing spasms in the left upper arm persisted well into my ex-bed waking life.

Having experienced that degree of dis-ease in the preceding 20 hours or so, it came as a pleasant surprise to be able to participate in the LP meeting. Today I’m experiencing a little payback, a tawdry collection of gut-wrenching abdominal grumblings, searingly painful sinuses, aching limbs, jangling nerve ends and, an underwhelming sense of exhaustion. In terms of morale, the meeting / socializing experience, on this occasion, far outweighs any consequent additional discomforts.

The Single Porsche Family

With a day pass for a regional conference at £35 (advance booking) and dinner at £50, one starts to wonder just who these events are aimed at. Even if health permitted my attendance, the tariff alone would prove prohibitive. Obviously attendance at such conferences is based upon one's bank balance as much as political persuasion.  It has me wondering what kind of petit bourgeois organization might get away with these exorbitant charges. The answer is the Labour Party, obviously very much New labour judging by these prohibitive tariffs. Already I'm starting to wonder why I ever rejoined the party; having been an activist throughout most of the 1960's and 70's (and a reluctant hanger on in the eighties) the advent of the Blair machine alienated me completely but, I had begun to hope that it may one day regain its soul!

The party obviously can have little appeal to, or understanding of, the economically challenged in our society. Perhaps the party hierarchs consider poverty to be that state wherein one is reduced to the state of being a single Porsche household.

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15.49hrs. I have just posted a rather more upbeat post, primarily a video, entitled Golden Rain on 'Mal's Murmurings'

The Birth of ConDemNation

In spite of the past extended weekend of depressing parliamentary goings on, the total lack of principle on behalf of the LibDems, I've just about managed to keep myself buoyant. A Tory by any other name is still a Tory no matter what colours they wore to deceive the electorate into casting a vote for them. No amount of adjusting / reforming the electoral system will compensate for the lack of principle and integrity so in evidence amongst politicians. The words uttered during the campaign all prove meaningless.



Clouds of gloom kept falling around us as we struggled to get on with life. We had a most enjoyable visit from my brother and his wife, from Saturday until Wednesday, accompanied by some enticing wining and dining experiences. The weather militated somewhat against venturing far afield, though I must admit that suited me fine. Visits out were to Brio's Italian Restaurant, Cafe Culture, the garden centre at Otley and the local nature reserve.


At home, the fermented grape juice enjoyed ranged through, Deutz Marlborough Cuvee Brut NV, Bergsig Gewurtztraminer 2009, Alma Andina Torrontes 2009, Ungsteiner Kobnert Spatlese Pinot Noir 2007, and our customary Champagne region fizz accompaniment to a viewing of 'High Society'.


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Although I had many areas of disagreement with the Labour government, not least of which were the illegal war in Iraq and Blair's neo-Thatcherite tendencies, I cannot fail to acknowledge the great number of social advances (at home) made during their spell in office and, Gordon Brown's commitment to combatting global poverty, as well as the way he set about dealing with the aftermath of the global capitalist crisis.


I felt rather nauseous as the newly crowned Cameron acknowledged that we had become a more open and compassionate society during the past decade; I remember far too well his tirades before and during the campaign, against the "broken society" which he attempted to lay at Brown's door. In fact most of the broken-ness is a long lingering result of the selfish asocial Thatcher years. My fear is that the Cameron - Clegg United Public Schoolboy Front are set to undo much of the good that has been acheived since 1997.


After more than a couple of decades outside of the Labour Party I have finally rejoined them!

bipartisan politics!

On one side we have the Labour Party, funded to a considerable extent from the voluntary contributions paid by trade unionists. Opposing them we have the Tories, the Conservative Party, primarily funded by the bosses which, indirectly, means the involuntary contribution of those who are in the bosses workforce or paying customers of the boss. I don't believe that the workforce or the customers, who make the profits for the bosses, have ever been balloted to see if they would like the fruit of their efforts to be used to payroll the Tories.

The Labour party when in government, contrary to what the Tories would have us believe, not infrequently sides with the bosses against the unions. Somehow, presumably for historical reasons, the unions remain their loyal paymasters. These paymasters get short shrift.

The Conservatives retain total loyalty to their paymasters, the bosses, and given the chance do everything in their power to emasculate the unions. Sadly, Labour never seems to have any intention to repeal the Tories anti trade union legislation. The Conservatives, as their name suggests, are there to maintain the status quo, whereas Labour do at least attempt to rectify some of the gross inequalities in society.

Labour, under the Blairite banner of 'New Labour', inherited (and pursued further) Tory Thatcherite economic policies, which on a global scale led to the financial collapse.

The Tories now ask us to believe that under the banner of 'change' they can rectify the problems. Conservative = Change, a paradox if ever there was one!

HIDDEN MESSAGES

Sunday lunchtime, a newspaper falls through our letterbox, it arouses our curiosity. Three sub-teen girls are going along the road, folding and delivering the aforementioned news sheets. I smile and think that’s it’s perhaps the periodical paper produced by the county council and the children are enjoying their little job, helping mum and dad out.

My beloved gets up from the table and brings the ‘literature’ through to the dining room. “It’s about green policy”, she reports. Sure enough, the bold headline news is ‘Protecting our local green belt’, not quite the kind of green policy I anticipated. I then glanced at the newspapers header which read ‘Harrogate & Knaresborough District News’ subtitled ‘Delivered free by your local Conservatives to over 40,000 homes’. So instead of a newspaper we have a propaganda sheet.

They certainly start them young on the propaganda trail, these Tories. A sudden disclosure flashes across my mind as the very young children go about their Sunday job, delivering these sheets of waste paper; Tories plan to re-introduce child labour.

I think about this for a couple of minutes, concerned about the corruption of innocent children for party political ends. I think a little bit more about it and, the realization dawns that they have to utilize the very young as anyone older, and with a modicum of intelligence, will remember the disastrous socially divisive policies of the Thatcher era. (Sadly, Blair and his ilk corrupted Labour, transforming itself into New Labour, by adopting the same monetarist policies; the very policies that led to the global financial meltdown).

How could one forget the Saatchi brothers inspired Tory campaign, which brought about their election victory at the end of the 1970’s, showing a dole queue under the banner heading ‘Labour Isn’t Working’. At that time unemployment was reaching the one million mark, within a couple of years Thatcher had transformed that into more than 3 million unemployed. They attempted to massage the figures by placing people onto different welfare benefits but the exponential growth of the unemployment figures continued, even excluding those numbers (in reality people) surreptitiously ignored!

I remember too the Poll Tax riots, which led to a U-turn in the policy of the Lady who was not for turning. Self-interest, greed, “no such thing as society”, was the legacy that Conservative regime bestowed upon the country. A legacy of broken lives and self-centred individualism is their proud claim.

But, the message I received yesterday was their readiness to re-introduce child labour.
Cameron and his ilk attempt to portray a conservatism with a human face but, the truth is that Thatcher’s cohorts will be disclosed once that veneer receives the least scratch. Tory ideas, practised by New Labour, helped to get us into the current difficulties, why should anyone trust the real full-blooded instigators of this change to rescue us!