Thursday 30 July 2015

Better red...

I really can’t understand why anyone is still surprised by the antics of our politicians. Why would they be when we are all aware that election promises will not only be broken but cynically overturned as soon as the votes are counted? Surely we expected this when we voted? Surely we knew that under their smiles and weasel words were lizards simply waiting to grind us all down with their self-serving plans and need for power and control? Surely we expect our nouveau Lords to snort coke and cavort with prostitutes, wear orange bras and leather jackets and basically spend our money on their own strange perversions. Why are we shocked or surprised? Wasn’t it ever so?

Let’s face it; you don’t become a politician by being a nice bloke. You have to have something else going on in your make-up, something that drives you, something that you will – at any cost – push through regardless of the consequences even if it is wearing a prostitute’s bra. Oh, you can wrap it up any way you want and use terms like elected representatives, democracy and choice, but in reality it’s hard for ordinary people to see through the lies or even understand that these people would promise anything, break any agreement, to get themselves in charge and have their own way.

I know that I do.

At the last election I voted conservative despite hating all of the Tories that are leading this country into becoming a smaller, far less important, America. In my case I was expecting a Lib-Dem coalition, a little sense injected into a Tory world that is becoming far too much like Germany in the thirties. Unfortunately I got it totally wrong and poor Nick Clegg, battered and dispirited, broken by his role as second fiddle sans bow, was ousted by us voters. In many ways at that time I believe he was our only hope.

Miliband never stood a chance. Unpopular and shifty-eyed, happy to stab his more popular and better looking brother in the back, a man pretending not to be a Tory when he had ‘almost Tory’ tattooed all over his seriously smug, slightly wrong face. No wonder Cameron won. As Kylie sang ‘Better the devil you know’, and then there was the Scottish threat to stoke the fires of fear as the Scottish threat so often does.

I’ve been advised by my conscience never to write about politics. I’m not very well informed and I am far too easily fooled. So in most ways I am just like the rest of the voting population, from idealistic kids straight out of school, to silly old ladies continually voting the way their dead husbands did. But we need a change and we need difference, so I’ve decided to ignore my conscience yet again.

How can you vote with any passion when at best the difference between the available parties is merely a couple of shades of washed out grey? Where is the red and the blue? Has it been lost somewhere in the mediocrity of failure, spreadsheet political accounting and point scoring? Has it faded and turned to beige?

I think I can feel a very slight breeze of change and I begin (at long last) to feel the need for that change to happen. I don’t want our children to be homeless and poor all their lives. I don’t want them to have to worry about how they pay for their children’s medical treatment or education or how they are going to keep them fed and warm through the winter. I don’t want them to fear the knock of the bailiff or the foreclosure of the bankers. I want them to have pensions, I want them to be cared for when they are old and not sit in their own piss all day. Maybe I am just getting old myself, or maybe I am thinking that I might make a tiny difference to the future if I can change my views a little.

Well, I can hope.

Last week I paid three quid to become a Labour Party supporter. I’m not (well at least not yet), but at least I now have allowed myself the option. My three quid buys me a vote in the Labour Party leadership election and my reason for doing this was simple. I listened to Jeremy Corbyn and what he was saying made sense to me. We do need to build council housing to provide homes, there is no need for a competitive gas and electricity industry so re-nationalise it and manage best price for all, of course the NHS should never be totally privatised and young people do have a right to a free-ish education.

I may not vote for him to be leader but at least I now have the chance to be involved if I want to. He might be a lefty, but at least he doesn’t wear a really expensive suit, dye his hair, use his hands to emphasise empty promises (as taught by a presentation coach), or give answers that don’t answer the questions. He seems to just answer the questions the way he feels and believes. Perhaps he isn’t a real politician at all.

Of course talking a case is easy, but he doesn’t strike me as a liar. He seems to be a fairly sensible and quite nice bloke who believes in what he is saying, not Michael Foot, not Tony Benn, certainly not Blair, just a man speaking about what he truly believes might work.

And it might.

What is it they say, ‘Better red than dead’?

I just hope he doesn’t wear an orange bra.


8 comments:

  1. David Searle on FB

    I fully agree with all of this.

    Most of the labour front bench for the last decade have been Oxbridge wonks, pretending they are the common man who "cares more" while they offer the same budgets, some policies and line up their next job in the City.

    None of the pundits or elite saw the rise of the SNP and I am wondering if they are again far to fast to write off Corbyn now.

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    1. Andrew Height
      David, I think the Tories have a big problem. If he has convinced me that there could be a more palatable alternative, he will convince and convert a lot of others. Three quid well spent I think.

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  2. Sharon Taylor on FB
    I have had one wine too many, but in my opinion all politicians are arrogant meglomainics who only have their own axe to grind. There is no such thing as democracy, according to my poly politics tutor. It won't matter who we vote for as it will always be the establishment who have the power and if it does change it will take a long time. Let's face it that piss taking 'lord' took a few days to resign and I bet that is all that will happen to him, we won't be seeing him on benefits street anytime soon!!!!!!!!!!!!

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    1. Andrew Height
      Exactly Sharon, however for the first time in my adult life I feel a glimmer of hope. Perhaps I have been a socialist all along smile emoticon

      Sharon three quid and you might be part of a revolution, and maybe not. But it is three quid worth gambling.

      http://www.labour.org.uk/w/labour-party-supporters

      Delete
  3. Andrew Height
    Done it Tony?

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  4. Tony Payne on FB
    Not yet. It's late. Will do though

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  5. Tim Preston
    I think Jeremy Corbyn is ace and I think he could become labour leader with the Geography teacher look but there's no way he'd hack it as PM. Maybe he should dress more like President Snow out of the Hunger Games

    Andrew Height
    I think it's refreshing to see someone who isn't in a blue suit that cost seven hundred quid. He made need a bit of work but he has five years. He's impressed me so much I've become a registered Labour supporter just to vote for him in the leadership election - yes me! If you didn't see this have a read.

    what a wonderful life...: Better red...

    Andrew Height
    Mind you the Hunger Games look is a good one and it would suit him.

    Tim Preston
    Ha ha - I've always been a lefty - I don't think I've had had a choice in it really with my dad's influence. He didn't shoot his mouth off about politics but he was very sure about his left of centre views. Since my exposure to buddhism after my lovelife crisis in 2010 I am a very firm believer in a lot of their principles. I know I got over heated during the election (that was stupid and a mark of weakness) but I am of the opinion that what happens in politics doesn't matter. It does and it doesn't matter. It's a paradox that I am happy with. By default, Jeremy Corbyn's views fit in with my mine and I probably will use my £3 to vote for him. However, I do wonder whether he will be able to steer politics to accept him in the form that he presents at the moment. I do hope that he manages to keep going - it will make things very interesting - and I hope - provide hope for those less fortunate than myself. I would like to become selfless - but it's a tall order.

    Tim Preston
    Liked the blog by the way - honest and open

    Andrew Height
    My view is simple Tim. We need a leftsh party and a rightish party and something in the middle otherwise everything is the same and their is no choice. Jeremy strikes me as a good man who belives what he says. Rare in a politician. He has five years to develop, so time will tell because he must win the leadership so we can return to old Labour.

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  6. Stephen Mcaleer
    Initially I took a pragmatic view and thought that a Corbyn win would keep the Tories in power for the next ten to fifteen years but I am not so sure now. I am very impressed by his authenticity; if he could bring that back to British politics, he might stand a chance of leading the country, especially if he runs against someone like Boris. He could revive Scottish Labour again for a start. New Labour left a lot of people feeling that it was impossible to ever change society for the better and a 'middle way' was all they were ever going to get. If Corbyn can inspire and invigorate he might succeed. Labour needs to be more than a party that controls the excesses of unfettered capitalism. They have to show that they can be dynamic and bring prosperity to the country. That will be the challenge.

    Andrew Height
    I agree entirely Steve. I am so pleased to have my early year socialist tendencies rekindled. He is a man of real belief I think, and he will have plenty of people around him to help him deliver on all levels. He doesn't strike me as being incapable of balance and if he builds the right team he already has that dynamism in his party. What do you think about the uniform Tim suggests? Very Doctor Who, which is another point in Corbyn's favour. Seriously, I think he will build an honest Labour Party that people can relate with and I think the Tories are really scared of him.

    Stephen Mcaleer
    Yeah; I would go for that new uniform; a kind of modernist sage. Yes, I think honesty is the key.

    Andrew Height
    There's a touch of Mao and a little of the Russian guard about it.

    Stephen Mcaleer
    It beats the Blair Armani look

    Andrew Height
    Steve I detest everything about Blair, always have, always will. He is the reason the Labour party has become the almost Tory party it is with no clear direction. I know this may sound crazy, but I find it hard to decide which - Blair or Thatcher - was the most evil and dangerous for Britain .

    Stephen Mcaleer
    I know what you are saying. Blair was Thatchers successor. She made the shift and he followed it. But getting into bed with the likes of Bush - that was something else.

    Andrew Height
    I voted for Blair the first time and swore afterwards I would never vote Labour again. Well, the winds of change seem to have blown into my sails a little and it looks like I will be. The next five years will tell.

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