Building walls ....

Trump is clearly not the first autocratic man to want to build a wall to protect his sand pit. China's Emperor Qin had a good crack at it. Berlin and Belfast's walls were not so visible from space but created their fair share of suffering. And in Britain ... Hadrian built 73 miles of symbolic power to delimit Empire from Barbarian (and judging by current politics I'm sure there's a few Scots who wished the wall was now a bit higher). With Hadrian's Wall came all the ingenuity that the Roman military industrial complex had to offer, including early renditions of blast barriers embedded in fort entrances to stop low wheeled enemy chariots rushing the gates.

Populating the forts along the course of the wall were some of the 56,000 soldiers in England at a time when the population as a whole was only four to five million. Troops came from Spain, Syria, Germany, North Africa with some attempting to serve out the 25 years it took to get Roman citizenship. Some stayed in the North, marrying into local communities and messing with the BNPs claim for some ancient, pure Britishness.

But not only did the Romans mix up the gene pool. According to our guide Colin, at Chester's Museum, Northumbria, they also bequested bits of the English language: 'fort' night (the amount of time you spent in the fort before returning to the main Roman camp); decimation (where every tenth man in a cohort was executed by his fellow soldiers when the cohort had done something naughty, like mutiny); 'you scratch my back' (after the need to get someone to scrape down your back to clean it in the communal baths); 'wrong end of the stick' (from the sticks with sponges on them used in the loo, and with the spongy bit obviously the wrong end you didn't want to get hold of).

The locals living around the excavated remnants have made an art of naming things after the wall: Hadrian's Haulage; Ale Ceasar; Hadrian Hotel etc. If Trump ever does get his border wall in the ground, I shudder to think that one day in the future, after it has crumbled like all walls and all empires governed by narcissists that think they will live forever, it will be excavated and put on show for tourists with a little gift shop nearby selling Trump lager, Trump chutney, and Trump fudge. As his wall is broken up and used in someone else's fence or road or sand pit, he will be reduced to a benign face on a tea towel.

Perhaps then, in the case of Trump's America, it is better to think of his wall as necessary for keeping his Barbarians in so they do as little damage as possible to the rest of the world.

Brexiting

I leave London for a few days and look what happens. Just when hell seemed to be going the way of the handcart it apparently can get worse.

It was an odd moment in Glastonbury. On Friday, as news of the Referendum results spread, it was a bit somber; on Saturday everyone seemed to go 'feck it, let's party; on Sunday it was kind of 'oh shite, it really did happen then'; and on Monday we made our ways back home, suffering sleep deprivation, gastro enteritis and trench foot, to process the news that we have no Government to speak of, no Opposition and the rest of Europe in uproar.

Clearly, despite trying to block out the worst of the implications, the Leave vote and its aftermath were on my mind while wading between stages as I found 24 voice messages to myself, a record of ranting and my music selection from this year's festival that went something like this:

We could of course blame the egos of the two men at the centre of all this: Boris Johnson and David Cameron. Whatever happened between them at boarding school or Oxford we are all paying for it now in the UK and across Europe. But that would perhaps be simplifying, personalising things too much. While dancing to Carl Cox's 1990s anthems along with many other predominantly white, male 40 somethings getting nostalgic, we gave Boris brownie points for being a master tactician and a man with the patience for the long game. Clearly, we should have spent less time dancing in the 1990s and more time monitoring Boris's plans for world domination.

However, as I stood at the back of Fat Boy Slim, pile driving myself deeper into the mud to 'Eat, Sleep, Rave, Repeat', my predominant thought was that the 'Righteous Liberals' are not taking any time to reflect on their own portion of blame. The Groaniad screamed 'failure of democracy' in their morning edition (that gets delivered to Glasto and tells you something about the audience there). No, it wasn't a failure of democracy. It was a failure to convince people. And the people that we mostly failed to convince were, ironically perhaps, my people: little England, middle England, however they are derogatorily described these days, that's my family. Even when some of my people picked themselves up and moved their little England to Australia, that Jerusalem, that part forever England, was always there. And so I grew up in the house of little England with all their hopes and fears.

Now there is a reason that I live many miles from my people, and in fact rarely speak to them, but it is too simplistic to just call my people racists and fascists. The older generation, my nan and great aunts and uncles, they knew what fascism meant. They were suspicious of anything that smelt of socialism and change but they were not fascists and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't vote for it. They would vote for what they perceive is order and stability (even if we know in reality that it's not). They would vote for a sense of control over their lives when all around is in flux. And yes, they will at times blame an 'other' for causing that flux. The 'take back control' mantra of the Leave campaign, whether knowingly or not, perfectly captured the zeitgeist of feeling unmoored in a world changing too fast and in directions over which very few of us have any control, with the fig leaves of democracy rapidly dropping off and leaving the mechanisms of power increasingly naked and unashamed.

Now my people are not stupid, they are able to see political rhetoric and attempts at manipulation for what it is. But if there is no alternative framework on offer, one that is convincing, then they will rely on heuristics that lead to the greatest comfort, as do we all (queue the techno pop dissonance of Grimes which I could stand for about ten minutes).

This leads to the failures on our part, people who wanted to remain a part of the institutions of Europe, to convince, which is part of our broader failure to connect ideas with people's real lives, and part of our failure to not provide a vocabulary with which people could express the structural inequalities that are at the heart of this miasma. At Glastonbury, for example, with a fairly well educated, middle class population, not only were there too many people dressed as 'where's Wally' but a myriad of vacuous conversations also had to be screened out. People were genuinely trying to make sense of what's happened, especially young people most affected, but just not having the vocabulary or the critical analysis to be able to do it.

The lead singer of 1975 valiantly tried to articulate that 'today we need compassion, and love ... and stuff' (adding that he's just a pop star which I guess he's allowed to say since he was on a main stage after 7pm). Okay, love, compassion, yes, but '... and stuff'! How about 'social justice and equality, an end to the structural violence of patriarchy, the abolition of peerage in this country and the redistribution of land, support for manufacturing industries in the face of globalisation, the introduction of a living wage, the decommissioning of trident, a reconfiguring of the British psyche to accept that it no longer has an empire and is just a little country on the edge of Europe that once used to punch above its weight. I hope he went to listen to PJ Harvey later: all she had to do was read out John Donne's 'No Man is an Island' to give the crowd something slightly more tangible to grasp onto.

Even 'righteous liberals' seem to be devoid of the vocabulary to capture the complexity and amorphous nature of people's fears and anxieties. 'Fascist' has become the word that is now thrown at anyone who says anything the righteous don't agree with.

We need to talk about what's going on within a framework that's more than just vitriol. The reality is that we need to get out of the classroom more. Our classrooms for the most part are a self-selecting cohort of students who want to learn about the mechanics of social life and power because they've already started asking questions. We spend our days in an echo-chamber of our own making, discussing the ills of neo-liberalism with our mates, railing against the forces of oppression and denigrating my people for failing to see the light.

And London is the biggest echo-chamber of all. The fact that London sees itself as a special state of exception is part of the problem ... and no, London cannot secede. I hate to say 'I told you so' but I was saying weeks ago to the complacent urban who felt it would never happen that in fact it could. London is not the UK. It's not England. My people get very tired of feeling (or imagining) they are being sneered at by the urban urbane who purport to maintain ideal forms of cosmopolitanism and taste (queue Anoushka Shankar, Catfish and the Bottlemen and The Last Shadow Puppets) and who  speak on everyone's behalf. We should not stop trying to understand why people make the decisions they do just because they live outside the M25. Social scientists who should know better are making causal claims out of correlations and reducing complexity in stereotyping and labelling, something that should be anathema to our profession.

I am not one of the millions calling for the referendum to be ignored or reneged upon. As someone who supports citizen initiated referendum (the Swiss model) I would like to see more of them, with a well-informed electorate (and a well-informed, unhysterical media would be nice as well). It would be just one more nail in democracy's demise to say to half the country that their opinion does not count, no matter how much we dislike that opinion. It will not solve any grievance and in fact is more likely to exacerbate it (and is that a sample of 'I predict a riot' I hear). It is part of the problem of politics in this country (and many others) that the referendum seems to be the last remnant of participation where a vote can change something.  Nor can we just have another referendum until we vote the way the EU and the Remain campaign wants (the Irish solution).

At the end of the day, fittingly to New Order, I actually don't think much will change once things settle down. A political-economic elite will remain in power, retaining order in its own image, if with different names and private schools.  While I voted to remain, and I would call myself European rather than British, I am not a fan of all the EU's institutions: it is a neoliberal project, if one that has brought benefits for European collaboration in academia, and some trans-national environmental and work protections. Its desire for free movement has nothing to do with cultural interaction and everything to do with lowering wage bills. So I would support the Paul Mason model and force a general election. With a Labour/Green/SNP mandate, we may actually be able to salvage something progressive out of the current malaise.

Glasto resolved things by engaging us in a rousing chorus of the anarchists' version of God Save the Queen, substitute the words for whatever lyrics you like, led by a woman with tourettes and a man who sang it in Punjabi. It seemed a fitting way to raise a finger to the problems of the world before heading back to actually deal with them. If we have to face down real fascists on the streets so be it, but let's look at our own failings before we divide the country even further.

Seeing Red

It is confession time. Yesterday, I actually found myself uttering the words 'you posh hipsters', in public, directed at a resident from that part of the street that is all Victorian terrace on the outside and undergoing constant renovation within. 'Uttering' is perhaps too demure a verb to use in this instance. It was more yelling in a crazy woman kind of way at a man who, when I busted him using our bins for his overflow of waitrose leftovers, made the mistake of justifying his behaviour by saying 'I pay my taxes, I can put my garbage wherever I want'. No, sir, no you can't.

In the past when I have found people fly tipping on my doorstep I have employed all the non-violent communication and buddhistly skills I have been trained over the years to deploy. I've taken their hand, introduced myself, quietly and calmly explained the obvious situation - that if they keep putting their garbage in our bins then the bins overflow and we have rats and foxes spreading germs and half eaten babies' nappies all over our front yards - and then I have watched them smile and continue to put their garbage in our bins. Probably, I suspected, because they think it's a scummy estate and they pay their tax and can put their garbage wherever they like, or at least anywhere but in front of their own heavily mortgaged homes.

Enough is enough. It is time for outrage and justice. It is time for some name calling and yelling in the street, in front of everyone. It is time for Luther and Alice to kick some butt!

Now I know that I also shop at Waitress most of the time (actually I get it home delivered - an obvious sign of gentrification when delivery trucks with kale or blueberry paint jobs feel comfortable parking in your neighbourhood). I could possibly earn more than the man I called a posh hipster. I am petite bourgeoisie from my toe nails to my hair follicles. And I know that yelling at the man in the street will probably only increase his desire to place his garbage on our estate (and he did at least separate out his recycling and put it in the bin rather than leave it lying on top or on the ground as so many others do). But I have to also confess that for the few minutes it took to berate him for his selfishness, no matter how lacking in coherence and logical argument,  it did feel pretty good.

Ultimately though this madness is a symptom of the housing crisis that leads to middle class residents buying tiny two bedroom Victorian conversions for a sum, on average, 16 times their London salary according to the National Housing Federation; a space in which they find it impossible to store themselves, their kids, their flat screens and their garbage if they miss collection day, which perhaps leads them to say things like 'I pay my taxes and can do what I want'. It seems the only leverage they have is to piss on down the hierarchy. Private renter activists like DIGS highlight the growing resentment felt by this squeezed Middle that must spend too much on a basic necessity that has become part of an artificial market created by previous governments who now keep it propped up by transnational mobility and investment. Parts of this Middle, with few rights in the face of absent landlords and short term leases, look at the low rents and charges of social housing with an aggrieved eye and seemingly little comprehension that we're all of us, private tenants, leaseholders, freeholders and social housing, living with a precarity of ideological making. Where we put the garbage will be the least of our problems if the politics of London and nationally with regards to housing don't change.

On lacking imagination and other political faults ....

Yesterday was a very depressing news day. Not only the ongoing stories of war and suffering but now we have George Osborne announcing that his vision for the UK is that we become the richest country in the world. Not the fairest, the most green, the most creative, the most skilled, the most critically thinking country in the world. No, we must become the richest. I don't mind a bit of wealth but if that is all we're aiming for with our collective talent and imagination then I imagine we're going to be one of the poorest countries in the world on many counts.

To top it off we then had London Mayor Boris Johnson on the BBC London news (10 July 2015) announcing his support for a 'loosening' of local planning laws that gives the government more compulsory purchase powers and the mayor more power to override local government planning decisions. According to Boris, the lack of home building in the capital is 'essentially because of democracy, because of restrictions that planning committees place, that councils place'.

Ah yes, that pesky thing called democracy hampering developers in their desire to run a steam roller over every council estate in the city, and constraining the entrepreneurial spirit of the good home owner who wants to add a floor without planning permission that they can then rent out for at least the £1200 per month you would pay for one bedroom in West Ealing. Let's not even look at renting in Zones 1-2, and forget about buying. Boris has yet to explain how this helps the lack of social and affordable housing in the city.

I don't get angry with developers. It is their nature to obfuscate and manipulate in order to make the most profit. It's the Scorpion and the Frog scenario (go watch The Crying Game if you don't know the reference but basically if you're a frog never give a scorpion a free ride across a pond because eventually it will sting you and you'll both drown - it cannot overcome its nature).  I do, however, get angry with government because it is the role of government to mediate, on our behalf, the excesses of developers, not get into bed with them.

So no, Boris, democracy is not the problem. A lack of it is the problem.

Gird your loins, the gloves are off - and other mixed metaphors

Being a firm believer that democracy does not begin and end with elections that happen every few years I'm not so despondent about the new /old government we have here in the UK, or perhaps I'm just getting old and have lived through so many of them now that they all just merge into mediocre blancmange.

I remember a few years ago seeing statistics from the global pew survey on attitudes to democracy. While more and more countries become 'democratic', measured by the fact that they have elections, more and more people are increasingly dissatisfied with it. And this makes sense. Over the years, we seem to have collectively forgotten that power is transferred from we the people to our representatives and that we can withdraw our legitimacy at any time should enough of us say 'sorry to bother you but would you mind terribly not doing that' (as we would say in Britain). Even in the face of a necrotic political-economic elite propped up by scared men inflated into the status of media barons, we have power. We don't actually have to politely wait for another election.

So, pick your battle! Electoral reform seems like a good place to start - from UKIP to the Greens, the periphery needs to march up on the big boys, while they're squabbling in the centre sandpit over whose blancmange is best, and nick all their toys. I am fascinated however whenever I tub thump about electoral reform how many people say 'but that will mean UKIP will get more seats'. Yes, it might or even worse, the BNP. And that's democracy. Those voices need to be heard. It would also mean that Greens, and other socialist oriented parties, even independents, could get more seats and balance would be restored to the universe. It would mean that parties would be forced to put forward actual policies and debate them with dissenting voices - rather than the increasingly stage managed manifesto launches and meet-the-party-faithful gatherings we saw in this election. It would mean that the executive government would have to present policies to a reinvigorated parliament, not the whipped puppy we see before us today, and convince that parliament with sound argument and evidence that what they are proposing is at least necessary. It will mean that politicians could not assume that being our representatives was a job for life.

It will not be perfect. It never will be. But it will be better than the soul destroying option of being told that the only decision we have to make in this country is putting an X next to blue or red every five years. We deserve a bit more choice than that.

Electoral Reform Society
Unlock Democracy

Sex and Money

So your man, Brooks Newman (Minister for Civil Society) resigns in shame after sending a picture of (I'm assuming because noone's been explicit) his penis to a fake woman (if you don't know the story it's just tawdry and misogynistic all round mostly on the part of the reporter and newspaper involved).  And yet whoever was responsible for coming up with the idea of PFIs is still walking around apparently not feeling any shame at all: not feeling like he (I'm assuming it's a he) has to say sorry; not feeling like he has to put his hand up and say 'perhaps it wasn't a good idea after all'.

A whiff of sex is so shameful it requires resignation. Beggaring the health service in the name of stupidity, oligarchy and greed is apparently nothing to get too embarrassed about. Whoever you are PFI Man you should hang your head in shame, and Vince Cable can join you for selling off the Royal Mail to yet another cabal.

If you have a strong constitution I'd highly recommend James Meek's book on privatisation in the UK. Read it and weep.

Notes to self for the New Year 2014

1. Rage.

2. Rage against the machine, against mediocrity, against bigotry, against everyday sexism, against lazy journalism, against economists who use the word 'rational'. ('Playing rationally in a game with madmen is madness itself', Mark van Vugt). Rage against sclerotic institutions, meaningless dichotomies, political expediency, denied hypocrisy, self-defeating nihilism, cynicism, and acrylic yarn.

3. Stock up on tea and chocolate digestives.

Between Hagiography and Hate

As I survey the politcal wreckage  of impasse this week, between an ossified nostalgia for 'Maggie' (marked by amnesia from those who rolled her) and a rose-colored socialism of the 70s that offers no alternative except the reclamation of words, I once again hear the steady beat of left-right-left-right that everyone must march to it seems. This rhthym defines politics in this country, producing a paucity of thinking and imagination and lazy debates of 'you're left/right and therefore wrong'. It means you have the excuse not to listen. 

There is no way forward when our political lives are divided between hagiography and hate, a division that has achieved little in the way of equality, environmental sustainability or democracy. Neither the 'right' nor the 'left' seem capable of acknowledging the complexity of humanity: that disorder is not necessarily a bad thing or that, heaven forbid, people, rather than living under a false consciousness, might actually like being middle class. Ideologies are always troubled by a shade called grey. I confess I have heard Zac Goldsmith, a conservative MP, speaking out against the third runway at Heathrow and criticising the lack of democracy in Parliament whenever whips are brought out to bring into line errant MPs who might have an independent thought. Way to go, Zac! Is he 'left'? Am I 'right'? Does it really matter? Would I disagree with him on many other things. Absolutely. Forgive me, but I'd rather be out of sync.

I have no idea at the moment what politics will look like in the future but I know it hasn't reached its potential in the present. I know the future is not a 'third way' (oh no Tony Blair, you stay down!). I know it's not just about reclaiming terms, redefining 'socialism' into blue labour or red tories. I hope it will be something like the London Citizens campaign - an unexpected coalition of all sorts that are actually achieving something on the London Living Wage Campaign. But perhaps we can start with a politics of humility. No politican should expect or get a state funeral. They should do their job, do it well, and retire and die with dignity as any one else can hope for.

The Politics of Managing Uncivil Change

The possibility of a backlash against mainstream politics in this coming election has raised the prospect of increased support for the British National Party (BNP), following on from its relative success in the 2009 European elections. This has led to questions about why someone would vote for a party that is so extreme in its rhetoric and policies.

The simple answer that people feel overwhelmed by migration is complicated by the Institute for Public Policy Research findings released this week that nine out of ten local authorities with the highest proportion of votes for the BNP have had lower than average levels of recent migrant settlement. Instead, the party, it seems, assumes greater legitimacy in areas where there are high levels of economic, social and political exclusion. In many ways, this is unsurprising. Whether living next door to a migrant or not, there has long been an association made between deprivation and increased expressions of racism, and the findings do not mean that those excluded do not blame migration for the conditions they find themselves in.

The findings could also be explained by another argument: that, rather than simply anti-immigration motives, a vote for the BNP is a response to ‘change fatigue’, that is, an acting out of frustration in the face of transformations over which we have no control. In so doing, an attempt is made to reclaim some sense of power. Managing change can be a stressful process as anyone who has moved house, changed jobs or ended a relationship knows. And in just forty years, powerful social and economic influences such as de-industrialisation and globalisation have radically changed British society. Exclusion and inequality have been exacerbated, and the gap between policy-makers and those impacted by their decisions increased by the influence of transnational organisations and failing democratic institutions within the UK.

As suburbs, economies and lifestyles visibly change we can reach the limits of things as usual. Collective norms are disrupted, for example, when industries die, when our streets change and we no longer recognise familiar patterns, be it respect or groceries on the shelf. Anomalies and contradictions in former routines and beliefs appear, unable to be classified or ignored, generating a sense of dissonance as a result. A process of grief, of adjustment to loss, can be evoked and an internal struggle in response to that loss follows. There is a search for stability as ‘the way things used to be’ and ‘the way things are now’ grate and jar against each other. As a result, for some, often communities or individuals already marginalised, low in resilience and with limited choice anyway, fatigue sets in and change meets the determination of our inherent desire for continuity of meaning and the predictability of life.

There is no handbook to manage this change, until the BNP, or parties like it, proffer one in the form of a cultural identity: historically questionable on closer inspection, a bit blurry around the edges perhaps, but an offer of fundamental certainty nevertheless with all the privileges that bestows for the ‘indigenous’ Briton. With this cultural identity, and its vociferous, impossible attempts to define Britishness, comes order and place, geographically and temporally. Britons have a past, some 7000 years of it according to the BNP, and will have a future.

Current official policies of social cohesion do little to address that defensive position because of the lack of recognition of its connection to exclusion and the struggle for some degree of control over the direction of change, leaving the way open for the BNP to manipulate fears. Word of caution, then. Attacks against the BNP as simply racist thugs without acknowledging the excluded reality of its supporters could possibly increase its vote. People ticking that box on May 6th may be afraid for the future, or tired of feeling they are always at the wrong end of other people’s decisions. The BNP then becomes a surrogate form of change management if other more civil means are not found.

New Maps

Just caught part of the Leaders Debate in the UK (we have an election on May 6th for those of you not in the neighbourhood). The theme was meant to be international relations. We had a lot on Europe, a bit on the USA and Afghanistan, nothing on the Middle East (except for references to Iran and its nuclear programme as a justification for the UK government spending £100 billion on nuclear submarines), nothing on Israel's nuclear programme, nothing on Palestine, nothing on China, ASEAN, or India. Asia fell off the map.

Random Musings on the Opening Gambits of the Great Game 2010

Snow has the capacity to silence London. Somehow it absorbs the rumble of tube trains and traffic and shrill class-riddled politics. Unfortunately, it's now thawed and the election campaign has begun. The opening gambit from Gordon Brown ... New Labour is back and the Middle Classes must be wooed.

Just exactly who these Middle Classes are I can't quite tell but I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to fit in there somewhere. In his speech this week to launch this 'new' strategy, Gordon informed us:
"A fair society is one where everyone who works hard and plays by the rules has a chance to fulfil their dreams whether that's owning a bigger house, taking a holiday abroad, buying a new car or starting a small business''.

I'm thinking of the dreams of people who might just want comfortable, secure, affordable housing, no matter how big it is. Extending this a bit further, I'm thinking of the dreams of urban planners to create beautiful, open, slow living spaces, sustainable cities with affordable public transport so we may not even need a new car. I'm dreaming of a country that is a world leader in innovative technology, where educators have the resources to provide free life-long learning to create a population that is curious, critically reflexive, and adaptable to a changing world. I'm thinking of the dreams of every environmentalist in the country that we have an inspiring economic policy that creates thousands of green jobs in renewable energy. As for holidays abroad, I'm thinking of the dreams of young people to be able to move across a postcode boundary without fear, before even contemplating getting to the airport. I'm thinking they are also possibly dreaming that the government doesn't raise University fees too much to give them a fighting chance of paying it back in their working lifetime. I'm thinking of the dreams of anyone who gets up every morning and thinks what an awesome thing life is and wants their kids to share it. I'm thinking of 'dream' speeches ... Mandela, Martin Luther King ... dreams of freedom and equality.

Of all the possible dreams we could have what do we get from 'New Labour Mark II' ... Gordon Brown's dream that we will vote for him because he thinks all we want is bigger homes, a holiday abroad and new cars.

Is that it? Is that all New Labour think we are capable of aspiring to?

Personally I dream of an ethical foreign policy, a proper democracy with accountable politicians who realise they are just representatives of we the people, and an unlimited supply of fair trade wool to knit socks with.

Mr Brown ignored my dangerously flashing, slender pointed 3.25 mm needles and continued ... there will be more Middle Class jobs than ever before apparently and education is the key, setting a target of 75% of people aged under 30 to have access to either university or technical college. Fab. Only didn't you just cut the higher education sector's budget by almost £900 million Gordon? And didn't you just fine the sector £3700 for every extra student we took on above the government's quota to try to prevent young people ending up in unemployment? While many other countries in western Europe seem to be investing in higher education to get themselves out of recession and arguing that even 3 years isn't enough to properly train new graduates, we get larger class sizes, fewer teachers, and the prospect of two year degrees .

Mr Brown's 2IC (or 1IC possibly), the Dark Lord (Mandelson), has announced that the 50p tax rate for high earners will be abandoned as soon as possible as part of this effort to woo the middle classes. This is the top tax rate that affects those earning over £150 000. Given that the average wage in the UK is something around £26 000 (£531 per week for men and £426 if you happen to have female genitalia) I'm not sure which Middle Class Lord Voldemort is aiming for.

There is a great expression that I have learned to love in Britain ... numpty ... translated from the Scottish to mean 'general foolishness'. New Labour is numpty. I'm not being party-ist though. David Cameron's Conservative Party is as numpty. David has announced he will bring in tax breaks for married couples which will cost us 100s of millions of pounds ... because getting a ring on my finger will undoubtedly ensure that any offspring I happen to produce will never do anything naughty like take drugs, spray graffiti on walls, get pregnant as a teenager, or wear a hooded sweater.

In my desperation, and to the strains of a marching tune, Left-Right-Left-Right, I find myself strangely attracted to Nicolas Sarkozy. Okay he's indulging in the usual misguided attempts to define French identity (which can be anything except Islamic basically), but he's also talking about a Carbon Tax (potentially not the fairest in targetting big polluters but at least he tried) and institutionalising new indicators to measure the 'wealth' of a country by bringing in Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz to head a commission to work on it. Apparently their final report concluded that GDP should not be the only measure of progress but that the overall quality of peoples' lives is also important. It's not how much we consume but how we feel. Okay, so many of us have been saying this for quite some time now but at least he's trying ...

In the general gloom of the times I've bought myself some new red shoes. They look lovely in the snow and make me feel good, as does the feeling of snow on my nose and being able to wear wellies to work. I shall wear my new red shoes with the socks that will be created through the hours of interminable double speak that will emerge from the mouths of our democratically elected representatives that we are about to be subjected to in the media over the next five months. I will drop stitches in rage and frustration at the general numptiness of politics in the UK, but I will persevere and dream of how lovely my new socks will look with my new red shoes and I'll feel better.