IT IS STILL A BEAUTIFUL WORLD - HAPPY CHRISTMAS

UPDATE - HAPPY CHRISTMAS

I deliberately sought out an inspirational Christmas message, for myself as much as for my loyal readers.  Not so sure about the 'tenderness for the past' bit especially, I doubt I will ever forgive all those who voted Conservative, and I will never learn to accept and live with the rise of far right ideology.  For now I am broken, more accurately, trying to recover from a broken dream with Python Lee Jackson singing in the background.

I have dipped a toe in politics many times over the years, well on and off, more off than on to be honest, because I don't have the emotional constitution to deal with defeat.  My heart breaks for Jeremy Corbyn, no one could have done more.  But sadly, Jeremy rose up at a time when we are all used to the instant gratification that our capitalist world brings, and those with all the goodies can play us however they want.  The masses, given an opportunity to create a more equal society, rejected it.  Something I will never understand.

But, tis the season to be jolly, and it's compulsory.  We can't put it off for a couple of months, or pretend it isn't happening.  And that's probably a good thing, it brings people together and reminds us of how much good there is in the people and the communities all around us.  For a couple of weeks at least, we can allow ourselves to be happy, we can take time off from worrying about the things that stress us in the other 50 weeks of the year.  Our priorities change, the right present, the most succulent turkey, the booziest Christmas pudding, matter more than the bills piling up and the job going nowhere.  

Broken dream or no, it is impossible not to be uplifted by the prospect of a brand new year, I'm still not focused, but at least one path is now closed off.  I will leave politics to those with the backbone and tenacity to rise up again and again, they are much stronger than I.  I shall return to my roots, and from now on, will only insert my politics, via subtext.  Maybe not as subtle I think, ha ha, I managed to send at least 3 forums into a frenzy.  

But I am genuinely looking forward to the new year and a new start.  I accept that I am powerless to change the world around me, I can only change myself.  That's a bit of a mantra I have been chanting these past few years, and it usually works.  The hardest part is accepting I can't change things.  That unfortunately has been leitmotif throughout my life.  I'm still the 5 year old girl who believes she can do anything and being told I can't hurts just as bad. Getting to the acceptance part can be eased by Buddhist quotes a bottle of wine and songs by Patsy Cline. 

Which brings me nicely back to the Season of Giving.  It is the 'giving' that makes us feel good and that is a very strange, alien, feeling for the tight fisted and the hard of heart.  They are not used to it, but they like it, as long as it has the proviso of 'for a limited time only'.  But fear not brave readers, who have stuck it thus far, I am not going to ask you for anything financial or anything that will take up your time.  All I am asking that you give, is a warm smile and maybe a kind word to all the strangers that you meet, especially to immigrants who now face such uncertain times.  Most of us are, I think, descended from parents, grandparents and ancestors who arrived on these shores similarly, as strangers.  Let's give them the helping hand our forbears received, from some, at least.  Let their memories and stories for their grandchildren be filled with the kindness of their neighbours.

Ok, ok, on reflection, it would appear I have overdosed on feel good Christmas movies.  Tis true.  I have been unwell (missed my flu Jab) and have been incapacitated, though still managing the full red carpet look, one must make an effort.  I'm hoping, should I end up on a machine, a kindly nurse will apply the Clinique lipstick, around the ventilator.  But I digress, I have been captivated by the number of ordinary American girls who take a vacation in Europe and meet a genuine Prince!  None of whom have the Hapsburg 'jaw' or the Windsor 'ears', happily.  The princes, not the girls.  The girls of course, are clean living, family loving non gold diggers, who also enjoy country walks on vast estates, riding horses, wearing tiaras and saying up yours to all the mean girls when they move into a castle.  The plots are crazy, but they kind of work.  You can see what's coming, but they always end with sumptuous feasts, fabulous fireside Christmas settings and spectacular snow scenes - what's not to like?  I do lean more towards Christmas films with dogs in, but that's just personal choice, for me,  'Hotel for Dogs' was a classic, right up there with Citizen Kane and Raging Bull.

I jest of course, but my ask that you give is quite sincere.  It takes guts, ambition, determination and hard work to start anew in a foreign land.  Immigrants are seeking opportunity, and thank heavens they are, because our high streets would be desolate without them.  A warm smile and a kind word costs nothing but it can lift the spirits of someone who has been treated, shall we say, not so kindly.  The foreign people in our midst are people just as we are, we all share the same love of family, the same hopes and the same dreams. I am devastated by the election result, as I am sure I have made clear, but my pain is nothing, compared to the pain that must be felt by all those 'strangers' who have made England their home.  But I, we, still have power in that we can show those who would be ostracised that we stand with them and beside them and always will.   We are a multicultural society, and that is something to celebrate this Christmas.  With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.  Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Ps. To anyone who cares, I have long forgotten and forgiven (probably because I've forgotten) the rants and raves against me over the years.  I don't think I have ever taken it personally to be honest, let's just say, as a bit of an err, outsider, it is something I have been accustomed too my entire life.  When my family introduce me they always proffer an apology before I open my mouth, hoping perhaps to avoid explanations later (coy smiley).  I don't know what it is about me that incites such hostility, lol, but whatever it is, I've never been arsed to sort it out and not likely to now.  

To be honest, I quite enjoyed the detailed psychoanalysis of my 'disturbed' mind, by such luminaries as tigger, Verdi, bennett and the sociopaths in the cesspit and myths' forums.  Flattered actually, that I occupied their heads for so long, ha ha.  But to be fair, even though their main subject was 'me', even I got bored with it.  They are a zillion ways in which to insult someone, they found about 5 and put them on a repetitive cycle.  Not once, you slimey b'stads did you put up someone capable of taking me on with the much mightier than a sword, pen.  Yes, I have indeed, drunk an entire bottle of wine and off to throw up.

Pps.  With my Christmas fairy wand, I absolve you all, hic.  Times, circumstances, waves of opinion, the 'zeitgeist' can carry people off in all sorts of bizarre directions.  Not because they are bad people, but because they have made a judgment based on majority opinion, even if it runs contrary to their own.  They believe the 'majority' knows better than they do, as an individual and they don't have the confidence to assert their opinion.  It is far, far easier to take the road well travelled, the one the majority takes.  Maybe it will be the right one, maybe it will never come back to haunt you, but if you follow your instincts and your own moral guidelines, you will never have those fears, you will never have any explaining to do.  Honesty and Integrity works every time.



Happy Christmas!

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

I take everything back, I fecking hate the English.  

______________________________

OK, I'm a little bit drunk and high as a kite on hope.  I have, intermittedly for sure, been involved in many (Labour) campaigns over the decades, but I have that same feeling I had in 1997, when, after 18 years of tory rule, we had that break through with Tony Blair.  I raised a glass of champagne to TB that night, for sure.  But turned out, Tony Blair wasn't anything like Jeremy Corbyn.  He didn't just snuggle up with the tories, he got into bed with them.  It was Blair, remember who introduced ATOS.  

He wanted to represent all sides, the working classes, the upwardly mobile and the established elite.  He divided Labour, as never before, New Labour represented the workers, but they represented the bosses too.  His naïve, ill thought out, legacy, bizarrely still inspires those who would could themselves, the Centre ground.  Blair contributed to the destruction of the few powers the working classes had, and indeed inspired the tory government that followed him to take them further.  Ergo we have had over a decade where the dominant ideology has been to blame the poor and the immigrants for all of the UK's woes.

Historians will know that leaders throughout every age and every government, has used the politics of blaming ethnic and religious minorities for everything that goes wrong.  Divide and rule.  If all we diverse people, joined together, we could overpower them in a nanosecond.   But we haven't.  Mostly because we are educated (indoctrinated) to believe that a certain section of society knows better than we do.  As a child of the 60's I would have said newspapers, politicians, the BBC, don't lie - now I laugh at my former naivety.   

Tonight, the YouGov polls, and indeed all the polls owned by Tory ministers and newspaper barons, are saying the Boris et al, are heading for a majority.  Do we believe them or our 'lying eyes', the massive number of young people (bless you) queuing in the rain to vote.  The record turnout, even in areas like mine where the tory old gammon has had way too long in power.

Tonight will be a Night to Remember, my plan A is to stay up and watch every result as it comes in and hopefully chat to those similarly minded during the night.  I know all those with their fingers and toes crossed right now, won't dare to hope for more than a hung parliament, but I honestly don't think that will happen.  Labour will win.  Decisively.  When hardened old tories like Peter Oborne state they will vote for Jeremy Corbyn, we know the tide has turned.  All over the country, even tories who despise JC, will vote Labour rather than hand the nation to a right wing bigot.  For all our differences, class, ethnicity, religion, etc, etc, the British have history for pulling together in the face of adversity, and we have never liked fascism.  

Tonight, will be a difficult night for many of us, hope is much more difficult to deal with than acceptance.  With hope, there is still 'what might be', it is so destructive, that we are taught to ignore it, not let it sprout any roots, we only suffer more when that hope doesn't reach fruition.  Better not to expect anything.  

But hope gives a kick just as great as cocaine, it allows us, even if only for a few hours, to imagine what might be, what could have been.  For the all the naysayers, tonight I am full of hope.  Yes, we can do it.  The biased polls tell us one thing, but our wide open eyes tell us the complete opposite.  Jeremy Corbyn is cheered, Boris Johnson is booed, yet mainstream political pundits ask 'why is JC so unpopular?'.  

Tonight reminds me so much of '1997', in the sense of 'something in the air'.  In 1997, they predicted a tory majority, but it ended with a Labour landslide.   Those of us out there on the front line knew it, and could feel it.  I feel the same tonight.  After a long, long day sat outside a polling station, my dear old dad and I watched the results coming in.  We were drinking, but didn't open the champagne until Michael Portillo lost his seat (actually like him now).  

Tonight, Boris Johnson is in real danger of losing his seat, the best moment this century according to one tweeter, let's hope.  Also Jo Swinson, who totally reminds of that little girl in the Clarkes shoe adverts who was going to grow up to be 'a right little madam'.  Johnson, Swinson and IDS - all in danger of losing their seats tonight,  Let's hope.

Meanwhile, hic, I am going to tuck into lots of European delicacies, whilst praying the UK will not cut itself off from it's nearest friends and neighbours and become Amish.

I'm here live, if anyone can make it through it the night...…...

THE CHOICE IS CLEAR #VoteLabourActually

Having spent 9 or is it 10 years taking the country back to the Victorian Age, Boris Johnson is now promising a new beginning with investment in the NHS, the police and the public services.  The reality, even if he fulfilled his promises, which he won't, he will merely be replacing a fraction of the services his heartless government cut.  

Boris Johnson defended the greedy bankers who brought about a world depression, and he has used his time in power to recoup those massive losses from those who had nothing to do with it, and could afford it the least.  We weren't all in it together, the tories' driving force, 'austerity' made the rich richer and the poor poorer.  No magic money tree they said, as they stood by and watched people die on our streets from lack of basic food, shelter and medical treatment.  Like Joe the crossing sweeper in Bleak House, Johnson, May, Rees-Mogg and the entire odious mob of them, would step over his dead body in their desperation to keep all the riches to themselves.

The tories have taken us back in time, and not in a good way.  All across the UK, shops are boarded up, all the traditional working class jobs are disappearing.  OK, not entirely the tories' fault, but they have refused to acknowledge that times they are a changing.  Being hellbent on austerity at all costs, they have to failed to invest in, or even acknowledge the changing needs of society in the 21st century.  People are living longer, single person households are the fastest growing demographic.  

It's the economy stupid, as Clinton famously said.  Creating jobs boosts the economy, because people with a wage have disposable income with which to boost industry.  The more they earn, the more they buy luxury goods and services, thus boosting the retail and leisure industries.  Our high streets have boarded up shops and tumbleweed blowing the streets, because people, ordinary people, don't have any money to spend, and those who might have started up new businesses have no incentive in times of austerity.

The truth is, we need more hospitals, we need more schools, we need more doctors, more nurses, more teachers, more care workers, and that need is not going to go away.  The population is growing, and it's like the tide that disobeyed King Canute, nothing can stop it.  The tories have, this past 10 years gone with the idea that a firm stand and punishment, I think some voted for the Cat-O-9-tails, has not stopped the feckless poor increasing in numbers.

The other way in which the tories have dealt with our evolving society is to simply cut the services available and pile twice the amount of work onto existing employees.  A kind of two for the price of one gift to themselves and their supporters.  It is essential that they feed the mentality that no-one should get something (eg food) for nothing.  They must do something in return, even if it is breaking rocks with a hammer for the sake of it.  Ideally, they are a source of free labour to pack shelves for unscrupulous get rich quick tycoons who are friends of the Conservative party.  Used to threaten existing workers with how easily they could be replaced. It depresses me, as a life long slacker, to see the workers in supermarkets doing manual work non stop without a break.  As a short sighted shopper, my Smart Arsed Son calls me Mrs Magoo, I fear interrupting them to ask where anything is.

Life doesn't have to be this way.  For the first time in history, we have all the facts and (pretty much) all the information available to us.  We can, on Thursday, choose a bright new future, we all have the power to immediately lift the pressure on all those NHS workers, all those policemen and firemen and all those vital community services that were sacrificed to pay for the bankers' greed.  Imagine waking up to a country that actually cares for all it's citizens with a government, ready, willing and able to invest in the needs of the majority.  A government that embraces and caters for our changing needs.  A government that invests in science and technology, why don't we have a 'Silicone Valley'?  We have the talent, we have the enthusiastic young, we would have talent coming in from all over the world, if we didn't have a stop sign at the border.

The Labour Party are not blurry or unclear in any way on their proposals for the country and for Brexit.  They are promising a new deal, a huge leap forward in this country's evolution, a programme as radical as that of the Clement Atlee's Labour government after WWII.  And Labour are the only ones offering the people another vote on Britain's future.  Labour are offering the nation another referendum on leaving Europe.  Those who voted to leave can vote to leave again. Having seen what Brexit entails, many may have changed their minds, and of course, vice versa.  Everyone gets another vote, there is nothing 'blurry' about that.

The self enriching policies of the Conservative Party have brought this once proud country to a crippled ship caught in a storm and heading towards the rocks.  Imagine waking up on Friday morning to learn that a strong and stable leader has taken the helm of the good old ship Brittania and is steering it right back on course.  Both leavers and remainers can breathe a big sigh of relief.  That period for buyer's remorse has been reinstated, phew, now everyone can think again.


A Christmas Poem  :)

Twas Christmas Day in the workhouse
the season of good cheer
the pauper's hearts were merry
their bellies full of beer

The pompous workhouse master
as he strode about the halls
wished them a merry Christmas
and the paupers answered 'balls'

This angered the workhouse master
and he swore by all the gods
he'd stop their Christmas pudding,
the dirty rotten sods

Then up stood a bald head pauper
his face as bold as brass
he said you can your keep your Christmas pudding
and stick it up your 'arse'.

HOW JEREMY CORBYN BROUGHT ME BACK TO LABOUR

I was curiously told on my last blog by an anonymous poster, that I hadn't voted Labour for as long as they had.  My response.

LOL, how do you know you have voted Labour for longer than moi? I remember campaigning for Neil Kinnock and I had a little dabble in Militant Tendency (they threw great parties). 
Tis true, at the tender age of 18, I was a conservative - for which I blame my convent indoctrination. But I was terribly naïve, I thought Margaret Thatcher was a feminist!  By the age of 21 I had strong socialist leanings, but I worked in a tory environment for tory bosses (lawyers).  Happily I was gorgeous and very charming, so many of those said bosses would take me out to lunch to change my opinions.  Whilst my heart lay with the picket lines, I also developed a penchant for fine dining at the Wig and Pen.  Of course, they didn't succeed and I even managed to 'turn' a few of them, one gave up the Law and went off to Indonesia to become a Buddhist Monk.  I still feel guilty about that.

So I have voted Labour since about the late 70's, early 80's, unless you are an Octogenarian I doubt you can beat me.  For the sake of truth (honesty and integrity), I confess I went right off Labour and politics generally after Tony Blair's betrayal. My usual head buried in the sand practice when anything stresses me.  It's a terrible coping mechanism, but one I am sure that will be familiar to sufferers of depression.

It is Jeremy Corbyn who has re-awakened my interest in politics.  Sounds cheesy, but he is kind of a Messiah, he is speaking the kind of words my disillusioned socialist soul has been waiting to hear for so many years.  Finally a Labour leader who will stand up for the masses, the employed and the unemployed. A leader who doesn't take account of the millions he could make for his mates, but who's sole objective is to make life better for the many, not the few.

The Tories are taking this nation back to the Victorian Age where there was a massive divide between the very rich and the very poor.  It is shameful that those very same conditions are prevalent now.  Any sane, logical person, knows that you cannot berate, beat or starve another person into submission.  History has shown, it never works.  The tories, for the past 9 years have berated (multiple TV shows about benefits scroungers), beaten (work capability assessments) and starved (sanctioned), the lower classes - basically, anyone who is not a tory btw.  Have they achieved what they wanted?  Well yes, zero hours contracts are the norm, and there are agencies all over the country filled with lists of manual/menial units (people) who can be forced to work for nothing for tory donors. The working classes have effectively been crushed.  Laws designed to protect people at work will be swept aside without the oversight of a European Court.  Longer hours, inhuman tasks, danger created by the demand for increased targets.  And here is the even better news, for employers, every employee knows how quickly they can be replaced if they don't follow orders.

At the turn of the last century, the aristocracy were suffering the effects of the industrial revolution, in that they 'couldn't get the staff'.  Their usual supply, the starving and desperate had options other than domestic servitude.  They could work in the factories, the offices, the schools that were springing up and any of the multiple new trades that were becoming available.  Parliament actually brought in a law at that time, stipulating that working class girls could only be educated enough to prepare them for domestic servitude.  I had a terrific book about, but it has been sadly mislaid.

Why do I throw in this snippet of information other than I love throwing in snippets information?  Because I think it demonstrates how a ruling party can manipulate the workforce (the units) in whatever way they like.  And they have.  This tory government has the working class on it's knees.  Those in work have no protection, those not in work are fodder for their show trials for those who think those without a wage, just don't suffer enough.  They have been merciless in their treatment of the unemployed, the sick and the disabled, if they win again, they will have a green light to take all that cruelty up a few more notches.

In your response to your argument that I should be campaigning for Labour rather than being fixated on Jeremy Corbyn.  As mentioned earlier, yes I do see and hear him as a voice coming out of the wilderness.  Oops, terrible English there, points to anyone who spots what I did wrong, lol.  He has always been against austerity because he has the intelligence to see how it benefits no-one but the super rich.   They are not affected by waiting lists, homelessness, or having that magic £400 available in case of emergency, but millions are.  Millions are just £400 away from destitution.  Crazy huh?  And I just checked, yep it is 2019.

I now it appears to be leitmotif throughout my political blogs, but if the post war Labour Government could build (from scratch), the NHS and the Welfare State, the education system, housing etc, etc, with literally nothing in the bank, imagine what a creative thinking new Labour Government could do now?  We are literally on the brink of a new Golden Age, one which immediately addresses poverty and homelessness (for shame tories!) and raises the expectations for every child in this country.  Imagine a government that invests in every town and every community.  A government that will tackle the problems of antisocial behaviour and crime at their very root.  The Nigel Farages in the Dog and Duck knocking back large gins, cannot and will not, accept that most crime starts with poverty.  Steal a loaf of bread because you are hungry and it's off to the colonies for you.  Destroy an entire eco system and we will give you a knighthood!

Imagine a post tory Britain relieved from the deliberate stress inflicted by a rabid, far right (and going further right) tory government.  Imagine your boss being told 'hey cut it out, you can't treat people like that'.  Imagine your local hospital (5 hour waits, even for kids), getting the money it needs for more staff and more facilities?  The tories believe that if they starve a service of cash, the need for that service will go away.  For example, let's stop looking after the elderly, that will teach them to get old!  Let's stop them reproducing kids, limit them to 4, that they have already done, probably because The Sun ran a series of articles on single mums with multiple kids.  Just one of many examples of how The Sun stirs up the hate.  Terrifying how much impact the views of Rupert Murdoch, or indeed whoever gives him the nod to target a minority, can have on public opinion.

But let's get back to the imagine scenario, imagine a Prime Minister and a government not in cahoots with foreign millionaires and oligarchs?  A government that cannot be bribed, extorted or pressured to put the needs of individuals above the needs of the many.  Yet another, may come in handy one day snippet, the super rich are never happy.  Yeah they have loads of mansions, but where do they go from there?  Gold toilets?  How much luxury is too much luxury?  Or, heaven forbid, when is it too much?  For greedy bastards, the answer to that question, is never.  That their greed causes others to suffer is irrelevant.

True happiness, as multiple sayings from the Dalai Lama will tell you, comes from serving and helping others.  The smile, the appreciation, the knowledge that you have done a good deed, is reward in itself.  I think most people discover this along the way. Praise a mean person when they have inadvertently done something kind, and see their face light up.  I always think people who are angry at people other than themselves, are deeply unhappy.  The accusations they throw out are projections of feelings they are battling within themselves.  But I wandered there.  Jeremy Corbyn has no need for gold toilets, multiple homes and self indulgent (golf) hobby.  He exudes hope, happiness and contentment.  He has an allotment.  He makes jam.  No castles to maintain no desire for personal enrichment.   That alone should win this election.