Another Article

Hello chaps,


Sorry I haven't posted in a while. To be honest, I shouldn't be posting now, I should be revising. Oh well.


To make matters worse, I can't copy and paste text from Open Office to here. This is an utter pain, because both of the things I planned to post are now trapped forever more in the depths of my computer, having been written whilst my internet connection went off on a little jolly. Free, crowdsourced software like Open Office is really great, but the amount of stuff it doesn't combine with is somewhat irksome.


So I'll talk about something else. Seeing as it's so close, I feel the pending General Election might be good, especially as it's become so much more interesting recently - both with the issues raised and the failing Tory poll ratings.


Now, comparing this to other elections, I haven't got a lot to go on. Seeing as I was..eleven or so, in 2005. However, it does seem that the issues being talked about and in the public mind are so much bigger than last time. Oh, the same old ones come up - crime and immigration. But there's a certain ideological basis now, that was so lacking in 01/05 (or 97, tbh). The Tories want to privatise schools, Labour want to give power to communities, but keep the market out of it. Labour are talking about co-ops, whereas it's "easyCouncils" from the Blue Corner. Labour are aiming for legislation on climate change, a significant minority of Conservative MPs and PPCs don't actually think it exists. Finally, someone's talking about inheritance tax as a means to fund care for the elderly. Even constitutional reform, usually just left in a room to snooze (much like the Lords, actually) is a dividing issue, with Jack Straw wanting a proportionally elected "senate" and the possibility of Alternative Vote for the Commons.


Oh okay, so a lot of that only really excites someone who likes politics on a theoretical level. When the doorstep canvassing begins though, I actually think the general public might pick up on it a bit more. People care about who runs their school, how the council delivers services, who's going to look after them in retirement. Yes, the voting bit is more abstract, but there are so many progressives who want to vote Green without letting the Tories in, or eurosceptics who'd love to vote UKIP but can't face another term of Labour.


Which is why I'll be out on the streets, leafletting and knocking on doors for Labour. Blair's gone somewhere to get a perma-tan now, and it's time his influence began to fade within the Party. I believe the Labour Party can win this election on left wing values and policies, and so what if I'm only one activist at the bottom of a very large pile? So was Blair. So was Brown. It's a labour movement, after all.


What I'm trying to say, is that the last thirty years have been neoliberalism's glory days; inequality, privatisation, deprivation have reigned supreme. Now, at last, the left has cobbled together some sort of credible platform. In a break with tradition, I do actually mean Labour when I speak of the left. Mistakes have been made, and will continue to be - that's just life. But now we've got a vision. It's not about revolt and violence and Trotsky. It's about fairness, equality, keeping Britain green and full of the strange little villages and vibrant cities that make it glow.


I can't, and won't attempt to, deny the uselessness of our Labour government for the last ten years. What I ask, is that you look to the future.


Solidarity
RedFred