The illustration in Time Out looks good, but, you know, as I think I said to you on Wednesday, I feel really uneasy about the words and, yes, I know I am somewhat out on a limb on this, especially amongst my friends.
I don't like war, of course I don't. I'm a bloody vegetarian, for Christ's sake, but what I like even less is the prospect of this country falling to the Tories once again. Love them or hate them, think of them as New Labour or New Conservatives, the vital services are still safer with Blair and his cronies
than with the Tories. I care passionately about everyone having a chance in life. If there hadn't been a Labour government in the late sixties, I would have had more chance of going to the moon than going to university.
They gave
me my chance. I can't believe that Alec Douglas-Hume and his ilk
would have
offered me the same opportunity. Unlike the Tories, I don't believe
in the
survival of the fittest. I believe the fittest should pay to help the
weakest
clamber up the greasy pole, or at least have a crack at a decent
life. Iraq
will come and go - there'll be other stupid, pointless, life-wasting
wars -
there always have been - but society and its inequities will always
be there
and on those matters, I would trust even the most right-wing Labour
MP before
I would let a Conservative have a chance.
So, I don't think Blair should be locked up, as you suggest. I think
he should
resign - for lying/misleading, which he quite obviously and blatantly
did in
his sanctimonious way and for doing so badly in the election, for
almost losing
it. And I really do think he will quit soon.
But, there are two things for certain. Firstly, the Conservatives
will win the
next election - the country, especially the southeast, is returning
to type,
even though once again, no one will admit to voting Tory. I had a
bitter
argument in a pub with the 30 year-old boyfriend of a friend of mine
yesterday.
And I pondered afterwards how he didn't live through the slow
strangulation of
the public services under Thatcher and Major and every other Tory
government.
He didn't suffer the ridiculous interest rates, all in the pursuit of
more
money for the well-off, which is, of course, what they are
fundamentally about.
And, you know, he was voting Lib Dem, but I thought, if things were
slightly
different, I had no doubt he would vote Tory. Like most of the
southeast, he
hates Labour, New and Old.
The second thing is that I will not live in a country with those
bastards
governing! So, I've got four years to get my shit together. Will the
last one
out of the country please switch off the lights!
Sorry about this. I am actually very confused (as you will no doubt
have
gathered!)about Iraq, about the election about Tony Blair and about
my inside
leg measurement.
Hope you're okay.
Love
Gordon
Dear Gordon
As I was voting Lib-Dem yesterday, for the first time in my life, I
thought, I wonder if others are having this knee jerk reaction and
might just do what I am doing, and reckon that this new commitment
might just swing it for Charles Kennedy. It might just have been the
miracle that made this election a turning point in a voting system
which actually does make my vote count. As you saw, it had begun to
work even without proportional representation. In some places it does
count, where the encumbent is in by a hair, but when your MP is as
entrenched as Ann Widdecombe, in this system I am powerless, so what
kind of democracy is that? I take on board everything you say and do
not disagree with the premise of your argument. But at present, our
system is still a stitch up and that is why even Labour don't want the
change, particularly whilst they still have the upper hand and a
strong economy, which got them in for another five years. I was trying
the second guess approach and telepathically willing people to do what
I was thinking. In some places it worked and people took the ride and
it paid off. More seats for Liberal Democracy. If Charles Kennedy had
been another Michael Howard, I wouldn't have done anything, but
whatever his weaknesses may be, he strikes me as a man who deserves a
chance, and we, the floating masses of yesterday, could have
transformed the political scene and that alone was worth the deadly
risk. George Gallagher pulled it off in the East End of London, which
might have had more to do with his charisma and absolute stance for
the anti-war lobby. I wonder how many people who say they are against
George Bush, secretly voted for him? Just how many of us are really
the enemy within/?? And when you got your opportunity to go to
University because of the freshly minted Socialism of the Sixties, I
wonder how much of it was the earnest desire of its newness, desperate
to prove its strength and commitment, and how would it have fared and
compared with today's vicious cynicism and spin. That is what has made
me bitter.
How about us putting our correspondence on the website with your
credit etc. and examine our individual opinions about these vital
matters???
OK
Love
RALPHXX
