(no subject)

I feel a little like Philip Larkin in "Homage to a Government" this morning - the country looks the same, the people on the train have the same faces, but we are now living in a country which, for the first time, has sent anti-immigration extremists among those who will represent us in Europe. It looks the same, but it isn't the same country.

Of course, in real terms this doesn't make much difference - we tell ourselves that the European parliament doesn't matter anyway, and it's not as if a majority of the UK delegation is BNP or anything (whatever you may think of the Tories, and many of you will think them pretty evil, I know, they are not the BNP).

But, as so often, it is the symbolism which sticks, and cuts at the heart.

[I live in fear of someone saying "So what's so wrong with the BNP?", half in jest, and half seriously saying that if mainstream politics has failed, what's wrong wityh shaking it up, and they won't have any power anyway. It;s not that people who ask this are racists, or stupid - it's just that many suffer the British disease of believing that they can't really change anything, and that They will decide what happens anyway. In such a case, politics becomes a story only, and the BNP just another character.
My fear is because it would be so easy to scream "because they're a bunch of racist bastards", but what is needed is a measured argument which shows not only why the BNP are the wrong party (that's realtively easy, though it would need more figures than I have on me), but also why it matters, and that latter is the hard bit]

It feels a hard day to be British.

(no subject)

One other political thing.

Much though I have already said the prospect causes me some trepidation:

In my considered opinion, it is time for a General Election. A party tearing itself to pieces, and winning only 15.3% of the vote in a European election (before the Scottish result, admittedly), has no right or ability to govern, especially in times as difficult as these. Unfortunately for Gordon Brown and ther Labour Party, the firing squad is ready, and the only question left is whether he and his party face it with dignity, or have to be dragged out of the foxhole.

Hard though it is to believe, I think the result of the next election is even more of a foregone conclusion than 1997.

Today's Peanuts cartoon says it all

Quote of the day

"There has been turbulence, undoubtedly, but our reaction needs to be and will be not to turn in on ourselves, not to be disunited"

[Harriet Harman]

Is that a horse I can see in the distance? And what am I doing holding this stable door?