Getting Started

I've thought about this for some days. My wife said "you're just an ordinary person, who'd want to read what you've got to say." Well I'm not sure that's my motivation. My first instinct is simply that this is an opportunity to record my thoughts on certain aspects of life. Unlike some blogs it will rarely venture into the realms of personal, there are lines I won't cross. However today seems an appropriate day to begin.

Yesterday saw the Dons in all reality surrender the last chance of making the play offs. Another season in the Blue Square Conference awaits. It also seems likely that the three closest away games (Grays, Ebbsfleet, and Stevenage ) will disappear as the result of relegations and promotions. Tonight Arsenal go to Barcelona in the hope that they can produce the performance of a lifetime. Last week in the Gunners pub in Blackstock Road I celebrated a great comeback (2-2), which means tonight's game still hangs in the balance.

The sun is shining which reminds me that the cricket season officially gets underway for Surrey in three days time.It may still be cold , the ground may still be soggy, but the sound of bat on ball tells me that summer is on its way.

The final reason for writing today is that the phoney war is over, the Prime Minister will announce that there will be a General Election on May 6th. A one month official campaign starts today. This will be an interesting time. Since my early teens politics has interested me, I first campaigned in 1974, for most of my adult life I've talked about politics for a living. Yet this will be new. Since 1974 I have voted Labour, I was what politics textbooks call partisanly aligned. Now is different, my resignation , after 30 years, from the Labour Party heralds a new beginning.

Its hard to pinpoint when I knew that attachment was broken. My day to day involvement ended soon after moving away from Ilford. I'm writing while sitting in one of the safest Conservative constituencies in the UK. Yet that barely scratches the surface. The journey from Parliamentary Candidate in 1987 to disillusioned member had many twists. My own ideas have evolved since then but not in the same direction as the mainstream current of opinion within the Labour Party.

By the mid 1990s Labour abandoned any link to socialism. Yet the victory of 1997 inspired hope, perhaps more because it brought to an end 18 years of Tory government. The last thirteen years have been years of political disappointment. Being a member of the Labour Party and indeed voting Labour developed into a habit, yet rationally I'd stopped believing that the government would promote real change.

Last spring the chains came off, at the Euro-Election of 2009 I chose to vote Green. After much thought I'd concluded that the environment was the key political issue facing my and future generations. I wanted to support candidates who placed environmental concerns at the centre of the policies and philosophy. Now with the 2010 General Election a month away, I feel surprisingly enthusiastic.

Currently reading : The End of the Party (The rise and Fall of New Labour) by Andrew Rawnsley

Listening to: Rolling Stones, Free, Gram Parsons and Drive by Truckers.