An Open Letter to Tom Watson MP

Dear Tom

I was deeply saddened to read your tweets this morning referring to the actions of the Labour councillor in my ward who, while campaigning on the parties behalf, feels that is acceptable to deliver party election communications, which I presume are to assist the electorate to make an informed choice about who they should vote for,  to certain houses while (deliberately in my case) ignoring others.

I was in particular extremely frustrated by your comment:

tom_watson ‏@tom_watson :

@APFaz This being a free country, the candidate is entitled to talk to who s/he wants.

I know politicians (of all types) believe they are better than most and that attempting to be clever is a particular mindset deemed appropriate and acceptable in the arenas of the political elite but that comment, especially when it came after my asking why she was walking past some doors and not delivering leaflets to all, is why I feel you should perhaps consider your role as campaigns coordinator for the Labour Party.

You know full well Tom that I asked why she was walking past some doors and not delivering to all, not why was she not door knocking and talking to those she wants to vote for the party which, although one would assume a campaign manager would also want that done, is a completely different thing so to try and imply that it down to some democratic right, not just utter incompetence by a closed shop endorsed by an inept hierarchy, is, to be be frank, completely stupid.

People have the right to know who is standing for them Tom, they have the right to know what their policies are or will be if elected and if you are going to quote democratic rights you should see and know that to be true.

 

If you can't accept these democratic rights then, as mentioned and with the greatest of respect you probably should consider the campaign position you currently hold.

Regards

Andy

Some thought on Mrs Thatcher

Although more a teenager than child because of the innocence lost I will always class myself as one of Thatcher's children.

I didn't want to do this post for the very simple reason that I completely despise the woman and thought it would be hard without speaking ill of the dead.

As far as I am concerned their should be no celebrating that an elderly women has passed away, the time to celebrate was when she left office (which I did) and to be brutally frank those who did are nothing more than idiots, speaking for nobody but themselves and I won't even get started on the prats who chose to damage their communities, in celebration of a person passing because of "the damage she did" to their communities.

However in light the sheer amount of crap I've been reading about the women, from those who 'loved her' to those who loathed her I had to.

Be warned I pull no punches, those of a sincere leaning to the left, won't like what I have to say, Labour members, of which I am one, probably won't and the Tories won't either.

Although I got into politics 'properly' because of problems here (a long story I'll avoid in this post) Mrs Thatcher was the reason why I chose Labour, but in recent years and despite still being a member, I am at a stage where I am not sure what my political leanings are, as such.

In my view she became elected for no other reason than the idiot left being as it was, a necessary Trade Union movement being far to powerful, there was a Government in place that just weren't listening to the vast majority of the very people who it was supposedly the voice of and on the whole the nation had had enough of it.

I know I was completely sick of power cuts and strikes, which while being broadcast by the Unions as being in member interests, they just weren't.

There were even times when I thought it only had to rain in the wrong direction and someone would be out with the natural "we support our brothers and sisters" domino effect kicking in which in our household, with my Dad as a Union man, meant no money or at lot less money coming in that week and in turn all of its consequences.

So I lay the blame on the idiot far left for Mrs T being elected.

Blaming the idiot left for her being elected is one thing BUT blaming the idiot left fully for Mrs T going in the direction she did simply isn't possible, her motives were true Tory and while the Unions did probably need braking, something a lot in Labour knew had to be done but couldn't manage to do, the way she chose to put entire communities on the scrap heap to achieve her goals is what she will always be remembered for and despised for.

Thanks to the idiot far left Thatcher was given the tools to do her nasties but it was Thatcher and her Governments that thrived on the enjoyment of having them to do the evil that she did.

The scars of Mrs Thatcher will last for generations beyond mine and, being the shining mantra that she is to a man who in my opinion is worse than Mrs T in every way, Cameron will ensure that the divides she created will remain for his generation and future generations after it as well.

The idiot left failed this country, Thatcher destroyed huge parts of it, Cameron will try his best to ensure her work is completed and, given the opportunity, do his very best to go even further than even Mrs T would go but my biggest fear from all the crap I've been reading is the hierarchy of the Labour party doing at that they can to ensure if Call me Dave does get booted out the Tories will be back, with a mission statement of "you let them back in and this is what they did".

It's hard to bring David Milliband into this piece but the election of Ed as leader of the Labour party was wrong and because of him only becoming leader through his Union votes he will forever be tied to them and give the Tories their ammo of a "remember the 70's" campaign message which, while already being used by Call me Dave has only got more meaning with the passing of the 'Iron Lady' but, with all that said, even if David had become Leader Labour's message would have been extremely hard to get across because most of the social injustices that effected the majority, like housing in particular, were never fixed in all the time 'we' were in Government, a Government that David (and Ed) were a part of, when it was so obvious that it should have been.

'Our' not listening is what got Call me Dave's Tories (coalition as they prefer) in and as we are seeing history isn't just repeating itself, Cameron is doing his very best to go further than Mrs T even could.

The only good thing for the Labour party is that Call me Dave hasn't learned from Mrs Thatchers mistakes, if he had recognised the best way to achieve is with compassion, not choosing sweeping targets but those who need targeting. If he did 2015 may see another Tory turn in office and not the end of his Government which I hope it will be.

Some thoughts on Paris Brown

As someone who was but has absolutely no pride in saying they were a complete numpty as a teen and at 46 is still paying the price for it I have a lot of empathy for Paris Brown but absolutely no sympathy for her current situation.

There is sadly thanks to social media a forum were the moronic can dish out their beliefs and opinions with the mindset that it's perfectly OK (idiots class it as free speech) and there is very little if any, apart from in Paris's case, consequence for doing it.

Social media has, in a way, become the local underpass wall for some to daub an insult on and it's about time that it stopped.

There will and are bleeding hearts supporting 'a child that has made a mistake and is now paying the consequence for it' but while it may be a price to high for supporters of Paris, if her losing the role she had stops even one troll then it probably is a price worth paying.

Paris isn't a typical teen, she's an example of some teens who, while growing in numbers thanks to things like Twitter, need to be taught that in life there is (or at least should be) consequence for actions taken.

Should the scars last for the rest of her life, like mine? No, if she's learnt a valuable lesson then she should be applauded for learning it but should she be left in a post to show that making the so-called mistakes of the type she has made won't mean anything then the answer to that question is also NO.