Life in Shirley

Say NO to cuts

People are storming council chambers and saying no to cuts imposed by a government that operates on ideological dogma and does not care about the 'common' person.

Now the PM and co are saying that they are sorry everytime their incompetence is found out.

The PM is in the Middle East. Might he be paying back the people who funded his electoral campaign by facilitating the sale of weapons to unelected leaders?

There was an interesting letter in the Metro today. Somebody noticed that 'Before the election, Mr Cameron was never out of nurseries, schools, children's centres etc., grinning and shaking hands with teachers, volunteers and social workers. Now he's jet-setting around the world followed by his entourage of bodyguards and photographers. Remind you of anybody?'

More and more we see two worlds: them and us.

 We have a choice. Let's meet at Croydon Town Hall.

 

Go and have a look...

I have downgraded the blog because I have no time to write in it.

Have a look at www.shirleylife.com which is taking up all my spare time.

It is a fresh,  brand new venture.

I am alive and kicking.

To everybody who is trying to muffle my voice: 'All your lies will eventually bite you. Get a life'.

 

Galileo or Savonarola?

Who do you feel more in tune with?

Would you retract and obey or perish in earthly fire?

There is a chance to improve your historical knowledge too...

I forgot to say that I am also interested in Runes.

Coalition

I asked a question about coalition at a pre-election meeting in New Addington:

'Why are people so afraid of a coalition government? Do you not agree that a plurality of views is in the interest of the nation?'

There was uproar from the cons. I was told that coalition was not right for England and you only needed to look at Italy to see that it did not work.

Suddenly, coalition is the in thing. C&C have forgotten past utterances and are going to save us. How long before the cracks appear?

I was listening to Question Time from Richmond and Ms May  said she had changed her mind about various issues (gay couple adoption, homophobia etc.). However, she looked terribly uneasy. She certainly did not convince me.

Then I heard that politics were getting 'weirdest' because Diane Abbott had entered the Labour ring. Why? There are still people in USA who claim Obama cannot be President because he was not born in USA. We all know what is behind this claim but there are things one cannot say openly. I prefer an open BNP supporter to a closet racist as, at least, I know where I stand. Interestingly, the BNP got 441 votes in Shirley: it must have been a moment of anonymous joy for many of those voters.

Well, I was told that I needed to change my name to get more votes....... I was not amused.

I am still doing what I have been doing all my life but a change is imminent as nothing stands still in life. My name, however, stands as it is.

 

Get a life

I received an anonymous letter today.

What a shame that some people want to control others, have no sense of humour and, above all, cannot even understand what they read.

I enjoy playing Tarots, I Ching and, horror, I may even read my horoscope, now and again...... I will not be excommunicated for this.

Get a life, I pay for my blog and will write what I want in it, openly. You do not have to read it.

Rebirth

The Death card is a sign of certain things coming to an end in order for a rebirth to take place. All this may leave you feeling anxious, even trapped, at the moment, but have confidence in the future. The more things change and develop, the more frequent the opportunities for you to explore new horizon.

Yesterday, I was overwhelmed with anger, then I realised that I had to make a few changes as I am not a quitter.

Therefore I did what I do best: work. And I played with my tarot cards.

I have studied post-election figures in Croydon and would urge everybody to do the same. The cons  have not got the mandate they wanted, locally or nationally.

The money they poured into the elections did not blind the electorate. Croydon Central will haunt them. Croydon South has clearly shown they have no shame.

I dislike everything they stand for.

The weather is as grey as the immediate future but the sun will shine again, soon.

Walking

I am walking a lot each day. I got hail in Devonshire Way today but, fortunately, at the end of my round.

I have spoken to lots of people about Independents and their role.

Political parties have become self-protecting groups of individuals who see things unilaterally and often do not listen to the voice of the people who elect them.

I took pictures too and these are my favourite ones:

A breathtaking view from the Ship in Shrublands

Tulips

Pigeons in Wickham Road, still there! We should be in court soon...  

Parkfields at dusk

The MOL in Poppy Lane. The rubbish is being cleared but there might be trouble ahead...

Quite a variety of views  in a big Ward.

 

Flocks

I chose to live in England although my life was far better in Italy. 

I first came as a student and paid for my accommodation and school with foreign money. When I finished university, I came back and worked at the Italian Embassy, paid by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I spent my foreign money in UK. I am still doing so. I work hard within my community because I simply cannot sit still. Yet, there are people like the 'bigoted' woman Gordon Brown had the misfortune to encounter who may accuse me of coming to this country for scrounging, just because I was born elsewhere.

Am I an immigrant? No, I am not. I am a person who chose to live in this country because I fell in love with it. I contribute to it and enrich it with my presence. As long as the UK is in the EU, I have a legal right to be here. I am tired of hearing platitudes from people who cannot even write in their own mother tongue, who cannot read a decent newspaper (and may have never read a decent book), who display crass ignorance and arrogance. They should be ashamed of themselves as they shame the UK.

Are they the minority or the majority? I want to believe they belong to the former group. 

Gordon Brown did not call the woman a xxxxxxx xxxx but  'bigoted'. He was very mild in his appraisal. I heard far worse from other politicians in Croydon and elsewhere. He spoke his mind but he should have done so in front of her and stopped her when was going on about 'flocks' and 'swamps'.

I found Ian Dunt's article interesting. I wonder how many people may appreciate it and also how the gutter press will deal with Brown's so called 'gaffe' tomorrow. 

You can see why he is so dejected. The gaffe is symbolic of the sense the public has that politicians are secretly sneering at them. They are all smiles at election times and then abject distaste behind closed doors, locked in their shiny, beautiful cars.

Duffy herself could not have been better picked: retired, widowed, working class and eloquent - she is perfect for the tabloids. Perhaps they created her out of stem cells.

But - and I imagine I'll get my fair share of hate mail for this - Brown had a point. This is what Duffy said about immigration: "All these eastern Europeans that are coming in - where are they flocking from?" Beyond the fact that she has answered her own question, this statement is profoundly problematic. This sort of talk about immigrants has become more and more acceptable, but we would do well to remind ourselves that it is not acceptable to use animal or geographic metaphors about immigrants. Talk of 'flocks' and 'swamps' serve to cement a sense of immigrants being 'the other'. They are not so different to us. They marry us, drink beer with us, work with us and live side by side with us.

Brown himself is actually as guilty as anyone of allowing the rhetoric of the far-right to corrupt the mainstream debate, by popularising that primitive and narrow-minded phrase 'British jobs for British workers'. But it is not tolerable for people to discuss immigrants in this way, and it reflects badly on the character of the person speaking.

But Brown's behaviour was undeserving of the criticism he has received for another, broader reason: he did what you do everyday.

We all have two faces: our social face and our private face. Nobody loves everyone in their office, or everyone in their extended family. We show our smiling social face in the day, ask people we are utterly uninterested in about their children, and then we go home and complain about how boring they are to our partner over dinner. That is normal human behaviour, not least of all in Britain, which is still more private than most other countries.

If we despise the robotic version of politicians which have invaded our TV screens, the pre-programmed Cabinet-level automatons who emit soundbites and vacuity, then we must accept that politicians will behave like humans. They are not moral paradigms and we must accept that behaviour we would tolerate in a friend or colleague should be tolerated from them as well. This disproportionate reaction to their all-too-human failings will just provide us with another generation of political robots.

The attack that's currently underway won't fade quickly, and it will frame perception of his performance in Thursday's TV debate, which he desperately needs to win. But Brown isn't particularly out of order - you've done the same thing yourself. Glass houses and all that.

Leaflets

We never receive con leaflets but a resident always delivers a copy to me.

I was truly amused this time. They obviously read mine because, suddenly, we read that one was a governor at Beckmead (where I am serving now. He delivered nothing, I was told.) and a manager at the Shirley Community Centre (where we see him once a year at the AGM. I serve in the EC every month). One is a chair of governors but she does not say where as perhaps it is a Catholic school, namely Coloma. She has immense knowledge and understanding. One believes in people's organising their own lives and making their own choices but only if they obey his precepts. 

The leaflet is very colourful and expensive. There is NO mention of the new council headquarters and many gratuitous affirmations regarding their record.

 Many residents tell me they have never seen them.

Monster Raving Loony Party candidate is less loony that I expected but there was only one candidate who excelled

John Cartwright is more than a character. He is a man who believes in what he stands for but he would have a better chance at local level. His sincerity of intentions makes him a better person than many I have met in Croydon Council.

The young candidate, Michael Castle, has a lot to learn and I hope he will learn. I admired the fact he was ready to stand as an Independent. He represents the future.

The others were all predictable, some sadly predictable (and one looked ruffled and ill at ease too. He will never be able to compete with Andrew.). 

The BNP were outside protesting. I did write to the organisers that they should have been allowed into the debate. I strongly believe it is the only way to deal with their misguided beliefs. I met the woman who will stand in Shirley Ward. She told me she had not read my name in the list of the candidates. Probably she did not even look at it.

One candidate took the stage, effortlessly.

 

My question, ' Why are people so afraid of a coalition government? Do you not agree that a plurality of views is in the interest of the nation?' was summarily dismissed by the con whose master told him that it is everything or nothing. UK IP agreed broadly with him. Somebody reminded them that politicians need to change and grow up.