Religious

And Then Jeremy Corbyn Came Along – Predicting The 2020 General Election.

November 7, 2015 — 1 Comment

PoliticalVennDiagram2

Six months ago to the day the Conservative Party won the  2015 General Election by the smallest of majorities. Having predicted that this would happen three months beforehand I turned my thoughts to what would happen next. Within weeks I had come to my conclusions, asked an artist friend to draw me a Venn diagram to illustrate my thoughts and in June came very close to writing my predictions as to what would happen in British politics up to and including the next election.

Then I thought it might be prudent to see what leadership changes there might be and see if any changes affected my thoughts.

And then Jeremy Corbyn came along.

Before that happened I was convinced that the following scenarios were more than likely to happen –

No significant changes in Scotland (let’s ignore the referendum issue) and the SNP would still hold the vast majority of seats in Scotland at the next election.

No changes of any note in Ireland.

The Liberal Democrats would find no way back, flounder and possibly split and as a result end up in some sort of coalition with the Green Party.

The Green Party likewise would make no notable ground and might end up in a coalition with some reincarnation of the Liberal Democrats.

UKIP would be the party that was most likely to take a significantly large number of votes from both the Conservative and Labour parties and stood a  chance of becoming the opposition party after the 2020 Election

Labour would lose tens of seats at the next election and in the intervening years suffer an identity crisis of such monumental proportions I even considered looking more closely at the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) to evaluate whether such a movement would be likely to influence heavily what would happen to the Labour Party.

And then Jeremy Corbyn came along.

I suspect he will be leader at the next election and Labour are likely to poll more seats than UKIP. His becoming leader has helped put the Blairite legacy in perspective and has given so many a jaded and disillusioned Labour supporter hope and a feeling of putting things right that I see it as being very difficult for there to be any significant undermining of his position. He will at least give a direction to a party that lacked identity and purpose for years.

On the other hand his perceived idealism, forthrightness and honesty will be seen as such a hindrance and embarrassment to so many who consider voting Labour that I can see them losing more votes than they gain with him as leader.

Moreover too many people will perceive him as being  a liability as far as defence issues, religious fundamentalism and foreign affairs are concerned, and dread to think of him dealing with the likes of the EU and America, let alone the threat of terrorism on mainland Britain.

Ultimately he is a Labour leader who appeals primarily to the middle classes and unless he finds some way of making Labour more attractive to the working classes than UKIP, Labour could even lose their place as opposition party.

Perception is the key word here – with a press that will happily portray him as a republican with a lack of respect for the queen, for example, I cannot see his image changing for the better in the media the working classes are likely to engage with. But that does not mean he won’t be able to steady a sinking ship.

As for UKIP becoming the opposition party a few things need to happen – and happen they must in the next year or eighteen months for this to be so.

Firstly major money from donors to buy experience and establish a viable infrastructure.

Secondly, attracting MPs both from Labour and the Conservatives to give them respectability.

Thirdly, a drive to get potential MPs in place so that they can have candidates in at least 600 seats would be absolutely essential if they were to become the opposition after the next election. It is doable but I am pretty confident they simply won’t be able to stand enough MPs.

So little attention has been paid to the fact that one in eight people voted for them at the last election. To me they are the party most likely to take the most votes from both the Conservatives and Labour and I see them doing exactly that and significantly increasing their percentage of votes gained. The rise of religious fundamentalism and associated terrorist acts around the world makes UKIP seem more relevant to the working classes and if there is a series of serious terrorist attacks linked to extremist Islamic groups on our shores their stock will go up even further.

As for the Conservatives, compromise is just around the corner. Fear of losing one too many by-elections, revolts in the House of Lords and not least on the streets of Britain and their own back benches will curb their more extreme policies. It might take a winter of discontent to make it happen but I would have to say that if they do find a happier medium the next election will see them polling the most seats again but not with a majority.

Finally I was very tempted to add another circle to the Venn diagram and mark it Internet Pressure Group Party. Sites such as 38 Degrees and Avaaz as well as the Greenpeaces of this world could very easily form a political party and be a major influence in British politics but I decided that it was unlikely to happen this side of the next election. But I am quietly confident that in the next decade such a party will either become a major force or at the very least pressure groups will utilise the power of the internet and fundamentally change British politics in a way we have not seen before.

2014 you learned i good | New Year’s Resolutions for 2015.

December 31, 2014 — Leave a comment
1) Life Is Not  A Contest.
    You know the sort – every time they play Scrabble the world’s peace-keeping forces are put on red alert. If you tell them you bought a lovely pair of shoelaces today, tomorrow  they send you a link  to their Pinterest page with photos of their comprehensive shoelace collection – which they uploaded last night. And for some people life is a contest from the playground to the grave, an endless saga of compare and contrast – with themselves. Every comment and situation is taken as a direct challenge to their validity, or masculinity or pretty much any part of their life that makes them feel they are important or worthy of whatever position they hold in their own imaginations.
And whatever problem you are experiencing, they have had a bigger, more serious or significant one to help you put  yours into perspective.
# Let them win but make sure they lose you out of their lives. Spend more of your time with people who don’t have to self reference everything.
2) Avoid Tension Seekers.
     Unlike attention seekers who can be entertaining and the life and soul of the party, tension         seekers bring nothing to the party or any other situation except tension. They attempt to bring everything and everyone down to their level. They delight in putting people on edge and on the defensive. They ask inappropriate questions often of a personal nature, talk about subjects normally off limits and are always on the look-out for a chink in your armour which they hope to exploit or embarrass you with. While they are doing all this they hope that nobody notices how lacking they are in social graces, intelligent and stimulating conversation, general emotional development and all the other things that people trying to better themselves strive for.
I sometimes call them ASWATES as they are often Always So Wise After The Event.
Whatever you have been through or are experiencing now, they sure know how to make you and the situation feel worse.
# If you cannot confront them, give up on them as very few people will ever change them.
3) Leave Mountain People Where They Are And Move On.
     My favourite FB post of 2014 (not that there was much competition) read something like                                         ‘Stop crossing oceans for people who wouldn’t jump a puddle for you’
Such Mountain People are very easy to avoid as you always have to go to them, do things their way and generally fit in with them. Compromise,  reciprocity and mutuality just ain’t in their vocabulary. They are  emotionally and socially immovable, and of little use to anyone but their self-serving selves. Often they are like emotional vampires draining you dry of your life force whilst you buy into them being the centre of attention.
At one point this year I looked at all my recently sent FB messages, emails and texts and realised 90% had received no reply. Can you take a hint? Such people’s lives are lived to the exclusion of everybody else’s unless useful to their own ends. Or you weren’t that close anyway.
# Be a potential priority not a potential option.
4) Beware Of People Who Call Themselves Spiritual.
     If you have a spare couple of centuries, read every religious book, all the lives of the saints and       about holy and spiritual people generally. You will rarely if ever come across any spiritual person calling themselves spiritual. People who think they are spiritual are not usually a problem – it’s those who tell you they are. In our 21st century the word spiritual has come to be used in conversation and print mainly by the amoral, either to smokescreen their ultimately selfish behaviour or to establish common ground that proves to be quicksand. They might meditate, go to all the right festivals and lectures as well as read self help books but like Mountain People they worship the same god – themselves.
# It’s not set in stone that you dance to other people’s tunes so give them a taste of your own music.
5) It Is Better To Walk Away And Live Another Day Than To Die Trying To Win.
    Toward the end of June my father went into hospital critically ill and came out worse. About the same time my phone-line was slammed  and  I lost my broadband connection for a month. Unbeknown to me I was about to embark on a four month Kafkaesque odyssey to scrap my car and finish a similar odyssey to change electricity supplier . I was let down by Ombudsmen, The Metropolitan Police, The Consumers Association’s Which magazine, the DVLA, the NHS and the Post Office.
I could have taken matters further but I was reminded of a time a few years ago when I had to re-mortgage my house because of changes to the law relating to pensions. Without any sense of irony my Personal Financial Advisor told me that if I wasn’t happy I could take on the British Government .
There is a chance you can take on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with a sling and a handful of pebbles and win  – but realistically?
I could have embraced the challenge and found my unfair share of tension seekers and that sometimes life is a very biased and unfair contest. It is not just Mountain people who never move but also the likes of monolithic organisations with teams of lawyers and shareholders who need to be satisfied. I could have made myself as ill as my father was. Or worse. But I chose to walk away.
 # Save your energy, sanity and health  for potentially more  fruitful days.
6) There is More to Life Than Coping.
     Whilst I did cope with all that happened in 2014, it did make me realise that there is more to life     than just coping.  Are you just about coping?  Waking up from your living nightmare to realise that there more to life than coping is a major step towards defining your goals and future happiness.
# I’ll say it again – there’s more to life than coping.
7) Seek out Peaceable People.
    Peaceable people don’t turn life into a contest. They shun tension and the people who cause it as much as possible. Mountains ain’t on their maps and they rarely if ever call themselves spiritual. Ultimately they are interested in  people and not in what people can do for them no matter what they or you are coping with.
Seek peaceable people out and you will find them happy to compromise, to meet you half way and to give without expecting to receive.
Associate with peaceable people and your stress levels will plummet. Your self image will stop being such an issue. You will find yourself apologising less. Your opinion of yourself will improve. Your opinions will be of interest to other people. Your interests will broaden. Trivia and a life  permeated by soundbites and  social media will recede into the past. Your experiences will be more fulfilling. And ultimately you will feel better, more content and peaceable yourself.
# May 2015 see your life enriched by peaceable people.
P.S. My father is better.