Exhaustion

[smokingboot]

Despite a bank holiday enjoying myself in the fine company of larians, scary_lady and ellistar, and Emma and Andy sans lj, I find myself exhausted and a bit down, and not just physically.


I have looked at manifestos and it's just such grey reading. Since I have been able to vote I have voted labour. Now I look at these proposals for id cards with biometric data and it just makes me want to scream. But our local MP was one of those who protested against the anti-terrorism proposals, so I cannot fault him.

Then there are the tories, with their crap about putting 'matron back in charge'. Apart from the Carry On 1940's tenor of it, I wonder at the sheer desperate brass of them: do they think no-one remembers who removed matron in the first place? Who put all the over-weighted bureaucracy in, who made the cleaning of hospitals a matter of money and the market?

So I turn to the lib dems, and I find I do not like Charles Kennedy; too quick to jump and use the issue of hostages to ladle blame and make political currency. An opportunist.
But their manifesto is the one I find least offensive so far.

And who else is touting? Why, the BNP of course. We have had two leaflets through our door, and if they didn't make me so angry I'd be laughing. Their solution to the NHS problem? We just re-train all those administrators and make them nurses! Then, we kick out all those foreign nurses and send them home! Tell you what, I have been a comparatively high level PA, and you could probably trust me to arrange a conference for you*, but on your own head be it if you let me give you an insulin injection; not all the training in the world could make me an adequate nurse. Having said that, I am perfectly ready to practice on the genius who came up with this and all their other 'policies'.

Grotesque, and marginal, thank god. But will it remain so? The BNP also want to reclaim St George's day, and the number of English flags flying throughout the area show how many might empathise with that. The BNP's claims of cultural erosion are strengthened by idiotic apologists. Birmingham City Council's Winterfest is a good example; Moslems do not apologise for celebrating Ramadan, Jews do not apologise for celebrating Hannukah, Christians should not apologise for celebrating Christmas. Homogeny drains colour. Acceptance of colour is the key. Then such issues as the closure of the play 'Bahzti' due to pressure from the sikh community showed such contempt for the principles of free speech, that a rising Oswald Mosely could play it like a fiddle.

So if I vote lib dem, am I merely weakening our local, fairly efficient, labour MP? If votes are divided enough, do we give the morons of the BNP credibility?

Time to read the Green Manifesto. My head hurts.

*provided you pay me enough to endure the boredom.