Who Knows?

I am officially sick of hearing how 'angry' the 'electorate' is, and how 'the public' has lost trust in politicians.

Why the surprise over MPs expenses? Did anyone really not know that Westminster is now populated with career politicians who'd sell their own granny to get on in their careers? People like that are grasping and out for what they can get - is it really any surprise they want us to pay for their Toblerones and dry rot?

Electorates get the government they deserve. If we have a government full of unprincipled, greedy scroungers we need to look to ourselves and the part we've played.

Ever since Thatcher, voters have been voting out of personal greed. Blair could only get votes by scrapping Clause 4 along with the rest of New Labour's socialist principles. And there's no two ways about it: socialism is about sharing and capitalism is every man for himself. This electorate has wanted nothing of sharing for a hell of a long time - each little voter just wants what's best for them.

If any poor, gullible ingenue was still under the impression that the vast majority of politicians were anything other than a) stupid and/or b) spineless and corrupt, they could have been left in no doubt whatsoever that this was true after the Iraq invasion of 2003. The populace didn't want that war. We demonstrated in our millions against it. Then 'ooooh 45 minutes!' on one hand and 'your career is at stake' on the other hand had them flocking to vote for war, in spite of their constituents.

(Obviously this is a generalisation, and apologies to those MPs who did/do have some morals and backbone- Robin Cook, Dave Nellist, Dennis Skinner, Tony Benn et al).

Even now, the enraged electorate doesn't want to change: on budget day the BBC interviewed a 'typical' family. Their country was in vast debt already due to Gordon Brown's headless chicken act, their children face having to somehow get the country out of this debt, it could take generations, and what did they want? 'Tax cuts'. 'They need to do something to stop house prices falling.' DUUUUUUR!

Socialism isn't a dirty word. It's about caring for others as well as yourself. Capitalism has driven this country into the ground and ravaged public services. Competition has brought about nothing except inflated power prices and dilapidated transport systems. Some things are too important for shareholders to be in control of. But they come at a price.

While people are whinging about expenses, they don't have to take any responsibility for having voted these people in, and tacitly agreeing with the systems they worked within. Was anyone REALLY unaware of these expenses and allowances? And worse, how many of those interviewed on TV vox pops would have acted any differently in their MPs place?

What next? Anger as animals find that bears shit in the woods? Fury as Pope reveals to Catholics that he is one of them?

People need to get over it, look in the mirror and think about the right way to use their vote in future.

I don't understand the government. I don't understand the economy either. However, I do know a contradiction when it's staring me in the face.

The government blames the banks for their role in bringing about the global recession. The banks are criticised for encouraging 'bad debt', and told that they must return to 'responsible lending'. I'm old enough to remember the days of responsible lending. All the jokes were that you had to prove you didn't need a loan in order to get one. I'm not talking centuries ago, more a quarter of a century ago. And yes, I was judged worthy of a loan, several times.

So next thing the government is telling banks 'you've got to give loans to stop fragile businesses collapsing' and 'you've got to give loans to get the housing market moving'. Yet responsible lending would dictate that these loans would most likely not be approved.

The average UK salary is apparently around £23,000. If we returned to the 'three times income' rule for mortgage borrowing, that would mean lending only £69,000. Way below the average house price. Adding 'twice the second income' (though IIRC it used to be only one and a half times) would make buying a house more possible, but everyone would have to get used to having a smaller house than they'd aspired to before, when 'five times plus' and £100% or more loans were practically the norm. Banks encouraged greed, and now the government wants is struggling with the expectations they've created. Instead of saying to people, 'sorry, this is the way it is now, get used to it,' they're encouraging the banks to go down the same sorry road all over again.

Businesses don't always struggle purely for cash-flow reasons. sometimes they are no longer viable. Banks are understandably cautious just now, and erring on the side of caution when deciding between the two. It used to always be like this (an ex's business went down the toilet in 1990 because the bank decided it wasn't a cashflow problem, although I did the books and knew that it was). Recession usually means banks become cautious. Yet now the government wants them to throw caution to the wind.

We've tried running an economy on credit. It doesn't work. VAT cuts aren't going to work - because goods are cheap now due to seller desperation. I don't even think interest rate cuts will work - not all are passed on to mortgagees, and even when they are, people usually have savings as well as mortgages, so the saved money is likely to end up there, in times when people think their jobs are at risk.

So what to do? I never thought I'd say this, but I think the Tories are right. Do nothing. See what happens. At least then the government would look as though it had a modicom of dignity. A gaggle of headless chickens is the last thing to inspire confidence.

I don't understand the snow whingers. You know the ones: 'ooooh, they have snow every day in Finland and their economy doesn't grind to a halt, but a little flurry here and it's the end of the world, and ooooh, look, a fifth of the workforce were off on Monday, and every last one of them a skiver, and oooh, look at those schoolchildren, we used to go to school through tunnels of snow and it taught us grace under fire or something along those lines and I've got work to do, I can't be looking after my own children when I pay good money for someone else to do it and who cares if they might get stuck in a snowdrift.'

I don't agree that it's the worst snow in over 20 years, because the snow in 91ish was much worse in Birmingham - and yes, I did get to work then and Monday. But whatever way you look at it, it was a bit special. It's unlikely that children south of the Pennines will have seen snow like it in their lives (unless they've been abroad). I felt quite disappointed that Little Un didn't get the time off school, even though I'd have had to take him to work. Are a few days off school really such a bad thing?

I'm not an advocate of skiving. It really pisses me off when people take time off in good weather just because they can't be arsed and it's not often sunny. Sun doesn't cause road accidents or school closures. But snow makes things really impractical.

The whingers use the economy as an excuse, telling us how much money it has cost the UK to lose all those working days. Kind of like worrying about toddlers pissing in the sea I should think. How much would it cost to make sure we could all get to work in the snow? I can imagine the way these people would have been whinging for the last 8 years at least - 'look at the money we're wasting on snow precautions when we've not had significant snowfall for ten years.'

Thing is, in countries where there's more snow but not many more precautions taken (I'm thinking Scotland here), people do get to work and school better than in London and the south. They're used to driving in snow. I was used to it. I hate driving in snow here (midlands). Not because I lack confidence (I've done Rosslyn Glen in snow in a 1.2 Nova, to the amazement of the hospital porters), but because other drivers here are completely crap and a danger to me. But they'll never learn because they'll never have sufficient opportunity.

There's something magical about snow. It's not like we get it all the time any more. No one's ever going to die thinking 'I really wish I'd gone to work that day I spent playing snowballs with my kids'. So next time there's a Big Snow in the South, let's accept we're nesh, admit defeat gracefully, sod the economy and stay at home making snowmen!

Today's Word I Hate is that Jeremy Kyle favourite 'literally'.

I have no problem with the word when it is used as an adverb: 'having broken both legs, the rock-climber literally hauled himself up the cliff-face by his fingertips'. I do have a massive problem where it is used purely as an intensifier - and nowadays that's pretty much the only way it is ever used. As in Jeremy Kyle's famous comments such as, 'now let's meet the parents whose arguments are literally tearing their child apart.'

I have no idea whether this is an accepted useage. I don't care. It grates on me like nails on a blackboard.

For many years I had an unused dishwasher plumbed in because I had this idea that they were environmentally unfriendly. And I have an irrational distrust of machines that do things people can do perfectly well themselves (yup, irrational).

Then I began using it every Christmas - well, I was busy entertaining, and it was full. And now I have reached the bottom of that slippery slope and I use it ALL the time. It takes almost a week to fill, as I use the same plates all day for things like bread, and Little Un has school dinners, so I don't cook in the week. I've had the same box of dishawsher tablets for over a year. So this must be more ecofriendly, and better for me too. Hooray!

To be sure, I checked it out online, and sure enough, so long as you only run them when full, and don't use the drying cycle, dishwashers are reckoned to be better for the environment than washing up by hand. However suspiciously they may act.

I got quite tearful driving home last night listening to Barack Obama's speech. It really feels like he wants to change things: "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of remaking America. On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord."

How different to Gordon Brown, who'll spend as much taxpayer's money as he needs to try to make Britain the same debt-ridden, terrorist-fearing, possession-obsessed nation it was before the recession hit. At leats he doesn't have to fear assasination by lizards (I may have been reading too much David Icke again).

I was going to write a brief article about Graham Stringer's comments about the 'myth' of dyslexia. I then started to read more about it and realised there was more to the whole thing than I'd thought. Those who criticise him for ignorance are just pots criticising kettles, since it is difficult to find any agreement in the information available about the condition: if it is a condition as such. For instance, for every website like the Wikipedia one, which focusses on the many and varied causes, the physiology, the biochemistry etc, there is a site such as Dyslexics which promotes the need for effective teaching for what is primarily a specific learning disability.

Having read all of this, I was reminded of my problems with psychiatric diagnoses. Here are people with vastly differing problems, all branded under one label ('dyslexia' or 'depression'). This label then leads into a medicalisation of their condition. It also removes the 'problem' from their own hands, and places it in the hands of the 'experts'.

Reading the comments on Stringer's views from those with dsylexia, it is obvious that it is a popular diagnosis, in that it is welcomed by those who have it. After all, who wants to think they are a bit thick at reading, when they could have an 'ia'? I recognise that feeling so well: the relief I felt when the GP diagnosed my depression: 'thank goddess, I'm not just crap at dealing with life ; I've got Depression and IT'S NOT MY FAULT!'

Yet 'recovery' only came when I realised that this was a lie: that even if depression had a biochemical component, that was within my control too (since I could learn to activate different brain cells by changing my own thoughts, thus changing my own chemistry).

It's taken years, but I no longer define myself as having depression. I recognise it early and act, because the one thing I've learned is that when I feel the black dog lurking in the corners of my vision, then it's a signal that something is wrong in my life or my thoughts.

Like depression, it would seem there are as many types of dyslexia as there are sufferers - and a way to treat it. There is much advocacy of synthetic phonics (which to me seems to be a reheating of old teaching techniques with a fancy name). A way that wouldn't involve specialist teaching or removal from the normal classroom, and a way that would help non-dyslexic children to read and write too. So Stringer's comments make sense on that level. Not having to identify an 'illness' would also mean that children retained responsibility for their weaknesses: and doing so would create a strength long-term.

On a side note, it's interesting how expressing an opinion that flies in the face of the 'approved view' on certain subjects is almost forbidden. Stringer has, despite accusations to the contrary, obviously done a lot of research. It's easy to toe the party line and bow to the altar of 'received wisdom'. It's a tribute to him that he felt strongly enough about this issue to speak out.

I'm REALLY going to try to get back into this. I am so lazy, I read other people's blogs, but can't be bothered to write my own, and rarely comment either. This is very remiss of me, and I'm going to try to remedy it, because I am driving my family mad with my Grumpy Old Lady rants. Here is far more the place for it.

Happy New Year!

I was reminded of this one whilst watching Breakfast on the BBC this morning. Such a classic use of it in the way I hate. Today's Word I Hate is 'Nightmare'. Not in the sense that I cringe when someone says they've had a nightmare the night before and then tells me in gory detail about their stairs eating them or whatever - for that really is a nightmare. But when someone says they've had a real-life experience that was 'a nightmare' I want to punch them (and I'm a pacifist).

This is because, without fail, what they are talking about is something no-one in their right minds would have a nightmare about. It is sometimes something unpleasant, but usually a mere inconvenience.

Thus, this morning, we hear about 'every parent's nightmare'. Their child being abducted and never found? Their child dying painfully of leukaemia? Being murdered? In a drive-by shooting? No. Having to take their child out of private school.

Similar 'nightmares' include Christmas shopping in the credit crunch, trying to get on the housing ladder in one's twenties, driving in cold weather, finding a cheap train fare and throwing toddler birthday parties.

I know I'm not middle class because my nightmares are genuinely terrifying and never involve money.

Watching people queue up for hours to cast their votes in the US election, I wondered what those who wish to make voting compulory were thinking?

We're constantly told that those who don't vote, don't vote because they are 'turned off the political process' or 'voting is too difficult' (hence the expansion of postal voting, possible on-line voting etc), or 'non-voters are apathetic' or 'non-voters don't appreciate democracy'.

What the Obama election has shown is that if people think there's something worth voting for, they'll vote of their own accord, and go to extreme lengths to do so. Those of us who don't vote are simply still waiting.