Cuckoo In The Nest!

The Labour Party has been infiltrated. It is true! Jeremy Corbyn has been found to be a socialist!

This shocking news has come to light this week. Long-held beliefs of the Blair Party, sorry, Labour Party, have been put to the test this week, when lots of people have wanted to join the Party. This has come as a shock, as the Labour Party has spent years trying to discourage people from believing in them and voting for them. Then along comes this strange, middle-aged man with his socialist views and all of a sudden people are getting interested in politics again. This has to stop!

How is British politics supposed to carry on, when you have people with opposing views? Everyone knows that we need a two-party-state where both parties have the same ideas, led by the same type of people. That way, no matter who wins, everything stays the same.

The Labour Party has learned nothing from their crushing defeat in the recent elections. Most Scots are like a stick of Blackpool rock, cut them open and they have socialism running through their centre! They no longer saw the Labour Party as an alternative to the Tories: instead, they saw them as the rest of us do, a mirror image of the Tories. Along came the SNP with their socialist ideology and guess what? The whole country voted for them! Not only that, but young people became involved with the whole process and discussions were held in the streets. Politics came alive once again.

All we have heard about of late is how scared the Labour Party is about people from other parties having a vote in the leadership election. We haven't heard about all the young people that have once again become interested in politics. It was the Blairites who have made the party unelectable, not people Like Jeremy Corbyn! People sneeringly say it's old fashioned politics, but they are wrong. With the global economy collapsing, it is clear that the capitalist dream is really the old-fashioned politics! People have woken up to the fact that capitalism only benefits the few, while billions must suffer. Like communism, this outdated idea has had its day. There has to be a happy medium between the two. Sorry, what's that I hear you say? Yes you might be right, socialism might be the answer.

There is nothing wrong with utilities being nationalised, as long as they are run like a business. They are better off in the hands of the state where the profits are put back into the economy rather than into the pockets of a chancellor's friends. When you change your fuel providers or when a train company loses their licence nothing changes but the people at the top, so why can't we re-nationalise companies and run them with the same staff and infrastructure? All the best train services around the world are state-run, from Germany to Japan.

If you are as scared as the Tory press are about having an opposing view to politics then vote for the Tories, and keep the country as it is. If you want politics that is alive and vibrant, where opposing ideologies can disagree and debate and bring change, then we need people like Jeremy Corbyn, we need people like the Green party and lots of other people who want to bring a change. What we don't need is anymore plastic suited middle class boys and girls who try to prove they are like the rest of the great unwashed by rolling up their sleeves and having a pint of beer in a local pub. This patronising, sneering and downright creepy mentality really pisses me off! Every election, we get idiots like Cameron, with shirt sleeves rolled up, being filmed having a pint. “Call me Dave, why don't you? I'm just an ordinary multi millionaire public school boy like you!” What a twat!

What we need is grass roots politicians with fire in their bellies doing what the SNP did in Scotland, giving us something other than the status quo. The last election was lost by the Labour Party because of the way Ed Millaband ate a sandwich?  No, it was because there was no difference in the politics so the only thing the Tory press could do was play the schoolyard bully and call him a geek! This, my friends, is not the politics that I or most reasonable minded people want to be associated with!

I for one will be interested to hear what Jeremy Corbyn has to say, and I will also be interested in hearing what the Blair clones have to say against him. And if there are thousands of Tory voters paying to join the Labour party to vote in the leadership election then thank you for donating the money to help people like Jeremy Corbyn fight against your single-minded, greedy tyranny.

Does My Ego Look Big In This?

To be a writer means that you are driven to write. It doesn't matter if no one else reads your words, though you would prefer them to be seen. I think it's some deep-seated need to be heard that writers suffer from.

I make my living from writing, so I come into contact quite often with people who tell me that they, too, want to be writers. They tell me about their plans and the titles of the books they are going to write. When I ask them what they are writing at the moment, lots tell me that they haven't started yet! This is not the way it works if you're a writer.

All artists write, paint, sculpt, sing, and dance when no one is interested: that's what they do - they can't help it, they have a passion. I'm a bit strange, because I don't have a passion to write, I find it laborious and a chore. Having said this, I feel compelled, like some literary lemming, to throw myself into a story or write about the world around me. I used to appear on a radio show for Radio Sheffield a few years ago, and the host of the show was Rony Robinson, he was also a writer and playwright. He used to tell me that he couldn't wait to get home to, as he said, “Put all those lovely words on paper”. I don't share this view.

People will often ask where you got the idea about certain characters or stories, so I tell lies, because the truth is, like lots of writers, I don't know where the inspiration comes from. I have woken up from a night's sleep with a whole story running round in my head. I hate it when this happens because I am then compelled to write and being the world's laziest writer means this is no fun for me. Having said all this, here I am writing a blog in a desperate attempt to be heard.

I'm telling you all this because there has been a lot of discussion about education in the media this week. The emphasis has been on how university graduates are working in very low paid unskilled jobs. So what? The only difference between an apprenticeship and a university course is the snobbery, as they are both further education, but the apprenticeship leads on to better job prospects.

In Britain, education is used as a tool to pass useless exams, putting pressure on young minds to conform into one way of thinking. This is not education, it's mind farming! Education should be about sharing knowledge and creating a love for the world around you. It should be about swapping ideas and discussions and disagreements. Education should be about creating a love of learning without pressure. There is nothing wrong with learning just for fun. One of my heroes, Socrates, used to stop people in the street and engage them in debate about the world around them. This forced them to think in a different way, but also gave them a voice.

In the past when I could manage one of my rare nights out with close friends, we would often end up in debates about statements one of my group would make. Often people sitting nearby would be drawn in to verify snippets of information that the group would throw at each other. Now this no longer happens because of so-called smart phones. As soon as someone makes a statement everyone reaches for their phone to look it up, and for me the whole evening is spoiled. A debate is a journey where many things can be learned along the way. For instance you could say that Barack Obama is the first black president of America, but the real intrigue and knowledge comes when you discuss why he's the first black president of a multi-cultural country. The true knowledge is discussing the journey of millions to arrive at the success of one man, that is education, this is wisdom.

I have written before about this, but please do try it out: it cannot be verified by your smart phone. The next time you are out for a few drinks with friends, ask them to define love. Every answer leads to another question Socrates would have loved this, he would no doubt have debated this subject many times anyway. But you can spend a whole evening talking about this subject, though I must warn you that you may find out things about your friends that you didn't know.

For me, I have just had my fix of desperate attention seeking by writing this piece, so I can now go out in the world a behave like a normal human being, until the ego rises again....

Time for a change!

Some things never change. There are lots of people out there that make sure of it!

I see this week that Ozzy Osborne, not the cool alcoholic one, but the cruel sober one, has been up to his old tricks. This week he announced that he is selling off the Royal Bank of Scotland, a bank that is owned by us, the tax payers. He is selling it off at a loss. He will make the money up somewhere else (unspecified) is what he claims. Has he had the advice he sought before, from the people who advised him to sell off the Royal Mail at a dismal price, then the shares were all bought up by the very people who advised him?

I see that there are even more programmes on TV about welfare cheats. Are the government trying to justify the measures they are about to bring in - just getting the great unwashed singing from the same hymn sheet before they release the hounds on us all?

Also there are more allegations about high ranking politicians and child abuse. This week, it's a former prime minister! If these allegations are proven, then someone must pay, as there must be people alive now that knew about this. He had around the clock police protection, so they must have known. What about the woman who had a case against her dropped because she threatened to reveal information? Of course these are just allegations for now. Has anyone heard any more about the case against Prince Andrew? Has it all been cleared up? Nothing in the news about it so far.

I have spent a great part of my working life trying to help change the lives of young people who for what ever reason find that education is not for them. I know what it's like to feel like this, as I was one of those kids that wouldn't listen, and tried my best to alienate myself from everyone. There has to be a different way to engage these young people. Kids Company tried a different way. I have to admit that this was not one of my favourite charities, and I had grave reservations about the charity for years. But I have always applauded them for trying something different. They were working with some of the most challenging young people in the country. These kids may not have had a state education but they have had very good schooling on the streets and are very clever and manipulative. So it's easy to criticise the charity for the way it worked, but it is the government's policies that created these problems. They have given up on lots of these young people, and lots of them have metal health problems - and many of them have kids of their own!

When these people have no other alternative but to go out and rob... “WHAT!” I hear you say, “NO OTHER ALTERNITAVE?” yes you heard correctly. These are young people who have a multitude of problems from drugs and drink addictions to mental health issues, they have no education and no means of finding any employment. They have been sanctioned by the social security so are receiving no benefits and have been given up on by family and friends: what do you think they will do to survive? Lots of these young people come from violent backgrounds and know nothing except day to day living - that's what they do and that's what they are good at. When they come calling to your house don't be trying to phone the police if you live in an odd number house as they wont be interested.

The police have been cut back so far that they have become a company only interested in getting fines from motorists. The young people that I have spoken about have been arrested so many times they know the game, they know what to say so they are nearly always let off. It's a vicious cycle.

So, I would like to ask the question again. What are you going to do?

We are told that we must all suffer the regime of austerity, but what about all the tax evasion by the big multinationals? Get the money they owe. Welfare fraud is a drop in the ocean compared to the big multinationals' tax evasion. But we don't see ever increasing television programs about them do we? All we see is programmes about the poorest and most vulnerable in society doing the only thing they know what to do, live day by day.

I have written many times before that I'm co-founder of an enterprise called Relight-ED we exist to try get young people to see the value of education. Like Kids Company we try lots of different ways to engage young people and like Kids Company, we don't always get it right. I have always claimed that you must start with the young people long before they end up running feral on the streets. Show them that education can be fun, break the cycle. It's not easy to do this and it is always one step forward and two steps back. We have to work with dedicated people because it is a hard slog for little reward financially.

I also heard this week about a theatre company who had been funded to work with young people discussing and making a play about fundamentalists grooming young people on the internet. They talked about being radicalised and jihad brides etc, I hope they had things about Christian right wing bigots in there too? They were making a play about this subject and had three hundred young people working on the project. To have this amount of young people wanting to take part in an art project is very impressive, trust me. Everything was going well when the plug was pulled on the project and it was cancelled, even the police were involved, why?

There have been lots of claims and counter claims. The powers that be said the play wasn't up to standard. Whose standard? If it has been written and directed and performed by the young people then it's up to their standard, and that's good enough as far as I'm concerned. Or is it the subject matter that people have a problem with? The only way you can change things is to talk about them then meet them head on and deal with them. That is what was happening here as far as I can see. We at Relight-ED have made films and productions that have been brilliant but we have also done some that shall we say were not as brilliant. It depends on who is making the film/production. We do everything not on a shoestring budget, but on a non-existent budget, in many cases.

We find it hard to get funding, we don't have the high profile or the contacts that lots of London-based enterprises have, but we do have good, hard-working and very talented individuals who are prepared to work to change the lives of others. If you're working class it seems all we are good for is being on TV showing what low life scroungers we are. When in reality, the real scroungers are the people who have the power and shift the real money around between themselves. These are the people who are creating a divide in society which is getting bigger each year. Something has to change!

Real money has to be invested back into communities. When the government say they are giving a million towards a charity it is just like you putting a pound in a box. It's a worthless gesture. We don't need charities, we need a proper government that works with the people, for the people. Enterprises such Relight-ED are not the solution to the problem, we can only work within education to help teachers. The money must be given to the schools, and not to enterprises to run the schools. We don't want or need a charitable society but a strong, government-led society, where we all have an equal chance to succeed no matter who our parents are or what they did for a living or where we were born. We want a society where people can develop and learn at their own pace so they can become a valuable member of society and give back what has been given to them. They don't need stigmatising or criminalising by the real crooks.

IT IS DEFINITELY TIME FOR A CHANGE!