Goodbye Mr Ed

Why should I be surprised. I am though and I'm deeply disappointed. Goodbye Ed I'll be sending you the pieces of my Party card in the post.

There is a war going on in this country, a Class War. It's been going on for a long, long time of course but in the last 30 odd years it has been intensified and ruthlessly waged by the Right. The hard won gains that were redressing the balance, opening previously slammed doors of opportunity have been systematically rolled back. Lying on this couch with the debt collectors letters in front of me and the latest correspondence from the Job Centre, trying to work out a way to rebuild my life at least to something stable, with a little dignity, from the hole it is presently in I am one of the many who find themselves on the front line and under fire. In case you think this is all over the top and hardly comparable to any front line in a shooting war, I'd ask you to have a look at the upward trends in suicide rates amongst the young and amongst the disabled and at the deterioration of health amongst vulnerable, sick people who have to face these stresses and self respect destroying vocal prejudice and practical persecution coming from Downing St. For our young people in particular there has not been, since the war, a more desperate time for those starting out in life without the advantages of wealth and private education. This is a war where people are dying and with the changes coming in this week and in the immediate future it is about to get much, much worse.

Although I've been a lifelong Labour Voter and have acted as a "helper" in the past I am used to being far to the left of the Party. I didn't join during the Blair years because I couldn't stomach how far to the right they had moved as New Labour ...and then there was the Iraq War. Despite all that I joined after the Coalition came to power because they are the only hope we have to bring these bastards down and I hoped that Ed Milliband would bring the party back toward its labour movement roots. I was very wrong. To watch a leader of the Labour Party stand in the Commons and gush tributes to Thatcher, to actually say she was right! This is a betrayal, a loathsome, unforgivable betrayal. I was expecting bland, polite even respectful remarks from him not this. Its a speech that the leader of the Tories might have given not the man we are asked to follow in our struggle against them. It was left to Glenda Jackson to deliver something more appropriate from the backbenches. I couldn't believe my ears and I feel utterly betrayed and abandoned. I won't be a member of such a Party.