Last glimpse of colour

In the evening sky. The year has moved on a little and the sun sets a little further north than it did a month or two ago. After all we moved in close to the shortest day and it's now two months on. The days are lengthening, the point where the sunsets swinging round.

Today was Soc Cafe again and today we discussed whether technology can save the planet and why we come to Socrates Cafe. The latter was perhaps a little too self-referencing, but it was the lighter second topic after all.

L was out this evening, at the read through for a play she has been cast in. I looked for something to watch on Netflix and looking through my options decided to indulge my weakness for slight romantic comedies by watching Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, partly because I noticed the director was Lasse Hallstrom, director of My Life As a Dog and What's Eating Gilbert Grape. And partly because it features Kristin Scott Thomas, who I like. It was indeed a bit of fluff, including as it turns out, birthday girl Emily Blunt and Ewan McGregor as the main romantic interest. And Google points out that Ms Blunt has recently had a baby with husband John Krasinski, who we have seen a fair bit of lately as we work our way through the US version of The Office. And KST was rather under-used for my liking.

Anyway one of the points made was the importance of vision and faith, even for McGregor's scientific and non-religious character. And it resonated a little for me and what I think about the R-word. To me that is increasingly what it all comes down to - a vision and faith in the future. Despite the attempts by the No campaign to hold the Yes side to higher standards of prediction and soothsaying than anyone is capable of, no-one knows what the future holds.

As I see things the biggest problems in the UK at the moment are all to do with increasing inequality and the Westminster-centric nature of the political class. And Westminster appears to be run for the benefit of the City of London - not surprising really given that the City, which has it's own rules and form of local government, has it's own man in the Houses of Parliament - The Remembrancer. And the City is not the city - which perhaps explains why so many people living in London are unhappy with their lot, despite the argument that says what is good for the City is good for London and by extension the rest of the UK. HS2 is said to be good for the provinces when all it is really doing is ensuring that yet more money gets sucked into London. If it really was about improving other parts of the country the project would start in the North and improving links between northern cities such as Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle and only join up to London later. And the City is Capital writ large - enriching the 1% at the expense of the rest of us. Increasing the gap between the rich, or rather, the super-rich and everyone else. So many other things join up in this like the diminishing of Trade Union power that has tilted the balance away from ordinary workers in favour of the bosses and shareholders. Or the way that the pound is kept strong in the interests of finance and against manufacturing. The banks get bailed out when coal-mining goes to the wall. People are bought off by making credit more readily available so they can keep buying all the distractions to make life bearable despite falling real-term wages. The list goes on.

So when the No camp starts wheeling out scare stories against the risks of a Yes vote, what are they really scared of? Is it the possibility that the neo-liberal orthodoxy could be seriously challenged for the first time in more than a generation? Longer. And while it is no surprise that the Conservatives, the party of big business, should be peddling this line, what are the supposedly more progressive elements of British politics doing siding with them? Although the Labour party has for some time lost its way in this regard. The charitable view is that the Clinton model to use a deregulated financial market to raise funds for progressive politics was so seductive that they took their eyes off the ball and failed to regulate when they should have done.

The uncharitable view is that they too have been bought by The City and its myth of 'what's good for London (ie the City of London) is good for the whole country. Back to The Remembrancer again. Which brings me back the film and the idea of faith. Faith in a vision for another way, despite the opposition from those who don't want anyone to question their stranglehold on the UK. There are no answers to the way the future will be, only a possibility that we can make it different. Nothing changes by staying the same.