Last year I joined a political party because I liked and agreed with the leader and wanted him to have a shot at being PM. 

This I now realize was a shameful thing to have done. 

What is the solution? Perhaps political parties should be like the Christian Union, with detailed statements of orthodoxy that you have to sign before you are allowed to vote. Perhaps they should be like the I-Spy club where you get a coupon each time you go to a meeting, and are only allowed to join when you have 26 stickers. Or just go back to the old system, where the local party nominates the candidate, and the MPs chose the leader? 

I don't know. We certainly can't carry on letting people like me join parties because we like and agree with the leader and want him to have a shot at being PM.

I am sorry for what I did. Like a recovering alcoholic, I should have known better than to start paying attention to current affairs again. I take it too personally.

Thought for the day

By the rivers of Babylon,
there we sat down,
yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song;
and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying,
Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

How shall we sing the LORD’S song in a strange land?

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning .
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth;
if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.

Remember, O LORD, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem;
who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.

O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed;

happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stone

I TOLD YOU SO

What do I fear? Myself? There's non else by.
Richard loves Richard: that is, I am I.
          Shakespeare, Richard III

Gandalf as ring-lord would have been far worse than Sauron. Sauron multiplied evil, he left "good" clearly distinguishable from it. Gandalf would have made good detestable and seem evil.

             Letter, Tolkien

1997: Blair's authoritarianism

1998: Blair's regressive welfare policy

1998: Blair's statism

11th September 2001

2002: Blair's drive to war

2003: Aftermath of Blair's war

2004: Arrest of Saddam Hussein

2006: Blair's Madness (1) - Leadership

2006: Blair's madness (2): Social Policy

2007: Killing of Saddam Hussein

2010: Blair defends drive to war

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But a half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.

          Sandman

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