Cameron: Did he pay lip service to well-being or make a commitment?

David Cameron made a commitment to the ‘well-being’ of the nation should he become Prime Minister despite it being a notoriously slippery concept that tends not to mean a great deal even within professional practice at best and possibly at worst means the least when it is used by politicians. There may have been great honour in intent when this statement was made and I think this could have been given, amongst other statements, to try and divide the Cameron era from that of his predecessors – there seemed very little in the way of genuine concern for the quality of life of the population especially the working class during the Conservative parties domination of national politics in the eighties and the first part of the nineties and an overwhelming interest in the success of the wealthy. This probably caused some resentment towards Conservative party from anyone who had a degree of either professional or personal moral responsibility for reducing health inequalities and Cameron may be interested in trying to capitalise on the dissatisfaction with the Brown-Blair governments who work in public health related professions over relatively meaty issues such as this.
The under-spend on Public Health nationwide which appears to have taken place as a result of the lack of ring-fencing of funds aimed at public health initiatives is not likely to be a target for the Conservative party as a whole – they are less than likely to maintain their track record of reducing inequalities in health, inadvertently as they did under Major, than the Blair-Brown government and unlikely to pursue this as a policy. Perhaps the Blair and Brown governments are using measures to lead to the general improvement in some lifestyle factors and not in others? It does seem unusual that there has been some concern that there was not the reduction in inequalities that one may have anticipated since Blair & Brown have tackled the great many root causes of mortality and morbidity in the UK. While this goes on and maybe hasn’t been explained in terms of the causal models that will dictate funding maybe those in public health and health promotion are restricting themselves until a coherent explanation has been put forward through the national bodies for the professions related to public health.
The concern that the concept of well-being will be devalued by a politician may be present in some corners and to a degree this may be a valid concern. However, it is likely that like any concept worth discussing it will be the site of ideological struggle, as Norman Fairclough would state. As a result issue areas like ‘crime’ and ‘the family’ are hotly debated within politics in terms of the level of involvement from the state and this tends to be how political action occurs. It does strike me as interesting that Mr. Cameron has not stamped his own personal mark on what well-being would mean within the context of his environmentally concerned conservatives. There is some potential that this use of the term may lead to the progress that is necessary in order to move the conceptualisation of well -being on from the definitions of health offered by the World Health Organisation as a complete state of social, mental and physical well-being and that described in the Ottawa Charter. Maybe there could be developments made in the next few years shaped by the current British political scene.
The extent to which well being is taken seriously as a goal within the health service may be still under question. There has been a greater emphasis than before of examining the nature of the power relations within professional consultation and improvements made in Doctor-patient communication and offering choice in patient consultations where this is feasible – to a degree the changes in operation of the NHS should results in advances in theory including changes in the way that well-being is thought of. To a degree these changes may have already have taken place. A few things spring to mind from time to time that I think could be taken forward within the political agenda at present and the current political bottle neck in British party politics may provide what could be a substantial opportunity to
It is difficult to predict what forms of finance would be necessary to make a real commitment to well-being - no doubt this is something that was also considered under Blair. Cameron has criticised initiatives which may have been likely to lead to substantial changes in well-being perhaps necessary many years before someone can alter the course of their lives, for instance the drug misuse interventions that have not substantially increased success rates of termination of drug misuse. Has the technocratic nature of the Blair Brown agenda and the ‘what works’ approach replaced ideological approaches to party politics and will this commitment to well being be a similar approach by Cameron to a branded conservatism which will act as a benchmark for his political arrival? If anything I assume it is highly likely that well-being will be dropped down the agenda further rather than be taken forward conceptually. This appears to be pure lip service to the term.
While overspends in other NHS delivery areas are soaking up funding that may have initially have been set aside for public health interventions there does seem to be a potential political scalp to be claimed: it does seem that controlling the spending within public health would be necessary in order to achieve a substantial change in well-being. Taking the agenda forwards requires a style of leadership and willingness to listen to the workforce that Mr Cameron hasn’t demonstrated frequently. If this is to be managed ‘on existing resources’ perhaps some form of challenge laid down by the UK national health promotion and public health bodies to Mr Cameron to say what he means and mean what he says may be timely. Would the UK health promotion network offer anything in the way of the necessary political melting pot of conflicting issues between groups that would provide a means of making a significant amount of progress in this area and greatly improve the impacts of policies that are developed in this area?

What other methods of facilitation of mental illness could take place?

I assume that most people would consider it to be entirely plausible that there is likely to be a natural progression of mental illness following say offensive behaviour or criminal activity someone may reasonably be excluded and subject to a reduction in self esteem which then plausibly leads into depression reduced self care, disconnection from the same norms as others and become socially isolated etc. Then lacking the reinforcement and incentive through lack of appropriate social contact there will be a reduction biologically in various chemicals within an individual who may then require chemical support in order to normalise after this has manifested itself through anxiety, depression or other symptoms.
I assume again maybe rightly or wrongly there could be a great many alternate explanations bubbling under which may partially support this type of bio-psycho-social model of the development of mental illness which requires a medical intervention to rectify problems. I am really sceptical about this and have had no real joy in getting this type of matter addressed – mainstream political parties seem to disregard this as a matter of course and have a strong desire to marginalise anyone who may have experienced mental ill health and there seems total willingness to disregard the type of allegations that someone may make on the basis that they are paranoid and for example ‘look or appear mentally ill’. My own experience leads me to believe that there could be a great many problems linked together that would be difficult to separate and certainly this type of explanation should not be disregarded. If alternate explanations are dismissed as paranoid speculation then this could take place without investigation or concern from the authorities, who resemble something like the cast of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Whether it’s worth speculating on this or not I can’t say – I think it’s likely that there are various forms of medication that have been developed for ‘state’ purposes that could involve medication which has been specifically developed for degrading mental health. The CIA probably possesses drugs that can entirely melt your brains. They’re probably used in the USA for prisoners in Guantanamo Bay to ensure that they breakdown just a little bit and while the US government can deny they exist, as representatives of the British government would also do. The theory behind them is probably not that sophisticated. Depression lifts for the 50 million or so who are taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) ensure that there is an increased level of serotonin around the neurons the brain – what could be simpler but to have a drug which could do the opposite of the SSRIs an unselective serotonin reuptake facilitator? You’d feel like death warmed up having the most impossible low that would be imaginable. What’s interesting about this is that there is the theory in place and technology to develop this, however, governments across the world would continue to deny their existence. Will anything give?

Mens' rights and abortion - should there be a clearer level of ‘personal responsibility’ within relationships when there are no legal rights?

Disclaimer – I can’t recall who expressed what views within the context of the group meeting and if I have absorbed your views within my own and you wish to claim some authorship for them then please comment upon what I state. I wasn’t comfortable at the time but I think it was an involved and stimulating discussion…
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At an Amnesty International meeting last year which was used to discuss the issues of abortion before Amnesty was willing to back the notion of an international women’s right to have abortions, I felt particularly comfortable. I tend not to be able to think very clearly within group situations and there was a great deal of tension for me personally because of the experience I'd had with an ex-girlfriend, then girlfriend who had an abortion stating it was my child to be. I had made the mistake of not enforcing influence that I had and supported her through what I believed to be the right thing to do which was to support her individual decision not to keep the child. This may have been largely through what I thought was the best course of action for both of us – she was about to turn 21 and I was merely 19.

On reflection, I should have stated what I thought was suitable in the context of the relationship. Whilst I don’t blame the ex-girlfriend concerned for wanting an abortion especially when the circumstances were not particularly good I do not feel content with what happened. She had fallen pregnant before going away for a few months (the actual man who got her pregnant does cross my mind from time to time) and had returned after months of heavy drinking – with the potential that this could have caused all manner of deformity to the unborn child. Having issues like that to deal with does mean that I’d like time to prepare for a discussion on abortion related matters.

See - http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17378

At it’s worst, discussions on abortion can raise harsh social divisions and tap into longstanding Catholic – Protestant divides in the UK, if not the whole of Europe. At best the discussion on abortion is not likely to be pleasant. Having said that, that it is not most people’s idea of a leisure activity to discuss such things, it is a very important issue area – perhaps a barometer of our times. There does seem to be a tendency within the west to conceptualise abortion almost as a late form of contraception, without regard for the unborn child.

I state this and there could be much clearer conceptualisation, say through the arts of this particular process. There tends not to be frequent, open and frank admission of what the experience is like for women, nor for men for that matter, and neither would-be-siblings of the unborn child.

What was striking about the discussion was that it was quite heavily biased towards the group forming the conclusion that a woman having a legal right internationally to have abortions was the right thing to do. This may be owing to the nature of the political and legal establishments worldwide having failed women in so many respects. The cases that were used as examples within the discussions did lead to a conclusion that this may be a suitable goal for a human rights organisation; however, the specifics will always be debated by political leaders all over the world. One person did say she regarded it as her right to have an abortion and while I don’t disagree with the individual having this ‘right’, there are a number of issues which precede this that may need to stated before the ‘right’ is recognised.

With regard to men and their lack of rights to stop a female partner having an abortion, if this is the case then this needs to a matter that men are fully aware of prior to any consenting sex: in a position where there are no legal rights there is a duty to self to ensure that no risk is taken. If this is considered, it may become appropriate for men to be in control of contraception to a large extent. This is not to disempower women but rather to control for factors which will be beyond the control of the man in the relationship.

One other major element in relation to the discussion and its breadth was that there were no Muslim men present. How ‘Muslim’ the perspective I expressed may have seemed, of wanting men to have some form of legal right to contest abortion or even force a woman to give birth to a child if she were to become pregnant during marriage, I can’t say. I guess there is the issue that men are generally deemed as being in the ascendancy in society and there being a need to offer a few token gestures to women - including rights to legal control their own bodies through abortion. When this takes place and there is no reference to the need to change the multitude of issues of relationships which may restrict the progression of women in employment, rather than aiming to introduce an international human right for abortion, I must state that there needs to be a great deal supplementing the project of introducing an international human right for abortions to take place. To a large extent it seems that there was some lip service to the unborn child did not figure in what was presented – these seem to be very ill supported rights in Britain at present.

It is the 21st century and I do find abortion to be a barbaric act which shouldn’t be taking place in society today. If there are major restrictions on men or women from using contraception or if they are not able to participate in relationships without the ability to assert themselves to a point where they feel comfortable to do so, then there are other factors which need to be considered in relation to abortion before the relatively thorny issues that were presented to the Amnesty group are dealt with. Maybe amnesty is slightly outstretching itself on this matter as some seem to state:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/02/2006_21_thu.shtml

There are risks to women overseas who do not have the freedom to have an abortion which most of us don’t want to see, irrespective of views on abortion generally. For women to die during the course of abortions carried out by non-medics is extremely saddening. It is perhaps that many issues need to take precedence to the abortion freedoms that we were asked to discuss – will we be asked to discuss these? It is perhaps, ironically, only within the context of a bold international strategy to irradicate abortion altogether that there will be success in establishing an international right to abortion – this should only be a short term aim. The longer term aim of reducing the need for abortions tends take precedence altogether and without emphasis on this Amnesty will be unsuccessful.

In respect of the issues of contraception, men and the lack of legal rights to ensure that a pregnancy results in an attempt at child birth, if this is what were desired by the partners, there is a pressing need to ensure that all men are willing to assert their views. It is a position where the politics of persuasion need to operated by men because this is one area where their rights are vastly less than women’s are and in the absence of rights or legal power other forms of power and persuasion need to be drawn upon – hopefully personal expression will be the strongest of these.….

Sub-texts of cinematic genres – Are there the beginnings of an ‘environmental film genre’ in place?

After looking through the shots of a friend on facebook from a recent holiday I was forced to reconsider some of the general rules of photography and the notion that subject matter should be visible and not obstructed in any sense from the line of vision of the viewer. The shots I saw frequently have a subject matter which is partly obscured by trees or foliage and it crossed my mind that there may be an environmental theme within the reading of the photograph – that the environment would at some point be dominant over other elements of the main subject or can never be suppressed in terms of it's links to our survival and past. I did also wonder if there was likely to be a cinematic genre which is possibly linked to this possible approach to photography which may be exemplified by something like the Lawless Heart which had a narrative structure which may in some respects be possible to represent as intertwined plants or perhaps the branches coming off the central body or tree like structure.

This may sound like something that is destined for ‘pseuds-corner’ in Private Eye, but may form an element of what could be a more substantial cinematic movement which may get some support from the enviro-sensitive Hollywood film stars at present. It may be interesting to see what level of interest there was in the production of a series of films that weren’t superficially linked to the environment or ecology but had themes or subtexts relating to such matters. Pseuds corner here I come....

Marxism - will it connect to neo-liberalism?

Having read around the subject of Marxism and seem its' various impacts on an extremely wide range of academic thinking and made attempts to link into related fields of practice through, for example, the SWP it is an area of political thinking that I’ve found to be much of a cornerstone of academia and political life together. The few SWP meetings I attended had only a minute element in the air of religious fervour and while this was almost negligible it did feel real, in the sense that one may sense a degree of atmosphere within a church or during important ceremony. Will the construct of Marxism that remains in society ever be revisited to the same degree as it was during the course of the 20th Century? It does seem unlikely that there will ever be the same degree of social relevance of the construct as there was in Russia and Eastern Europe in the first half of the century and likening Marxism as a doctrine to a religious movement is something I do inadvertantly. This is not intended to be derogatory - while elements of Marxist thinking may have been concerned with freedom from manipulation and a process of liberating the labour force this may no longer be a central element. If it were, surely greater attention would be paid to making activism effective?

Contemporary marxists tends to be concerned with the examination of the social and economic conditions of the time and not the formation of regimes that has taken place over a period of centuries. This may have been an element of the marxism that led to revolutions and could well provide some relevance to the action of Marxist who have such strong commitment to their principles. This will not happen during our lifetimes as far as I can see although there may be more peaceful revolutions planned in the future which appeal to the masses.

It is with some concern that I have to highlight issues connected to Third Way Politics (eg. Giddens, 1998) and it is this that causes some concern as there doesn’t seem to be what I class as a natural transition from the left to the neo-liberalism of present day Britain. Would a revised form of Marxist Communism resurrect the potential of socialism above the nonsense of 'Third Way' Politics? The third way thinkers could pay closer attention to the notion of neo-liberalism as a framework, rather than the notion of neo-liberalism as a right wing concept. For instance, if there were intent for workers to control an organisation in which they work this may be dealt with within a contemporary agenda through rotating management cycles, through sole ownership of the company on the part of an individual or the collective developing through solely worker owned shares.

This could amount to a form of Marxism, bordering on communism, in neo-liberal clothing that is dressed in neo-liberal language. However, with the emphasis on diversity that there is within the economy which may be supported quite readily by the major political parties at present, this potential tends not to be taken advantage of by Marxist bodies and it seems quite abhorrent to try to expand this agenda. It’s interesting that this element of neo-liberalism which I think gets discussed occasionally has never found a stable set of principles academically or political to be recognised but is discussed outside of such forums.

Are ethnic civil rights activists viewed fairly?

The most significant European civil rights activist to me in some respects is Paul Stephenson who is known for his willingness to protest in Bristol in the 1960's over what may have appeared to some as less than critical issues - employment within public transport companies. Significant he may be but he at present doesn't have a page on wikipedia. In some respects protesting over public transport could be viewed in a multitude of ways including eco-protest. It may be necessary to revisit the activism of the late 60s and review the impact of the protests in terms of environmentalism one day.

There could be a number of reasons that there are separations between ethnic activism and the interests that need to challenged. There could have been reason for ensuring the activism of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther-King and Paul Stephenson was clearly geared towards the rights of ethnic groups in relation to public transport however there may be strong reason to re-examine the impacts of this area of protest politics. Maybe there is scope in the future for a black/ethnic civil rights and eco-protest as part of the same movement - it may be a way of reviving necessary debates for cultural stability in the UK.

Have black protest politics been made to appear self interested and solely concerned with the issue of injustice connected to the financial and moral deal that slavery invoked? Were levels of black protest politics written out of the history of black activism to portray black activists as overly concerned with very few self interested issues? Maybe it's meant to be, implicitly at least, that plans seem to be in place that India is a birthplace of spirituality with several major religions having an Indian origin, that Europe was going to be the home of 'invention' with the development of a great many modern products having a European origin, that Africa is somehow deemed to be the birthplace of life itself with Eve theories regarding the evolution of human life being possibly African in origin. Has the African continent been offered a meagre deal in terms of the cutural status that is offered to it's people?

There could be reason to examine the feasibility of eco-politics and the potential to be part of the process of broader improvement in quality of life that takes place in the west with awareness of the range of negative impacts that could also be taking place - is there a means to review ethnic activism and draw out elements of history that may otherwise be ignored?

There may also be need to examine the role that has been played in the West of non-American civil rights activists and for a European civil rights activist agenda to be considered - has this been reviewed adequately and is there a movement that may not be receiving adequate publicity in mainstream or marginalised literature?

Nothing

Nothing but space between us
Nothing but holes within us

Sinking into your tranquil abyss
I find a place to resist

Somewhere I will long to kiss
A place to sit and to dismiss

Everything I try to get
Within the walls of this misfit

How could I know you?
Why I wouldn't want to.

Why I wouldn't try this.
Because there is nothing.

Love on a zebra crossing...

It wasn't life that I began to need
Wearing my heart and my guts on my sleeve
It wasn't me that you began to pass
It was the shell without match

Bleeding free but no luxury
Looking up to what I could see
Without aim and without feeling
She looked away and I was reeling

Nothing shows when you're crossing
It's just a glance to show who's watching
I can't say what I need
with my heart and my guts on my sleeve

You can't see who's watching
When you're eyes show love on a crossing

Blogging on the world wide web...

So, I blog away maybe partly to improve my own writing skills and I don't think that there's anyone reading what I've written. Maybe this is what happens if you're writing for the wrong reason. I've been critical of radio 4 in the past as if it's a radio station that is only listened to by about a dozen people in the whole of the UK. Some of the radio shows give the impression that this is the height of broadcasting and that radio is the medium that expands creativity, however, I can only say that I think it's probably not. Still radio 4 gets more listeners than I do readers to the blog.

Chlamydia!

Chlamydia, chlamydia, I consider yah!

I consider you the reason for sheathing,
And just because I behaved like a heathen,

With a woman I bonked whose breasts were just heavin'
Chlamydia, I consider you the reason.

And while with my groyne I was weaving,
While it felt that something was hidden,

The act was engaged but something was missing,
And with an itch I was leavin'.

I engaged in the quirk,
And took time off work,
And may look a burk,
It could have been worse,

The tests came back ok so I'm breathin'.
Chlamydia, amongst others you're the reason.

Yoof culture....are young people rejecting social values in a way which damages them?

So we've all been there, hit the teens, considered rebellion and gone through from there but why engage in this rather facile process that seems to mean so much at the time and so little later? Is youth culture and the potential to explore and integrate different cultures wasted on the young like youth itself? Youth culture and rebellion tend to go together hand in hand but what they reflect is a need to define self through separation from others largely by age - age seems to be the key factor in defining identity. Rejection of the fashions of the last era defines many attributes of the fashions of the current era.

There tends to be well marshalled boundaries that young people enforce with a result that almost everyone in their cohort is included or dropped for not participating in the group action - this has become a part of the make up of youth culture for over half a century. Are there the same derogatory terms applied to those who follow the values of their parents too rigidly as were in the 1950's such as 'square' etc? Do young people find a great deal about those who are moving straight towards capitalism and consumerism without any strong visible rejection of the values that hold society together rightly unsettling...? Are young people excluded for not engaging in fashions which are detrimental to their employment prospects and society in general...? How and why has this trend amongst young people to engage in youth cultures begun - has this speeded up social and economic change since the first teenage rebels hit the streets of Britain in the 1950's (because of anticipated change during one's lifetime)?

There are a multitude of ways teenage fashions including the rejection of the values of the previous generation could be healthy and improve social change in the West and a number of ways that social change could be unhealthy and create problems for people, including fragmenting family and community relations because of the need to define one's self and one's peers as 'different' from the previous generation and over engaging in this activity.

It is may be worth considering the values that may rejected in the light of social change over the period of a few centuries rather than a couple of decades as most youth culture often seems to be considered. Those values of the previous generation may only reflect a relatively minor blip in the transitions that are always taking place within human cultures and not of any great significance. Have the youth of the West been over sensitised to pick up on matters that they may wish to change because there are such major failings with the current establishment that they don't know where to begin? Maybe change and political action are not closely tied together within Britain at present - do the Labour Party have a significant role in shaping what matters to pick up on in terms of social change and lifestyle factors that the youth of the nation may be more interested in?

Have the 'youthful and dynamic' leaders of the major parties made any form of impact on youth culture and political engagement? Maybe they don't think as Aaron Antonovsky did that having a sense of coherence running through the life of an individual is that important and that life can be fragmented into different stages which may not naturally lead to a complete and whole individual? Are we in a post modern age where one's life may acceptably be classed as fragmented owing to the nature of opportunity and an individuals' well being not be questioned as part of this? Was Antonovskys' conceptualisation of a 'sense of coherence' taking place within a modernist perspective or not - health promoters please comment.

Beccy!

Beccy, Beccy, Oh Beccy,
If you get freckles you'll be speccy,
If I don't pay my bills they'll cut off my 'leccy,
But there's nothing like the girl called Beccy.

Urban Policy - The last 30 years.

After beginning the process of scanning in all of my academic articles in a PDF format - how illegal this is I can't say - I find that it very reassuring using my PC for what it's probably best for. PCs are really a major asset if used for storing vast quantities of information in electronic format - paper articles can take up a large amount of space and on CD virtually no space at all.

After finding the articles I had rather unfathomable about ten years ago I now find them rather easy to get through despite not having the depth of knowledge in economics which I think is necessary to really get to grips with the area. Will I find the articles of any significant use after the Kings Norton New Deal for Communities experience? May I be able to add any advantage to the experience of the New Deal for Communities staff or residents through summaries of the reviews of information? The regular comment from the residents who were on one hand disaffected and disengaged was they had '...heard it all before...'. On the other hand there were some slightly different elements to the programme in terms of the approach and the content of some of the projects that were likely to add a slightly different flavour to the attempts at tackling multiple deprivation. I don't know if the small and appropriate differences in planning and delivery would actually constitute a new paradigm in urban policy as some may claim, there is also the question of whether there have been significant shifts at all in delivery - is urban policy being delivered in a significantly different manner than was actioned under conservative governments of the 1990s?

Urban regeneration is a very complex process involving a number of professional disciplines as social action can be viewed from a great many perspectives in terms of it's suitability and effectiveness. On reflection, urban policy has a heritage as old as cities themselves. To a very large extent it is necessary because cities are geographical forms which exist because of the control of capitalism by an elite has shaped the population that lives in a defined area. Capitalism has functioned through highly controlled rather than free markets and peasants may have migrated towards cities centuries ago because they were offered better living conditions prior to adequate induction into the areas that they moved. Is the longer term history of an area that significant a factor when looking to influence the manner in which urban policy is delivered? It would be interesting to examine what improvements in delivery this would lead to and what problems this would cause if historic influence in its many forms were to be more prominent in regeneration delivery. Do historic factors which shape local culture and regeneration processes adequately come together?

Fair trade fuel...is there really a choice for consumers?

Having stood up in a public meeting and suggested a 'fair trade fuel' (which means nothing to Marxists who seem only concerned with the notion of fair trade meaning a workers co-operative set up to avoid major stakeholders controlling trade) I do feel a little daft as this is only likely to have looked contradictory to many. 'Fair trade' tends only to operate for relatively labour intensive industries such as the farming of tea, coffee and fruit such as bananas not for those that are less labour intensive, like fuel production.

The notion of 'Fair Trade' has earned a relatively good reputation over the last few years and I like the notion of 'Fair Trade Fuel' despite the industry of fuel production requiring a less labour intensive process of production, it could be worth considering. It may appeal to the British public who may prefer to buy from Chavez or others who don't have the same links with facilitated war than the multi-nationals who appear never to be directly connected to wars that occur in nations who experience coups and violence when there is significant interest of 'oil companies' who often remain nameless and faceless. Are the mass media too strongly influenced by the same investing groups that control oil production...? I don't know what the solution is to this little conundrum and I suspect that the idea was planted elsewhere without my full awareness... are the SWP, the RESPECT coalition or any other organisation likely to be willing to influence markets so we can buy fuel with only the guilt of destroying the environment?

Has anyone got a spare few billion quid? Maybe we could get Branson and Sting together to put their names to fuel with a slightly better image: '...a not for profit fuel organisation offering proceeds to environmental projects in the developing world which will not invest in politically unstable economies or risk destabilising them.... '. Maybe one day, or maybe I should just write some more poetry....!?!

Has there been significant manipulation of the RESPECT coalition using inappropriate means?

Having been linked only relatively superficially to the RESPECT coalition I didn't make a significant impact on the party membership, their procedures or their policies. I did wonder frequently about a couple of their members and think that they may have been subject to influence to render them less likely to be of impact within a number of political forums.

I feel that it's likely that I was subject to influence in order to reduce my ability to deal with a number of situations within the party meetings, particularly in what seemed like open discussion. I don't think there will be any 'evidence' of this but I certainly think it's likely that I was subject to influence while I was still a relatively young child and not likely to be taken seriously - how would the British public feel about the far left organisations if they were comprised of people who had been subject to manipulation and engaged in politics in a manner that was likely to leave them unlikely to be successful? Furthermore, if the methods of manipulation were so absurd that if anyone who did voice concerns about the manipulation were classed as insane and potentially dangerous as a result of stating such paranoid thoughts would this be in any way acceptable political manipulation?

I have also wondered about the UKIP Party and whether or not anyone linked to that coalition felt that there were unusual methods used upon them - quite possibly there were significant problems within UKIP which have been reflected by the lack of public profile - I can't state at this point only indicate that there could have been the same methods used upon us all....

Nazis in Blue.

What's left to do - if you've been fucked over by the nazi's in blue?
Find yourself sitting without a clue,
About what they've done to you,
Can you survive without nazis in blue?

The filth have killed my family.

The filth have killed my family,
There's nothing left of them or me,
We thought we'd live our lives so free,
And they fucked us over in misery.

The filth are killing you and me,
They won't stop to leave your family,
They don't kill you because you're a runt,
They do it because they're total cunts.

The filth are killing all of us,
There's no point left for us to cuss,
There's still reason left to be,
If they've killed your family.

Don't get mad get even....

If the chavs begin to shout,
You'll wonder what it's all about,
It's because of grams of tiling grout,
Have gone up their little snouts -

Don't get mad get even.

So where do you get it?

If you see a nice officer in a starched white shirt,
If you tend to only look glum,
Then find if he knows where to get blow,
They won't say where theirs is from.

If you ask very nicely so rumour has it,
The Police let you in on their dope,
It's decriminalised and the shops don't sell it,
And I'm sure it's not sold by the Pope.

Gambling - is it a mugs game?

For years I’ve been really anti-gambling because I see it as being just a means of losing money. I guess if I was going to start I would wish to know that I had got an extremely good chance of winning and at present I don’t think the odds of any form of gambling are entirely geared towards what I class as being a means of damaging the working class population in a manner that they may enjoy. Interesting though it is to see the way that gambling is promoted as ‘part of our culture’ when a great many people don’t have the least interest in it as a social activity that involves potential financial loss.

I did wonder when I was considering how little interest I had in gambling that I may have other addictions which weren’t linked to the financial outlay that gambling entails. Maybe there could be some form of addictive personality which may be well documented in the academic literature but not have made it into mainstream culture at present. I state that and I think there is a strong chance that this will change with the forthcoming OCR Psychology A level in which addictive behaviours will make up a substantial part. The person who has advised OCR on this is Prof. Mark Griffiths who was a lecturer at University of Plymouth when I was an undergraduate there in the early 1990’s. I think he’s well positioned to ensure that the specification has wide appeal having won the awards he has over the last few years.

My actions that I now think have an element of addictiveness about them included writing nonsense letters to politicians, or at least what appeared to be nonsense letters. It is interesting what form of gambling this was – gambling of ‘public status’. This may act as a particularly unusual form of addiction to anyone who elects not to engage in such activity and has a calculated approach to life which entails low-medium risk and low-medium gain but stable likely outcomes: what I was doing was poorly planned social action based upon poorly calculated sums of social approval which didn’t lead to any significant growth in my social status. Perhaps this could lead to, if it has not already been represented in literature, a new layer of political correctness regarding what may be classed as the inappropriate behaviour of some – that they are conceptually challenged and lack the ability to plan and carry out a normal course of social activities.

Incidentally, this does create a sense of contradiction because this type of conduct would be classed as likely to be very costly financially as an individual may be far less employable – may be all forms of gambling involve some form of financial cost – maybe how antisocial behaviour could be considered. It is perhaps not that unusual a theory to present to excluded youth as a matter that they may gamble all their status in some respects or others by attempting to ‘win’ the approval of others, usually a small group or ‘in crowd’ – bullying may provide some form of example of this as a particularly badly calculated risk action. Wining in one currency, or with one group of people, may not be to the short-term advantage of an individual, but may make a substantial impact on an individuals’ wellbeing for a short time. If someone were to have undertaken such a longer term program of action and miscalculated through this period what risks were taking place and what wins were coming off there could be a sudden chance realisation of what was taking place to the majority. This may be a reasonable way of construing the sudden total loss of status that one may experience when having a nervous breakdown.

This approach also suggests that there is a means to define social behaviour that is non-addictive and of low risk which is likely to help establish an individual. Should social activity be defined in terms of the improvement of status by our politicians and should this involve means to control the population without their awareness of what social control is taking place? I guess a form of Marxist or Frierian conscientisation could be suitable to progress this agenda so healthily defined social action is carried out both bottom-up and top-down.

Maybe I should have been thinking more about the many forms that gambling may take and then recalculate what degree of cost I have incurred through avoiding placing a few pounds on the gee-gees. Maybe there is enough here to substantiate a slightly different approach to transactional analysis, which is not really being updated in the least here but perhaps a little refreshed. All transactions are potentially gambling and all addiction needs to be addressed. I wonder if this has great harmony with the current political elite?

lazy weekend

does everyone have a long list of things to do at the weekend and not do anything on it.. ho hum....

Well, ho hum - academia - is it really that worthwhile? I don't know if I did assemble any skills beyond those that have survived the last few years worth of work. I can't state at the moment - assessing ones' own skills isn't something that British people are great at - I do think I am skilled but it is such a catch all phrase for attributing an ability to a person which is largely determined by being in a particular situation that means the skill is of value. Do I downgrade skills unnecessarily?

So what skills will I decide I have after completing an academic review? Will an academic review produce anything in terms of what process I'd need to go through to re-establish skills? I can't say at this point - go through the review and then see what happens.

At this stage I don' know what skill base will I have established? Who can say..? What are critical and analytical skills at the best of time?