Change we’ve got to believe in.

If you’ve been anywhere near a television over the past week, you’ll have listened to smiling, scared-looking people talk about ‘change’ to the point where the word has lost practically all meaning.

The problem with promising ‘change’ is that it’s the one thing that absolutely every politician can absolutely, 100% guarantee. The only thing that you and I know about the next five years, or indeed the next five minutes, is that some sort of change will occur. The economy will improve, or not. Social unrest will escalate, or not. You might decide you don’t like safeway instant shepherd’s pie after all. Something will change. continue reading… »

The Guardian endorses the Libdems and I’m with them

The paper posted this editorial online tonight:

Citizens have votes. Newspapers do not. However, if the Guardian had a vote in the 2010 general election it would be cast enthusiastically for the Liberal Democrats. It would be cast in the knowledge that not all the consequences are predictable, and that some in particular should be avoided. The vote would be cast with some important reservations and frustrations. Yet it would be cast for one great reason of principle above all.

After the campaign that the Liberal Democrats have waged over this past month, for which considerable personal credit goes to Nick Clegg, the election presents the British people with a huge opportunity: the reform of the electoral system itself. Though Labour has enjoyed a deathbed conversion to aspects of the cause of reform, it is the Liberal Democrats who have most consistently argued that cause in the round and who, after the exhaustion of the old politics, reflect and lead an overwhelming national mood for real change.

The rest is here.

After last night’s debate one thing really struck me. We on the left and many Labourites who are also on the left, fight against discrimination and marginalised people. This is why we attack the Tories for their homophobia and their flashes of racism.

But the way that both Labour and the Tories (the latter expected anyway) not only dismissed the idea of an amnesty, but actually dog-whistled throughout about how the Libdem plan would wreak havoc sickened me.

We have over 500,000 people in this country who are non-citizens; living in the shadows of society; living hand-to-mouth, on the breadline; open to exploitation because they have no legal status; earning less than minimum wage for shitty jobs because they can’t complain; and mostly no money even to leave the country.

If the Labour Party can’t even have compassion for them, then it cannot claim to be a party of compassion and for the marginalised. This government just wants to pretend they don’t exist, while knowing that the most vulnerable of them are exploited daily by gangs because they have no other choice. Is this what New Labour stands for? Is this what the Left stands for?

You may not have sympathy for these people. Fine. That’s your prerogative.

But the people who do claim to be in politics for the poor and the marginalised cannot claim that we should not have sympathy for these people. And it made me sick when all Brown could do was attack Clegg for even suggesting a very meek policy, rather than offering ideas of his own. This is a man with no ideas. He is not fit to lead the country (neither is Cameron of course, but I was always going to say that).

I am proud to see myself on the Left and I am proud of what the Left stands for. I just don’t believe this Labour government stands for the same values.

Update: My endorsement for the Libdems as a tactical move is further clarified here.