Waking up in a parallel universe…..

We seem to have entered a world without political shame – the likes of which I don’t remember seeing before. I grew up under the Thatcher governments of 80’s. They were at times dreadful and we to a large extent are still living with their consequences – be that in damaged communities, lack of access to housing and opportunity and out of control shareholder profiteering. It also feels though like we are living with the consequences of Tony Blair’s mantra that elections are ‘won from the centre ground’. It seems to have left us with a political class that is bereft of long term plans, clear moral values of even a sense of direction – propped up by a supine media.

All of this is much more brilliantly captured in James O’Brien’s book ‘How They Broke Britain’ which I heartily recommend.

The obvious unintended (or ignored) consequence of the fight for centre ground blandness is that other destructive voices capture the headlines and the airtime. With disasterous outcomes: people in Rochdale end up their newly elected MP – chosen from an all-male list of candidates, racism and Islamophobia goes unchecked in party of government, while others will only tackle climate change ‘within fiscal rules’ andwe sit back and passively watch the relentlessly worsening situation in Gaza without condemnation.

Meanwhile in the UK: drug related deaths continue to rise, the number of people sleeping rough is just shy of 4000 (a 120% increase since 2010), the prison population is projected to rise by 20,000 and almost half of Local Authorities are on the verge of bankruptcy.

Broken.

As I said last week I have just finished a couple of work engagements which has been handy as my partner has had a second thumb transplant (IKR) so I’ve been much more focused on more important things whilst being constantly amazed by her determination and ability to bear pain. Also found myself with enough time to get really cross about the state of the world and to re-start my own rehab programme on a knee injury.

Other things that pricked my interest:

New single released by my long-time / old school friend Billy Reeves today – his new album (Steve) is out now. Of course the audiophiles amongst us are having to wait until 5th April for the vinyl version. Worth checking out.

I’ve also thrown myself into Alex Stevens new book “Drug Policy Constellations: The role of power and morality in making drug policy in the UK”. It does manage to make an academic text accessible to the reader and certainly debunks the myth that drug policy in this country is built on evidence.