sylvia's blog

Yesterday was my second anniversary of starting my job. I celebrated it (!) by driving to our regional office in Bristol (4 hours round trip) to start the process of being made redundant. When I started, this was the best job I’d ever had. 2 years later and it’s so dreadful (though for reasons of internet circumspection I’d better not go into the details here) that I’m glad, really, to be getting out.

Life is weird. But freedom beckons.

How can Israel possibly think it  justifiable to attack and murder peaceful respectable citizens in international waters? How can they think they can get away with this? Answer – because they’ve always got away with it before – bombing Gaza, invading Lebanon, building their security wall. Surely it must be time now for the rest of the world to take some action against them?

But where might they have got the notion that it’s ok to send your military to kill people you don’t like, even outside your own country? Just look at the USA, carrying out bombing raids in Pakistan against people they decide need to be killed, despite being expressedly asked by the Pakistani government to stop. And the UK government co-operating with ‘extraordinary renditions’.

The convoy sailing to Gaza was not making a provocative gesture for the sake of it. It was carrying tons of supplies that are dreadfully badly needed in Gaza. The Israelis allow almost no vital supplies in through the border crossings that they control: small amounts of food, just enough to keep people from starving and mostly donated by the west, but nothing like enough of medical supplies, fuel, all the essentials for a normal civilised life. Gaza is like a giant third world prison that the population can neither survive  adequately in nor manage to leave.

The shame is not that the Israelis do this. The shame is that the rest of the world knows this and does nothing about it.

I remain confused. The Queen’s Speech (here if you missed it http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/24/queens-speech-in-detail ) lists so many things I would have wanted a Labour Govt to do: renewable energy initiatives, drop ID cards, protect civil liberties, electoral reform, devolve power to local communities – so how come it’s the wrong lot who are now promising to do it?

Of course, I’m not exactly enthusiastic about their financial policies, especially not the public sector cuts – especially as I’m about to be made redundant, so now is not a good time to be looking for a new job. But again, Labour are in part to blame for this. Maggie Thatcher started the process of public sector cutbacks way back in the early 1980s, but through all the years while Labour were in power, the supposedly affluent years, they did nothing to reverse them, and many times continued them, in the name of ‘prudence’.

Year on year while I have have worked for local authorities we have seen cutbacks, posts frozen, public sector pay pegged at at least 1%  below inflation, well below private sector pay deals. And you know what, after a decade or two, those 1%s add up to a point where people of quality wouldn’t consider working for so little when they can get so much more elsewhere. So quality declines, and ‘efficiency savings’ have long ago become ‘inefficiency savings’. And all this under Labour. A decent socialist government would have built up public services into something to be proud of, and something that, when times like this do arrive, have a bit of slack in them to cushion them against the hard times.

So I’m not exactly sad they lost. I hope it teaches them a lesson.

It’s not that I’m celebrating the new government, but:

They’ve cancelled the planned 3rd runway at Heathrow.

Our new Conservative MP made positive mention of Transition Town Totnes in her acceptance speech last Friday morning.

Vince Cable, now cabinet minister for business, specially asked to meet with us when he was down in Totnes last summer.

Teresa May, new Home Secretary, was a founder member of a Transition initiative in her local community.

And (unrelated to climate concerns but equally sensible) they’re not letting Exeter go awol from Devon.

And as for Labour………

ps Thanks to my friend Ann for the pic.

Last week saw the long awaited launch of Totnes’ Energy Descent Action Plan in book form, including a couple of paragraphs penned by yours truly. I’ve never been in a book before. It was a good event, speech by the mayor, lots of clapping etc. It made me feel unexpectedly proud to be part of something that seems to be turning out to be so far-reaching.

The Plan has been available on line for awhile now so it was interesting that a number of people, like me, were buying hard copies to read instead. Personally, I just prefer reading lying down, not stuck at my desk.

(For those who haven’t come across Transition Towns yet, it’s an idea that started here in Totnes only three or four years ago and is speading amazingly rapidly across the world, inspiring people to come together in their local communities to look at the coming threats of peak oil and climate change, and what can be done on a local level to make our communities more resilient and low carbon. It’s very much an idea whose time has come.)

If anyone’s interested in reading the Plan, it’s available at www.totnesedap.org.uk

Things I’ve enjoyed this last week:

Watching the first swallows of the year swooping low over Blackdown Rings Iron Age hill fort.

Lying in the sunshine, getting the first touch of colour on my skin and listening to the rooks squabbling as they build their new nests.

The huge swathes of primroses along the roadsides.

The slowworms are back under the warm piece of slate on my back wall.

Lambs being silly.

The smell of laundry dried outside in the sunshine.  And how all the creases have been helpfully blown out by the wind.

How fast everything is growing all of a sudden.

Sitting by a big fire on a friend’s land, watching the stars move across the sky and listening to the night sounds. Such a treat to be outside again at night and not cold.

I love this time of year.

The new DSM V (the American catalogue of everything they consider to count as a psychiatric illness) will now include: ‘Hypersexuality’ – liking sex too much; ‘Sexual arousal disorder’ – not liking sex enough; and ‘Absexuality’ – getting off on being appalled by pornography etc, (also known in the UK as ‘Mary Whitehouse Syndrome’).

Wonderful. From the land of equality of opportunity, a disorder for everyone, whether they like it or not.