Lobbying for Hope

I want to start with a quote from Geoff Hoon MP who was speaking on the Today Programme yesterday about being caught in a sting.

“I certainly got it wrong, I should have known better. I have paid a considerable price since then for the mistake that I made in agreeing to what I thought was a private conversation. I obviously didn’t know that that private conversation was being filmed and recorded for broadcast and I shouldn’t have said some of the things that I did say. I recognise that I was guilty of showing off, I think that is the best expression I could use. I was trying to impress, I was trying to demonstrate my knowledge and experience, background in a particular sector.
I certainly would unreservedly apologise to anyone who feels that I have let them down. I have made clear that I got it wrong”.

Well thank you very much Mr. Hoon. That makes it all better doesn’t it; admitting that it was a stupid thing to do, admitting that it was wrong.
No. It doesn’t.

In typical politician speak he apologises unreservedly to “anyone who feels that I have let them down”. Would he therefore not bother to apologise if people hadn’t felt let down by him? Is he apologising for being an egotistical, money-grabbing so and so or is he apologising for being found out?
I don’t suppose it really matters how pedantic you are about certain words. Maybe the man is apologetic but I suspect that had he not been caught out, he’d have continued doing this stuff which, to me, does not suggest the most sincerest of apologies.

Let’s face facts. For all the grammar school and the Jesus College education, Geoff Hoon isn’t particularly intelligent. He may have an abundance of qualifications that sets him clearly in the top 5% of academic brilliance in this country but what else has he got going for him?
Admittedly, I’ve never met the bloke but he is one of those people who have that soporific effect. As soon as his dreary face appears on the television, you just feel like dropping off. He has no spark, no enthusiasm, seemingly no ability to connect with people.
Apparently, I am not the only one who thinks in this way. Even his constituency members wanted him deselected.
He offers no empathy, no sparkle, no passion, no creativity. He is a grey man who has had his time.
The only remote sign of intelligence is that he realises this which is why he was eager to get involved in anything that would give him an income post-election, merely for being an ex-minister.

Look back at that statement – “ I’ve paid a price….. I was showing off……I didn’t know it was being filmed….. I was trying to demonstrate my knowledge”.
Me, me, me, me and a little bit more of, erm, me!
Even after all of this, he had to finish with a reference to the fact that he was an ex-minister who had a mass of experience and that this fact in itself should be enough to give him a healthy income by sitting in a boardroom and yawning his way through a tedious meeting, offering a nod of a head at the right moment or going off and having a cup of tea with an existing minister to say that he had ‘spoken’ to them.

The saddest thing about all of this is not that these idiots have been caught out but that it is a timely reminder of how our political system works. This so-called democracy is driven by lobbyists who have a specific agenda that they will pay considerable amounts of money to ensure is at the heart of new legislation. It is a sad indictment on our so-called democracy that it is still power and money that changes the law and not the elected, and indeed, unelected members of the House of Parliament.

The mistake that Hoon made was thinking that he had both the capacity and the capability to actually influence people in this way.
I have to say, I have many agendas that I would like to bash into some politicians ear. I would love to have my views on education, for instance, considered by those who hold the ultimate power but I’m not sure that Geoff Hoon would be the first or indeed the thirty first person I would call on for support. I’m also not sure that I would be targeting MPs and members of the cabinet for influence either. Is it they or the senior civil servants that carry the most political and powerful clout?

It’s interesting that at the start of this week, there was the fantastic news from across the Atlantic that Obama had managed to secure the changes to health legislation that he has been so determined to achieve.
How about that for a difference? Here is a man who has an abundance of passion, empathy, consideration, sparkle. Here is a man who creatively considered how to ensure that he got the required number of members to vote without giving too much away for their support.

But it cost a considerable amount of time and money.
All told, from both corners of this spar, a huge sum of $3 billion was used up in lobbying and campaigning.
Is that not totally abhorrent? Does no-one consider the irony of such vast sums of money that could have been used to buy a few million life insurance packages for people who are going to die before they should due to poverty and social exclusion?

Geoff Hoon may not have been asking for such huge sums of money but the quantity is not the issue. The fact that our political system is so guided by the depths of someone’s pockets is the real problem. We confidently sit here and mock the Americans with their ceaseless budgets for electing a president whilst we have a block on the amount that can be used for General Election campaigning but what goes on behind the party line? Isn’t it a joke to call what we have a real democracy?

Of course, it wasn’t just Geoff Hoon who was caught out on the Channel Four Dispatches programme. He was joined by the delightful Ms Hewitt and Mr. Byers in bragging about their power and the stipulation that they required £5K a day for their services.
Does anyone have a new definition for prostitution, by the way?

“Dispatches” is a brilliant programme, one that I frequently forget to watch and surpasses the alternative on the beeb, “Panorama”, once the flagship of investigative journalism on the box.
However, even Channel Four may have some ulterior motive for going for these politicians. I know that is a little cynical but I think one has to question the motives on many things and what is driving it – that is not to say that I don’t mind this one being driven.
But surely, it is no coincidence that it was Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt who were calling for Brown’s resignation at the beginning of this year, and the fact that it is they who were ‘called up’ for the ‘sting’ programme?
The fact that another Anti-Brown with an ego the size of his North Tyneside constituency and beyond got embroiled in this does make you wonder who exactly was behind it.

I’m not really questioning Channel Four’s independence on this but there must be someone behind the scenes, somewhere down the line who knows a friend of a friend of a friend who wanted to stitch these three up once and for all? Perhaps Gordy and his cronies have more contacts and friends than we once thought. Michael Dobbs wrote the House of Cards as fiction but he admits to it being far nearer the truth than the viewer really recognised.

Anyway, Hoon, Hewitt and Byers are idiots.
As I said at the beginning, they may have the qualifications that make them appear to look intellectual but that is all. They are each consumed by egotism that enflames a single passion which appears to be a desire to perpetuate self-aggrandisement.
They are actually very sad and pathetic people, who have had a taste of power that has inflated their ego to such an extent that they now believe that they have a right to earn money beyond their capabilities or indeed requirements.

Of course, they are not the first are they?

The other day, I was sitting down and working out what money I required in order for me to pursue the one thing that I want above and beyond anything else. I reckoned at the end, that it would actually take less than £20K if I wanted to maintain my current levels of spend and far less if I made even small cuts in my existing outgoings. That’s four days work to these people!
And we think that footballers are overpaid!

Hoon, Hewitt and Byers are not the first to be caught out. Remember Martin Bell and his white suit marching into Tatton with his enragement and fury over the stupidity and inflated ego of Neil Hamilton?
Hamilton was caught out too, and he paid his price with the removal of power, though he did rather nicely out of it too with his potty wife and the desire for maintenance of a public profile through cheap and un-cheerful television. Okay, the sexual scandals and allegations may not have been desirable but hey, if you put yourself up there……

But I’m not bothered by the Hamilton’s as much as I am bothered by members of parliament who I naively thought stood nearer to my own ideology. Not that I ever thought I had much in common with the likes of Stephen Byers but he, like the others, were in the party that I have voted for all of my life. In stating that very fact, I am saddened. And annoyed.
Naivety does bring this to a person – a real and genuine sadness in the lack of moral integrity.

But there is another point. Once a red, always a red.
I cannot condone or forgive these people for discrediting the name of the Labour Party. There’s a bloody great big list of others there too, like the current and former Prime Minister. New Labour only has one word similar to what I always held dear as political thought, and it isn’t “New”.

But once you have always followed one party, there is a tendency, by default, to diss or even dismiss the others.
What Byers, Hoon and Hewitt did was wrong. What they expected to do was wrong. What others do in taking this money is wrong. Let us not forget that there are hundreds of ex-ministers and ex-MPs who are making fat sums of money by being able to “show off” to sad little businessmen who fawn over such egotistical twats, thinking that they are going to be able to influence government and legislation.

And it is here where I, a person who has always liked to see the negatives in the Tory Party turn.

There is a fabulous website that is frequently quoted in the Guardian that anyone who is interested in politics should look. In fact, I would suggest that everyone who has an opportunity to vote should take a look at this website.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mps/

At first visit, I went to this site to look for the voting patterns of MPs. Once there, I discovered a wealth of information about their earning capacity too.
It is important to note that this refers to sitting MPs only, you know, the ones who earn a salary from attending parliamentary committees and voting in the House, the ones whose job it is to represent us, the people in this democratic place of governance.

Just as a snapshot, take a look at some of the money that these people earn above and beyond their salaries, above and beyond the additional expenses that they seek.
Make sure that you have a hearty breakfast before you do so to ensure that you do not wretch on an empty stomach. It is not pleasant reading.

Take Malcolm Rifkind http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/malcolm_rifkind/kensington_and_chelsea#register
I’m not very good with maths but by my reckoning he is earning £14K in monthly earnings as a director of certain businesses. On top of this, he has received one off payments this year of £10K plus a quarterly pay of £7K from another company. Then there are the vague payments for newspaper articles and the free first class flights to the USA – and these are just the ones declared so far.

I don’t mean to pick on Rifkind, another insipid ex-minister but please can someone tell me how this is right?

Take a look at Ann Widdecombe who is earning a small fortune from writing whilst she is a sitting MP. No wonder she wants to stand down at the next election. Why on earth bother to sit on the green leather seats when you could be sitting at a computer following your passion to write?
Oh dear, Ann Widdecombe and passion in one sentence is not a pretty sight.
She has the foresight to declare all of her interests, including bottles of whisky and garlands of pansies but does this therefore make these payments ok?
I don’t think so.

In fact, if you searched through all of these lists you might be able to find employment for about 10,000 people.
I could write what Miss Widdecombe writes weekly in the Express for half the price, even less if required.
But of course, I am not an ex-minister so I’m not worth £5K for half an hour each week to come up with less than 1000 word commentaries.

It’s not just the Tories, there’s plenty within the ranks of the other parties that are in receipt of all sorts of beneficiaries but there’s big money out there that is making a difference to the political direction of individuals and that cannot be right. And even if their additional work is not consciously directing them to vote in a certain way, it could be subliminally doing so and it is definitely taking them away from the work which they are salaried to do.

And then there’s good old Dennis
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/dennis_skinner/bolsover

Not standing down because his heart is still there in the centre of a fight for democracy, one of the lowest expenses for any sitting MP and not a single declaration of interest because he actually attends parliament and sees that as his day job.

Election time is looming. The official state of purdah starts on Monday with or without the announcement of the General Election.

Can we hope for something better? Can we be aspirational? Can we dream of having a true democracy where power is in the hands of the people and that there is a commitment from those elected to do what they are elected to do rather than lobby and earn huge commissions from elsewhere? Can we expect utmost professionalism and commitment? Can we hope for passion that is guided by the ‘we’ rather than the ‘me’?

Can we have some truly gifted and intelligent human beings in government next time round?

I’d like to say “Yes we can” but it’s Saturday morning and despite Spring and sunshine, I am feeling a little less confident than I did a week ago.

Here’s hoping.

Politicians Calling

Even Michael Heseltine concedes that politicians are not what they used to be. Even I concede that I would rather have the Michael Heseltine’s of this world in the House of Commons than some of the nobody’s that we currently have to endure.
I agreed with almost nothing that the man ever said as he took his place on the green benches, whichever side of the house he was sitting. I enjoyed his banter and criticism of the Thatcher woman but was despondent when he did not always go for the jugular.
Although I have no commonality with his vision, I respect the fact that he holds strong on his fundamentalism and his beliefs. Whilst his idealism is a thousand miles apart from my own, I acknowledge that he has the right to believe and understand that he has a vocation in his political life.

Although he has long since departed from the Commons, he is still committed to doing something in the world. Admittedly, his various ventures are done for profit as well as altruism but one has to respect the fact that he does something, for example, his commitment to the Children and Young People Now magazine that gathers good practice and ideas on how to further guide and support the needs of our next generation.
I suspect that Heseltine doesn’t believe in all the initiatives that are commented on in this magazine but he funds the publication nonetheless, or at least he did.

Heseltine was on the television this week, commenting on the death of Michael Foot. He was sensible enough to admit that there was no similarity of thought between himself and the old man of Labour. He even went as far as to say that Foot was wrong but he respected him for what he was; a passionate English radical.

That is the headline that was used about Michael Foot yesterday, “Ninety-six years in the life of a passionate English radical” – a good headline in my opinion.

It may be a step too far but there is the possibility that Michael Foot really was quite close to being a self-actualised human being. (Socialists have a head start!!)
Obviously, I cannot make such a sweeping statement because I did not know him. I did not live with him and my recollections of his fabulous speeches are deeply entrenched in a memory bank of decades ago. However, the point is that he was not just a career politician. Admittedly, he reached the heights of Leader of the Party but that was not done purely out of self-ambition. He had an absolute passion to make a difference to the masses. This was not a hypothetical hopefulness. It was a real vision and he ardently wanted to see real change and real equality taking shape in this visionless, needy society.

He had other passions too.

He loved writing. He was an arduous reader and not just of politically related tomes. He was an avid football fan; not a follower of the great and successful teams but a smaller, some might say insignificant team from the lower levels of the league, who have probably never played in a cup final at Wembley and probably never will. (Apologies Pilgrim fans – my research has not led me to finding out whether you played on the hallowed ground in your 1980s FA cup semi final). He adored his beloved hometown and enjoyed all that the beautiful county of Devon had to offer.

It is sad that the one phrase that is always dashed out when talking about Michael Foot is the one attributed to Gerald Kaufman who stated that the 1983 manifesto was “the longest suicide note in history”. But it would be quite interesting to return to that now and read how much of the socialist elements within are relevant and needed in our society today. Maybe the “longest suicide note” will find its way into the world eventually.

For Foot was passionate. He believed. He believed in society and a shared responsibility. He believed in self-development and the need to enjoy special aspects of our lives. He believed in the rights of the individual and the importance of the self. He understood the ability to give his thoughts voice. He expressed his passion frequently, sometimes grumpily such was his determination and loathing of certain things that he saw and felt.
That passion is so vital and I wish to goodness there were more politicians on either side of the political spectrum who felt that passion and could convey it to the electorate.

Before I move on to other politicians, I would like to remember my one and only meeting with Michael Foot.

As a child, I was fortunate enough to spend many holidays in London. I loathe and detest much of what London is about but I also love it. It is my adopted home and I do think the connection with the place stems from these frequent childhood visits when we traipsed all over the city. The anecdotes and humour of many of our trips have gone into family folklore – like my mother’s inability to catch a bus in the right direction, or my father’s fury at my cousin’s inability to direct him in traffic. (There was a time when we went over Tower Bridge five times because B couldn’t find the route to direct my Dad to).
One such trip, we did the tour around the streets of Westminster. We stood on the steps of Number 10, something my children are not allowed to do. We walked up and down Whitehall, looking on in awe that our society was being shaped by the grey-coats and hats in these magnificent buildings and we walked towards the Houses of Parliament.

It was a warm February day. It must have been during half term and yet the place was open for business. Did they always have half term breaks?
We were just walking past the gates when this elderly gentleman got off the bus directly next to the building.
He flung himself onto the pavement, walking stick in one hand, newspaper in the other and marched towards his destination.
Nobody else in the family had noticed. They were busy staring up at the clock tower but I watched in amazement at this grey haired man; firstly because I recognized him as a significant person and one of us, but also because he was walking through this hallowed land in his slippers!
I turned to my cousin, siblings and mother to show them this ‘famous man’ from the television, commenting on his brown tartan footwear.

It was probably the first famous person I had ever seen. Years I had been coming down to London, assuming that because everyone lived there, I would bump into these famous folk on every street corner, and here I was standing next to the future leader of the party.
It is possibly why I have always held him dear to my heart, and why, in a stupid and unimportant way, another piece of my childhood died this week.

Yet this is not insubstantial.
It is this sort of encounter that keeps one in touch with these unattainable characters that shape our laws and create the way our society develops. They are actually real people and sometimes we tend to forget that.
Or more importantly, sometimes they forget that too.
I’m not sure you would see frontbenchers these days arriving to work on a red double decker. Security risks would not allow it. I wonder if Michael Foot would flout this and travel his own way nonetheless.

Another visit to London, some years later, also springs to mind. I was walking once more down the streets of Whitehall. It was a school visit and it must have been about 1982. We were on a school outing to the Imperial War Museum and for some reason we had been dropped off near Parliament.
I wandered up the street towards Downing Street, commenting that I sincerely hoped I did not bump into the Prime Minister because I would not be civil to her, and in those days, I was still way too conservative with a small C, and wouldn’t have wanted to upset or annoy my teachers. Goody two shoes me!

One of my teachers was walking directly next to me as we looked at all the departments up and down the street. He asked me questions, such as who is the Home Secretary and what did I think was happening in this department today. I think I surprised him with my knowledge, not just of the general knowledge political facts but my thoughts on who was around and what they were doing.

As we walked past the Cabinet office, who should appear but the Tarzan man himself. Flopping his blond hair around just like his Spitting Image puppet indicated he would, Heseltine stepped onto the street and strutted along.
I can’t say I was as awestruck as when I saw Foot but I did still get a little immature buzz at seeing a famous person and wanting to rush over to him to discuss the Falklands conflict.

The teacher I was with watched in amusement at my excitement which was not just about seeing a member of the cabinet but the whole passion of being here in the heart of politics. I remember quite distinctly him turning to me and pleading with me to take the A-level course in Government and Politics that he had just introduced to the sixth form menu. He wanted the vitality that I had to offer, apparently.
I declined sadly. I wanted to do sociology and my parents weren’t going to let me do two so called soft options. It was always going to be History, English and one other.

Still, I maintained a healthy interest throughout my sixth form and then on into my college days and career. Once more, this must stem from such visits and reiterates the importance of taking children and young people out of their classrooms, away from their text books and out so that they can feel and experience the reality of the political world. We still do not do this enough.

I’ve never really understood people who call themselves apolitical.
I appreciate that I have been more fortunate than most in that my family have always encouraged and created an environment where we constantly talked about real events, visions and ideology. I was also fortunate that I had teachers like my Whitehall companion who, despite me ignoring his pleas to join his group of merry politician makers, still met with me around school, inviting me to discuss the particular political agenda of the day.

By the strangest of coincidences, I have just been interrupted by a friend to remind me that Gordon Brown is talking to the Chilcot inquiry. He mentioned that there are only 284 people on line, listening live to our Prime Minister talking about his involvement in a war that has ostracised so many of the party faithful, that has created a chasm that is unable to be mended for some who feel disenfranchised by this particular action of our government. Where is everyone? They are not all at work.

I really do not know how you could be anything other than fascinated in politics. It isn’t as if it is just one subject. Politics is life; it is education, it is relationships, it is consideration, it is greed. Politics considers prejudice and faith. It tackles inequality and indoctrination. It reiterates inequality and indoctrination.
It is about economics and judgment. It is about war and peace. And it is a whole lot more besides.

We are entering a period of Purdah where local and national authorities are tongue-tied six weeks before an election. Local government officers and politicians are not allowed to do anything that could in any way shape or influence the way people might vote. A new school cannot be created in case it is this act that ensures a liberal vote over a conservative one. National bodies have to stop the Caxton press on documents that could actually help people just in case the receipt of such writing could be seen as the deciding factor for the floating voter.
Yet they are allowed to spread their lies, half-truths and inaccuracies through manifestos and party political broadcasts. How bizarre is that?

Purdah is a weird state but it does show how everything links back to politics and if people think that politics does not enter their lives, they are sadly very wrong indeed.
Politics is life.

And this brings me back to the purpose of my writing today.
We are approaching a general election where the turnout is going to be tragically low. For those of us who are deeply interested, this is an exciting time. We may have the first hung parliament for nearly forty years. The Conservatives should be sweeping the board, yet their decline in the polls show the opposite. This government is loathed by so many of all different political persuasions and yet people will still vote for Labour out of perpetual hope, conviction, history or even apathy to consider other voices.
The electoral system does not enable us to vote in the way that we would like. The bias is established and seems unlikely to be overturned in the near future.

Why are people not interested?

We’ve had the fiasco of MPs expenses and we have seen a tirade of the hopeless and the helpless who vehemently defend their greed with incongruous justification.

And as I write, I am listening to a man who may be passionate about his politics but has lost the vision and has been clouded in far too many decisions that it is unlikely that he is going to maintain his position at Number 10.

I return to Mr. Foot and Heseltine. I remember the cabinet scene from Spitting Image when Thatcher was ordering some food.
Waitress: Would you like to order, Sir?
Thatcher: Steak please
Waitress: How would you like it?
Thatcher: Raw
Waitress: And what about the vegetables?
Thatcher: Oh? They’ll have the same as me…..

Only they weren’t vegetables, were they? They were clever, powerful personalities who just happened to stand for moreorless everything that I despised and disagreed with.
Tebbit and his bike, Cecil and his lover, Lawson and his pot belly, Clark and his charisma.
They all had something. They were all people of substance, however much you disliked their policies.
They were all quite passionate and full of character, otherwise Spitting Image couldn’t have had such fun with them.
On the other side, there were truly great people. I could and did sit and watch Denis Skinner sitting in his hotseat in parliament, subtly waiting for his time to pounce down the necks of both the opposition and his own party. There was the truly monumentous Benn, who on opening his mouth stopped me in my tracks in the same way that Botham used to empty bars as he waved his bat towards the crease.
Kinnock, Smith, even Hattersley made me think, made me consider.
Even the runaways of the David’s and the Shirley’s were worth listening too.

Is it just a childhood memory that makes these people seem so more viable and real than the current collection of bods?

It is ironic really that people are concerned that politics and voting is turning into a personality test.
The contest is between Brown and Cameron with a little bit of Clegg thrown in for good measure, yet these ‘personalities’ are miniscule compared to the wealth on offer a decade or so ago.

Labour will probably lose the next election. There will then be the discussion on who is emerging to lead the party into the recovery that it so desperately needs. But who is there out there?
As long as I can remember, there has always been a clear candidate for succession, often more than one but now, I fear for the future because I cannot see that significant person emerging.

There is going to be a huge amount of new politicians whoever wins. The MP from my youth is standing down after 36 years in parliament; another reminder that my childhood has long since gone.
My only hope is that they show the type of passion and understanding that Bruce George has done for his constituents.
My only hope is that some personable, understanding, compassionate, thoughtful, intelligent people emerge to take politics into the 21st century in a way that is meaningful and gives energy, equity and vitality back to governance.

Politics is life. Life is people. People, good people, people of stature and significance are needed.

The next few weeks are going to be interesting.

Writing again

A friend of mine recently asked me whether I was still blogging and what pseudonym I was using.
I am still blogging only I have been concentrating on other pieces of writing rather than making a regular contribution to this particular one. I need to redress the balance and at least contribute once a week to this blog, where my thoughts on society, life and all are represented.
I’ve been dipping into Comment is Free on the Guardian website, posting the odd comment here and there but not linking my comments with any contribution on this particular blog.

Time to be more organized, I think.

My friend also said “what is the point of blogging if you are not going to share your username with people who would be interested in reading our thoughts?”
Well he has a point, only I am not sure I am ready to ‘come out’, such is my lack of confidence in anyone being remotely interested in what I have to say.
Also, the interest of others is not really my main purpose in writing. The real reason for writing is giving me time to collect and gather thoughts, to meditate on current issues and to have something to look back on, once again reflecting on my thoughts in a specific time.
However, such is the egotism within me I would be most content if someone, friend or an unknown quantity gained, something from my writing.

It is so interesting though how synergy occurs so frequently in my life. Surely one of the reasons for blogging is to give a personal voice and view on the world. I interrupted this particular piece of writing to read another blog, and lo and behold, there is reference in what I was reading to voice, to speaking and listening and to how we do not give our young people enough time in the curriculum, or indeed their lives, to find and express their voice.

So it's voices; it's speaking, and it's listening. Do we grade our students on the power, the clarity, and the expressiveness of their individual voices? Of course not. Thankfully not.

[We care only about the length of their sentences, the number of 'connectives' they use, and whether they deliberately use plenty of 'wow words' - designed to demonstrate a working knowledge of multi-syllabic 'colourful' and 'sophisticated' English adjectives and adverbs.]

Do we grade them on their ability to listen to one another, and their ability to respond and to feed back, and to engage in open and genuine dialogue? Of course not.

We don't value these things - and is it any wonder therefore that we're so useless at them? And the pity is that no-one even cares, or even thinks it matters.

We value what we can measure, and we measure the things that don't even matter. Not any more. That's if they ever did.

Of course, it is not only children who lack the time, energy, purpose and inclination to find their voice. Adults rush around this crazy world thing plenty of thoughts but what do they do with these?
The power of thought and the ability to communicate our thoughts through the spoken or written language singles us out from our fellow animals.
So surely we should stop ignoring this hidden talent of ours and do something to find and develop our voice both individually and collectively. And may be we should share our thought with people who have given the impression of being interested, like-minded or not.

So, I am now setting myself the challenge of trying to write more regularly than I have done so before.
I am not promising myself or anyone else the length and complexity of writing that I have so far offered. The essays here took time, effort and were prompted by a range of complex issues and scenarios. Sometimes my writing may move towards the serious and lengthy. Other times, it will be just as this one is; short, sweet and hopefully to the point.