Friday Evening

I am still coming to terms with the new Lib/Con coalition Government. I have read their joint policy statement and minus abandoning Trident and pulling the troops out of Afghanistan it's not a bad job. One I could sign up to.

The Left have already started their return to the 80's theme mostly written by people actually too young to remember the 80's.

I remember the 80's. I was a student and then umemployed and living in Hulme in Manchester between 1981 and 1983. It was grim. Most people in the area were unemployed.Drugs (heroin, glue) were rife, crime was endemic. We tried to stay but we gave up after a year of part time unemployment after graduation in 82 and moved down to London for a job my wife had got with the GLC.
I walked into Tooting Job centre the day we moved down and next day I was working. The guy who booked me at the Job centre nearly spat out his tea when I told hin how long I had been unemployed (1 year). I still remember his incredulous
" 1 year!!!?? Nobody's unemployed that long!" I replied "They are up there", but I don't think he believed me.

I could say we got on our bikes and looked for work (ouch that hurts)but actually at the time we were incredibly sad to be leaving Manchester behind.

The rest of the 80's was pubs and clubs and cocktails and holidays. It was pretty good living and working in London in the 80's. But I remember coming up regularly to Newcastle where it clearly wasn't. It was like a time warp both in fashion and attitude and career opportunities that really didn't knock.

What did it all mean, I don't know. Life just washes over most of us really and we don't get to control a lot of what happens to us- like my wife's redundancy last year. We float on the tide and hope we will make the shore.Most of the time we try and not think about it all.

So I am optimistic about this new coalition. The cuts will come but life will go on for most of us. Labour would have had to make cuts as well and they have taken defeat at the Polls very well. Probably because they think they will avoid being blamed for it all.

I, for one, won't forget their reckless endangerment of the country's finances by failing to regulate the Bankers. I won't forget their failure to renationalise the Railways and the Gas and Electricty companies. I won't forget ID cards, Iraq, Afghanistan, crazy NHS computerisation bio metric passports, the phoney war on terror, the ending of an absolute right to trial by jury. I could go on but I prefer to hope that things can only get better.