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g intro on youtube just as david instructed we went on to talk about the challenges in our areas everyone spoke about an issue close to their hearts andy got very exercised about broadband speeds diane found the new recycling system terribly confusing and the entryist his plate bulging from all the food he d helped himself to found a way to fit tories and cuts into every other sentence emily started banging on about her women s issues mentioning some refuge that d had its funding cut as she spoke i wondered quietly whether she might join my movement for change after all i would have to ask her at the end of the night 3 what frustrates you about the labour party and why how can we change that during and after david s leadership campaign oh don t mention the war joked the entryist his mouth full with scotched eds i tossed him my most studied scowl and moved the discussion along yes well we would all make better decisions if we had time machines wouldn t we now what about i was never keen diane interrupted on the way they seemed to like micromanaging our lives in what way i asked fully expecting a well meaning but endearingly daft response well they did seem to spend an awful lot of time telling people how they should live all those scary adverts about what we drink and what we eat and all that time telling people where they can and can t smoke it all just got a bit silly really when labour was in power i bet house parties even had instruction manuals hear hear andy replied too much of this nanny state i slipped david s instruction manual under the couch and hoped no one had seen me use it this was clearly another one of diane s off message ideas but since the manual didn t mention anything about crushing dissent i let it stand and moved onto the next talking point what can you do to get david elected over the coming months a silence fell the guests started fiddling with their food gazing into the distance checking their phones i suppose this was to be expected i mean none of them had yet embarked on my own journey of community organising so how were they meant to know how to elect a leader they had to be directed of course i decided to get the ball rolling myself well we ve already taken the first big step by meeting here but what i found helpful was the phone rang i stared at it panic stricken for the first three rings was that really him what would i say was it too informal to call him david you gonna get that emily enquired i lifted the phone and turned on the speaker hello david miliband here hope you re all having a great evening my guests expressions were a picture i bet none of them believed i had the clout to land a phone call from david and here they were listening to his polite cerebral tones through the speakerphone i had made it hi david we re having a fantastic time here some really good discussions about the challenges facing our community and lots of ideas about how our movement for change can make you leader of the labour party that s very good to hear and obviously i m delighted to have so many people in err basingstoke yes basingstoke it s obviously nice to have the people of basingstoke involved in the campaign now i gather you have some significant community figures in attendance tonight my staff tells me you even have a school headmaster could i lie to a former foreign secretary a man who stared down some first rate deceivers and outwitted them all a man who had a close working relationship with hillary clinton surely he would see through me oh yes michael s here just helping himself to a few nibbles i gestured over to where i imaged mr knightley would be standing and took another good swig of my milibomb andy looked at me like i d gone mad a bit rich for a man who spends half his life thrashing around the internet under the alias of sexy_goblin great do you think i could have a quick word oh is there a problem the problem was that i hadn t seen where all of this had been leading i was so swept up in the tension of planning the euphoria of the moment that i never stopped to think about what this evening was really about this wasn t an evening for little people like me to become important but for david to find people who were already important the doctors lawyers councillors head teachers people who already have the following of others so what was i to do would i finally admit that my whole meeting had been a defeat or would i try to make sure that david wasn t disappointed in me no no problem at all i ll just pass him on for you all the school nativities in the world wouldn t have prepared me for the feat of acting i was about to attempt i finished my drink straightened my back and turned away from the guests i lowered my voice by nearly an octave if i pull this off i thought i m going to sound a little like patrick stewart good evening david michael knightley here the details of the conversation are a private matter between david and mr knightley but i can tell you that the talks were very productive david shared his outrage at the scrapping of his school building programme and congratulated him on the excellent exam results for his part mr knightley praised mr miliband s speeches on education and pledged to become a party member this very evening quite how the real mr knightley would feel about this pledge would be another matter the conversation ended i put down the telephone my guests were all wearing the most indescribable expressions they looked at me as if i d done something terrible something like advocating the legalisation of drugs scrapping trident or reinstating clause 4 i knew there was now no point carrying on with the event i unfolded the house meeting manual and went straight to the closing remarks i cleared my throat i hope you have enjoyed this evening it s been really interesting hearing your stories tonight and it just shows the need for us to organise in our local community whatever our different perspectives on the issues discussed tonight one thing is clear that we can achieve more together than we can on our own i glanced over at emily she stared down at her shoes with the speech finished the guests were dying to leave diane reminded me to return the tin that kept the gluten free brownies andy tapped me on the back with the suggestion that i might want to go get help the entryist filled his plate and flashed a smug bloated smile emily was last out of the door i helped her with her coat and said y know if you ever wanted to meet up sometime to discuss how you could be a part of david s movement for change we could i m still for ed she interrupted looking somewhere between apologetic and concerned your guy will probably win but i just think that if you re going to give all your time and energy to something like this it should at least be for something you can get excited about even after tonight i still don t know what your guy believes in for what it s worth she said as she left the house i think you could ve thrown a great party without the help of some instruction manual i shut the door removed the cabinet office sign in the living room turned on the stereo and poured another drink before slumping into an armchair in just a few hours i d won the respect of the next leader of the labour party and the derision of my friends i d been a party host a political aide and a secondary school head teacher and all i d really gained was a phone call with someone who didn t want to talk to me a tin full of gluten free chocolate brownies and an apparent addiction to strawberry schnapps i bet david plouffe never had this trouble as the stereo cranked out an old tune from a fondly remembered past i concluded that it will all have been worth it if i played some small role in getting david elected things can only get better the singer promised i hope so because right now things could hardly be worse note none of this actually happened selected reading 09 08 10 august 9 2010 at 10 44 pm posted in misc 4 comments i ll finally be moving my stuff down to london this weekend so i m afraid you may have to make do with a few more of these mr civil libertarian offers his take on libertarianism bensix argues that our overuse of hate simply diminishes its meaning the guardian publishes one of tony judt s final essays the new york review of books also has a pretty extensive archive joe klein charts the failure of an iraq war he supported undeterred by their utter failure to kill gay marriage in california conservative groups are now training their fire on marijuana meanwhile ross douthat tries to present a reasonable humane case against gay marriage glenn greenwald amanda marcotte steve benen all give him a good walloping in the new statesman ashley sayeau looks at the clinton era welfare reforms and worries about what they mean for britain and finally for those of you who remember warren g s 1994 hit regulate but aren t all too hip to the lingo wikipedia offers a wonderfully funny synopsis selected reading 06 08 10 august 6 2010 at 10 59 am posted in misc leave a comment am traipsing around the north east until saturday so these will have to do til then paperback rioter has a good guest post on the church of england s long overdue ordination of women bishops george packer has a long illumiating report on the parlous state of the united states senate hampton stevens explains why cheerleading isn t a sport but croquet is fair enough just don t get me started on formula 1 celia perry a daughter of a lesbian couple explains what the prop 8 ruling in california means to her meanwhile her president remains resolutely rubbish on gay marriage anthony burt assesses whether the british film industry is dead at the guardian paul lester reckons he s got a playlist of the best artists of 2010 anyone seen anything good that i haven t spotted feel free to share below the social in social housing august 4 2010 at 9 52 pm posted in conservative party david cameron social policy 6 comments there are plenty of reasons why people who could afford to leave social housing opt not to do so the most obvious of course is cost even if you did have the resources to find yourself private accommodation you might prefer living in social housing if it leaves you with a little extra money for food clothes transport a night out and the odd holiday the second is the security that social housing can offer not every private landlord is as scrupulous as a local housing association and the further down the price scale you go the less security you re likely to have social housing can offer considerably more peace of mind for tenants another reason is community people might just prefer the part of the world they re staying in they re on good terms with the neighbours their parents live up the road their kids go to the local school they re used to seeing and socialising with the same faces they belong why would they want to leave those social networks that familiarity behind although the first two reasons will be most commonly cited by those concerned about david cameron s social housing announcement i think the third reason is potentially the most significant functionalist sociologists more often linked with the political right than the left often talk about a thing called social solidarity they believe that social harmony is best achieved by members of a community all sharing similar norms values lifestyles histories and traditions they re the things that bind us together that give us common ground and foster neighbourliness and a public spirit now that theory might have holes in it but a glance at our nation s past suggests there s at least some truth there when you look at our post war history many episodes of social unrest on the british mainland have had high population turnover as a contributing factor long time residents saw their communities changing before their eyes and didn t who their neighbours were newcomers would be sent to areas they didn t know alongside people whose culture and language they didn t always share whilst most communities were and still are open minded enough to adapt the changes around them no thanks to you know who those areas with acute social exclusion and economic inactivity would regard their new neighbours as competitors for resources that were already are already in short supply even then bonds were and still are built over time the newcomers stick around form relationships and embrace the community around them the long time residents begin to work and socialise and relate to the people they might once have treated with mistrust solidarity grows none of this is meant to diminish the problems afflicting some of britain s housing estates rather it s meant suggest that the introduction of arbitrary fixed term leases could make matters worse if we know that a high turnover of population can erode the bonds which hold communities together it is not far fetched to conclude that a policy which leads to residents constantly moving on could erode those bonds further if that happens we should expect greater mistrust dysfunction and social unrest in deprived communities like they need that right now i really don t want to be one of those people who brings out the big society as a gotcha to thrash the coalition with each time they announce questionable policy but a big society is no substitute for an understanding of how society actually works david cameron famously admitted that there is such a thing as society it s just not the same thing as the state he was right on both counts but if his coalition continues to act as if state and society are two entirely separate entities he will never unbreak the britain he inherited what s missing from the debate on welfare reform august 2 2010 at 1 18 pm posted in british politics social policy working class britain leave a comment it s worth recognising that the new conservative rhetoric on welfare is somewhat different from that which has gone before for over two decades it was a mainstream belief that the blame for welfare dependency lied with the claimants themselves encouraged by the sub sociological pretensions of charles murray it was common to speak of an underclass of people who had voluntarily opted for welfare over work if you accepted this assumption it was logical that the only way of restoring responsibility was through a more austere welfare regime which could force them to take work in the current debate on welfare reform the traditional rhetoric of responsibility remains but the focus has shifted away from the supposed personal faults of welfare dependents and towards the mediation between claimants the state and the jobs market it s no longer commonplace to hear the unemployed dismissed as lazy or feckless but rather that the state has created disincentives to work there are elements of this change of tack which should be welcomed it is a positive step for conservatives to acknowledge that the long term unemployed are not simply 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