A New Kind Of Politics

Jeremy Corbyn is now leader of the Labour Party. The thought of a left-wing socialist securing the Labour leadership has been, for decades, unthinkable. I'll be honest. I didn't vote for Jeremy Corbyn, for reasons I will try to explain later. There is no doubt that a huge shift has taken place within the Labour Party. Although a sea change, took place 40 years ago, in 1975, where the Tories elected what they considered to be a rank outsider for their leader. This rank outsider became the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher.

British people are amenable to change in either political direction, where they believe that beneficial social and economic change is possible. Margaret Thatcher's government was clearly not Ted Heath's or Harold Macmillan's 'one nation' Conservatism where the nation's prosperity would surely 'trickle down' to the working classes. 

Sadly Margaret Thatcher's government brought about no meaningful social change. The only radical changes she brought about was generate the huge gap between the rich and the poor and the isolation of the poor and the sick. The only prosperity she did bring about was the promotion of the already fairly comfortable working class to more comfortable middle class people. Margaret Thatcher said she believed that there is no society. She believed that the needs of the individual were sovereign, outweighing the needs of the many. A posh way of saying it's OK to be selfish and hang everyone else.

After Jeremy won on Saturday, September 12, 2015, a number of Labour MPs, who find themselves insufficiently 'Corbynite', are now 'considering their futures'.
While many Labour MPs may well agree with Jeremy's aims and objectives. (It is, after all, like stating that you're in favour of holidays, ice cream and sunshine), they may disagree about the method.

Jeremy Corbyn supports: 

• no tax cuts to the rich, (in addition, asking them to pay more tax).
• closing of the non-dom tax exile loophole
• quantitative easing to facilitate growth, which can be consolidated later when the economy improves
• opposing air strikes over Syria 
• yes to remaining within EU (although looking to renegotiate terms)
• re-nationalising the railways and also the big 6 energy companies

All of the above enjoys huge public support right now. 

All of these actions, if successfully executed, would bring about much needed additional tax revenues, without hurting jobs. Indeed more likely to create jobs. So any studies into this, which the Corbyn leadership has done, will be shown to be practical and not merely ideologically driven. This may explain why the Tories are curiously quiet on these issues at the moment.

A few hours after being elected, a recovered Jeremy Corbyn, began to spell out the success story that he believes is unfolding, which will enrich the Labour Party. For years, people have been complaining that New Labour was so close to the Tories in terms of manifesto content and pledges that it was seen to be over-cautious and more importantly, too Tory. This has translated into people voting for UKIP, BNP, Green and Respect as well as socialist-alternative parties.  

I think it is fair to assume that these voters, voted the way they did because they felt that Labour no longer spoke for them. Many believed that Labour seemed to speak more for public sector workers who were probably middle class as well. It seems to reasonable to assume that many of these wayward voters seem to be returning to Labour as Labour is now their preferred party, which they feel, now speaks for them.

More importantly than that, Jeremy Corbyn's Labour leadership has already been talking of truth and reconciliation. Familiar themes, in Nelson Mandela's post Apartheid South Africa. These ideas are very necessary ones for a party who has lost touch with its grass-roots. Further, it is vital to establish a meaningful dialogue to enable the people we have lost, to return to Labour and make them feel welcome again.  

Labour Party membership has reached the highest in its entire history. A few hours later he supported the protest through London which supported the welcoming of the refugees. Even the Conservatives admit that he is a conviction politician. He seems to be a politician who is in politics give him an opportunity to bring about real change for the better in British life, both social and economic, for all.

I was left wondering why I didn't support Jeremy Corbyn as he supports so many of the core socialist values that I do. I made the mistake that because I don't share the same space on the Labour Party political spectrum as Jeremy, well.....perhaps I will never know! Perhaps I was wrong. What is certain is that I can use my my time and energy and my financial resources, with renewed enthusiasm to back a Corbyn victory in 2020.

I believe that Labour's future will be best served by supporting Jeremy Corbyn, however we voted. I believe his contesting David Cameron for the number 10 job is perfectly achievable. Why shouldn't it be? It's true that people may feel that a more left wing brand of Labour wouldn't fit comfortably in the increasingly middle class Britain now. 

But given the higher levels of austerity to come, and this governments' inability to create a solution that works, then I truly believe that given high public support already in 2015 for Jeremy Corbyn's aims and objectives then by 2020 he could not only achieve a Labour victory, but a substantial Labour one. 
My conclusion? My Labour Party has just got more exciting!

Happiness

Our government wants to know if we’re happy.

This is refreshing news.

I can’t recall any previous government before asking us this question. Our governments seem to be permanently locked into a continuous battle of capital versus labour. Occasionally, they say they've seen a "third way" - but I notice that it's still all rates of mortgages, unemployment that figure in their election leaflets, defining their successes. So it's not suprising that we’re still left with the same old questions. We still have a society that bases itself on citizens being enriched by hard currency, alone and not being happy, after all.

“Are we happy?”

“Is being happy what we’re supposed to be here for?”

“Are we supposed to be happy?”

We, in the west, are pretty sold on the idea, that happiness isn’t about money. I’m not at all sure about that. As someone who’s never had much money, I can tell you that there is little happiness in being poor. I have been happy, in spite of being poor. If I suddenly became rich, I predict that I would use money to free myself and those who I love, from the stress and worry that goes with not having enough money to pay the bills.

We babyboomers were not poor in a sense that our parent’s generation understood. Being poor, these days, is often a very relative state. Our parents did not have enough money to buy enough food. Actually, pretty well all parents in those days were poor. Our generation feels deprived when we can’t send our kids to school in the same trainers. So we’re aware of a bigger rich/poor gap. The pain we feel is not because we don’t have the same, it’s because we are made to feel excluded because we’re told we have failed to have the same.

If our society were more “poor-friendly” we would feel no pain about not having the same material wealth and things as our richer peers. We would simply be living different lives and we wouldn’t be feeling that our lives were somehow “inferior” just because we were poor.

Being a socialist, I am much more inclined to believe that if we were brave enough to try for a much more equal society, not only poorer people would be happier, but rich people would be too. Poor families can often be very creative when it comes to being happy. An evening with a box full of clothes, where people can dress up as a pirate or a policeman can be sometimes surprisingly wonderful. We are truly playing.

That's not to say that I wouldn’t turn my nose up at the latest Nintendo Wii, Playsation or X-Box, but neither would I turn my nose up at the box full of pirate costumes either. Or a game of "shove ha'penny".

Consider these quotes about happiness:

“Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.”

Groucho Marx

“The basic thing is that everyone wants happiness, no one wants suffering. And happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors. If your own mental attitude is correct, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy.”

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

The surprising thing is that each of those quotes could’ve been written by the other author. And yet, how differently we view Groucho Marx from Tenzin Gyatso the,14th Dalai Lama. We appear to be very much in unison about what happiness really is.

I can bear this wisdom out personally.

"Have no friends not equal to yourself."

Confucious (551 - 497 BC) Chinese philosopher.

Nothing is more miserable than when you don’t feel equal to someone who you’re trying to be friends with.

My life has been very varied. I have probably done it all, compared to a lot of folk. I have been married, and now, I am single again. My single life is not spent in miserable isolation, which is what many people have wondered about, when I tell them about my singleness. Perhaps I am happy being single and living alone, with no intention to become part of a couple again, precisely because I have had experience of being married. I have, like my mother, spent most of my life, living a life where I am often alone, so emotionally, that I am used to it and now have the emotional intelligence to actually relish my aloneness.

As an atheist, my idea of happiness is not seeing this life as a prelude to a better life to come. Suppose there isn't one? Wouldn't we feel cheated about.... Oh, I suppose we wouldn't know whether or not we had lived our lives not in a way that we could have chosen, had we known what would be in store for us, if you see what I mean?

A terminally ill patient usually lives life to the full. Somehow a mental, emotional focus, that eludes many of us, takes over. They do say live your day as though it were your last, don't they?

Aloneness is not interchangeable with unhappiness. It’s simply a different way of living. I found that out from a friend who is truly inspiring on lone living at its best. She packs her art, her love of creating it, learning all about history and making it her business to know about the fascinating city she lives in. Learning and the excitement you feel as it evolves you, really rocks her world. You could say that she is living life to the full, as though it were her last day.

Happiness is universal. The pathways to it are myriad. Mine is music, writing and astronomy. One never really knows why we are here. Created, evolved, sent here, who knows? It's a fair bet that while we are here, the pursuit of happiness is probably a pretty damn good shot at guessing the right reason as to why we're here. And even if that's the correct reason, well, who cares?

The government may well define happiness in a completely different way to me. So now, if the government really are serious about wanting to know whether I'm happy, what do I put on the flippin' form?