Political pensées

I'm currently feeling quite well disposed towards our elected representatives in Westminster so I thought I'd mention it while it lasts.

• I recently signed the petition against HMG's plan to sell off the forests which also led to emailing my MP, Miss Nicola Blackwood. A nice letter received yesterday assured me that while she thinks her lot are more on the right track than the last lot (no surprises there), she does have reservations about the plans that she wants clarified before she votes on anything. And she wasn't able to attend the entire debate on the matter because she needed to be in her constituency at a meeting in support of local libraries. Okay. Go girl.
• Over 50 MPs signed a motion asking the Immigration Minister to intervene in the case of a Ugandan woman about to be deported back to Uganda and almost certain persecution, quite possibly death. The case is to be reviewed.
• They have quite decisively told the European Court of Human Rights where to get off. Not always a good thing but in this case I have no objections.
• David Cameron let David Hasselhoff put his arm round his shoulders and call him "buddy".
• The Speaker has a sense of humour. "Opposition members' hearing is playing tricks with them. They didn't hear what they thought they heard."

There are of course drawbacks as well. Things like the expenses scandal are just background noise by now: no, current reservations centre around the Hoff's new buddy.

• Guess what - he's making the rich richer. He is not an evil man and he's not doing it for the sheer thrill of putting money into his friends' pockets. Thatcher was motivated by spite and ideology in equal part; with Dave it's just ideology, sadly misplaced. He is sincere in his belief that everyone benefits by making the rich richer, just as his predecessor but one was sincere in his belief that you can create paradise on earth with a web of ever more restricting legislation on every aspect of human affairs that will be perfect if everyone only obeys it in exactly the spirit they're meant to. And they're both equally wrong.
• The Big Society: see above. Lovely idea and fine in a world where everyone is as Dave would like them to be. Which they're not, as brilliantly put by Philip Pullman in a speech mostly about libraries but covering other bases too.

At the moment that's still more plus points than minuses, which is a nice feeling.