Why Cameron doesn't want you

So Mr Cameron today unveiled his mighty new manifesto in the bold hope that it represents something completely unique, an unparalleled document so unalike to any other political party it would almost make us want to clean his shiny bicycle every morning. The truth is the Conservative manifesto seems to have fallen flat right at the moment when it should have underpinned Mr Cameron's growing sense of complacency as to who will win the election on May 6th. It offers little or no major alternatives to Mr Browns own manifesto published yesterday, other than the fact that Mr Cameron seems to believe that the way to cure the countries budget deficit it so punish the public sector.

Now the Tory party’s language over the past few months, especially George Osborne’s has at best been annoying and at worst a full fish-slap across the face. How can he possibly say, in many public speeches, that we are all in this together?? I had absolutely nothing to do with this mess; neither did 99% of the population, so the audacity to stand on his platform and give us some public-relations smothered spiel about how we all have to do our bit stinks of hypocrisy of the worst kind. Now the main focus of the Tories successful campaign, and let’s face it- they will win, is that within 50 days of the general election they will enforce an emergency budget. In this 'emergency' budget they will lay down their plans for a massive overhaul of the £128 billion budget deficit on far greater scale than that of the Labour Party. Within this budget the Tories will announce massive public sector cuts, something which, if you think about Labour's massive public sector spending is fair enough, but what the Tories are proposing is to hand out the 'punishment' of the recession squarely at the feet some of the hardest working and in most cases over-worked people in the land.

This is no more evident than with teachers, who for years now have seen their profession turned from one of the most inspiring and important roles in society to arguably one of the most frustrating. Held back by years of a government who believes that whatever the rights of the teacher, they will always come second place to the rights of the child, including in this the fact that to discipline a pupil is a near myth nowadays. In fact, one child was allowed to stay in a friend’s classroom for 6 months even though everyday the child attacked other children, other staff and caused mayhem on a 'Damien' scale. The answer to this was to put him in another room to 'play games' or to reward him for not smashing the face of the teaching assistant. Now although this is surely (and hopefully) an isolated incident it is part of a much wider problem. Teachers are asked to perform miracles and it can't continue. They are castigated for not hitting targets when this should never be a target driven profession, they are bullied into 'controlling' violent children and then vilified for not doing so, they are given paperwork after paperwork when they should be teaching and marking and are given responsibilities to teach all children at the same level, even if some pupils are clearly not capable. In what other profession would this be allowed to happen? On top of this they have the 'privilege' of having to put in 80 hours plus per week.

And what is the Tories answer to this? There answer is to freeze all public sector pay for at least 1 year, with the probably intention to make that three years. So in a profession where they are social worker, prison guard, crowd control, admin assistant, learning assistant and a multitude of others they are now being asked to effectively take a pay cut? Is that fair? Is it fair that the blokes who have cleaned the gutters, mended the bin lorries, cut the hedges, shovelled the shit and sick off the street for forty years now be asked to work till they are 66 and accept a much reduced 'slap in the face' rate of pension??

Now if Mr Osborne thinks we are all in this together, I ask you this. Let’s sacrifice your pension, give you a classroom of inner-city school children to teach and then tell you we are taking away your money. No My Osborne I don't think we are...

Grief

Three years have passed and still the throbbing sensation of hurt lingers on. People say that the stages of grief are somehow scientifically proven to resemble a process with an eventual end point. What they fail to realise is the complexity of the human spirit and how this ‘process’ can be dramatically inconsistent person to person. Deep inside I know this numbness of emotion probably won’t heal and that nothing I do or say will ever make me the person I once was. Losing close friends or family is the ultimate dejection, leaving people with that unbearable feeling in the pit of the stomach of pure desperation. But for some it is more periodical, constantly nagging away at you, resurfacing when you least expect it. Looking around you feel completely disconnected with everything and everybody, constantly envious of their pain-free existence but constantly guilty of wanting to put your problems on theirs.

I lost my brother in December 2006, just before Christmas. At the time of his illness (a kind of cancer which goes everywhere) it all seemed very surreal. I myself was nearly 300 miles away at university which kind of put me on the periphery of what was going on, neither shielding me from the pain nor preparing me for the inevitable outcome. Three years on and the pain seems to reverberate around my consciousness like a dove stuck in a barn, hitting the rafters every now and then. It’s a strange situation, knowing that most of the people you know will never have to go through this, its as if bitterness has become your one true emotion knowing that for most people the worst thing they will feel will never compare to what you have been through.

Still, three years…time certainly makes a difference. For me it has lead to myriad of questions both consciously and more importantly, subconsciously. It is the latter which is taking more extracting, meaning help from unbiased professionals who don’t seem to do much other than recap and summarise, it is these things which seem to be their most valuable trait.

Grief is such a complex emotion.