Turning sixty

Okay, so my 60th birthday is next year, but as my pedantic oldest son, Ben, pointed out. This is my sixtieth year. Tant pis!

Actually, I missed being fifty. I was 51 for two years. Don't ask. I just kept telling people I was 51 - perhaps being born in '51 caused a year long lapsus - was pleased as punch to realise I wasn't 52 and enjoyed being 51 second time round.

Of course, like most of us I guess, chronological age is seperate from how old we feel or sense ourselves to be. In dreams and day to day living, I feel and think of myself as younger - late 40s say - even though my body tells me otherwise. Our internal perception of age is at variance with chronological time.

The Daily Galaxy recently intoned that the first person who will live a thousand years is already born.

In a very real sense, my generation is one of the last generations of homo sapiens. By 2200, if not before, homo sapiens plus will be replacing the older species. Sometimes I get the impression this shift is already taking place.

I'll be happy to make three score years and ten. It has served our species well enough for some ten millenia. I do wonder how our fractured societies will manage the transition to living 100, 150 and 200 years.

My wife Cathy comes from a long lived family, many living into their nineties. I am already the oldest male of my paternal line in four generations.

This reflection will be continued. Here's to two years of being sixty.

Garrison Keiler tale from Lake Woebegone

Two state workers cutting tops of trees at risk. Late afternoon sets in a snow blizzard, decide to go home. Cherry Picker truck develops problems, drive 20 miles in first gear as snow gets thicker. Stop to check engine. A tarpaulin flap had come loose, flipped lever and platform fully raised. Twenty miles of copper telephone wire dragged behind them. Cut wires, one says 'better call emergency' other replies 'lines are down!' Drive home, decide to keep schtum, jobs and all.

To this day folk in West Minnesota still remember snow blizzard when primeaval creature stalked the county fur, large footprints, chewed cable found. Used to warn children about snow blizzards.

Hung Parliament and a second election in 2010

If the polls continue their current trends, a hung parliament and a second election in the autumn becomes very likely.

This could be the year of the duelling budgets.

Cameron is commited to a budget in 50 days, late June, and a summer parliament to pass the budget.

Should the Tories manage a minority government, the Tory budget risks defeat followed by an October election.

A close result would encourage Labour to stick with Brown to fight an autumn poll.

Both Labour and Tories should study the short lived Joe Clark Canadian government of 1979-80. Clarke lost his budget vote and lost the subsequent election. Despite 13 years in power the Liberals, under Trudeau, stormed back to power with a small majority.

Brown and Labour could do the same. Like Cameron, Joe Clarke failed "to seal the deal". People preferred a Trudeau budget over Clarke's.

Georgie 'boy' Osborne's GCSE June budget could well be a vote loser.

Personally, I expect a Labour government either with a small majority or a Labour minority.

Osborne's GCSE economics is Cameron's Achilles heel. A Tory summer budget would be an autumn vote loser. People in the media forget what a formidable opposition performer Gordon Brown is and would be.

There will be no summer hols for MPs this year, unless Brown wins.

Why I will vote Labour in 2010

In November 2008, I met an old school friend, David Cheetham, that I have known for more than 40 years.

I told him unequivocally I would vote Cameron. I was totally opposed to ID cards and Cameron promised to scrap them.

Then I began to follow Cameron and Osborne's insane response to the global banking crisis.

I watched as Brown and Darling galvanised the global political and financial community during the haitus of the US presidential transition. By the time of Obama's inauguration, I had swung behind Brown and Darling. The Tories economic policy made no sense - it still doesn't. Then Cameron sided with east european homophobes, neo-fascists and anti-semites.

I swallowed my distaste of ID cards, which I still abhor, and supported Labour.

Brown impressed me over the G20 negotiations while Cameron and Osborne flailed in economic irrelevence.

More and more Cameron reminded me of the vacuous Blair.

As Brown and Ed Miliband - a far more astute politician than his dork of a brother David - began to address COP15 and climate crisis my mind was made up. The Tories made no sense on climate issues.

The two most pressing issues of 2009-10, climate crisis and banking crisis, Cameron and Osborne had little to say. What they did say was absurd.

A year later, I have yet to hear the Conservatives make sense on any issue. I shall listen carefully to Cameron these next few weeks.

I won't hold my breath.

On Gordon Brown

Some weeks back, John Rentoul wrote an article mildly praising Gordon Brown. I wrote the following in response. It was on the Independent site for several hours and then removed. A comment by Ron Broxted was also lost. I don't know why Dr Rentoul removed it. It was not offensive, judge for yourself. Fortunately, my wife copied it to her site and it follows below.

"Chapeau John Rentoul"

While I might disagree with you about Blair, Anthony Seldon's baleful and forlorn wail for humility from Blair was majesterially trumped by John Arlidge in other parishes today.

This is a generous and acute assessment of Brown.

Both at G20 over the global banking crisis and this past week at COP15, Brown has shown a rare talent for international leadership and consensus building. He and the EU may have come away from Copenhagen empty handed but Brown won the moral argument on climate crisis.

Gordon Brown's principled stand beside Africa and the world's poorest countries, his insistence on firm figures for carbon reduction and defence of the need for transparency was statesmanship of a very high order.

The global stage will be diminished by his absence - whether on climate change or the global economy.

Extraordinarily and uniquely, he understands both issues in depth. He is also aware of the intimate link between the two. We have every right to be proud that he represents the UK and EU in such fora.

Many Tory and Blairite trolls may mock but their venom is no more than bile or self-loathing.

Brown has helped set high standards and high expectations - supported by Africa, the EU + others, not least NGOs, thanks to Brown and Ed Miliband the bar of climate change success has been set very high.

On climate and economic crisis: "We must all hang together or we will all hang seperately"

Mercia

It is a pity that the English failed to seize the initiative and establish regional government during New Labour's dalliance with constitutional reform.

It is rumoured that Jack Straw was opposed and sabotaged any glimmer of interest. Be that as it may, the English lost the initiative and now may be condemned to administrative localism and centralised governance.

Mercia would have made an excellent regional structure - province - of some 8 million people. The First Minister of Mercia would have been one of the leading political figures in a revitalised UK.

A Mercian Parliament could have sought legislative powers over banking, health, education, industry, welfare and a measure of taxation. It could have built on the region's engineering and manufacturing tradition and prepared better its youth for 21st century employment.

Lord Toby Harris has given much thought to issues of governance. I hope he can convince the next government to revisit constitutional renewal.

Think! What thinking?

I have moved from Independent Minds to blogspot. I shall retain the Livejournal site for comments on the Independent and a meditation on Time. It can be found on the right under T'ai.