What *does* "a Stronger Economy and Fairer Society" mean?

If you're a Lib Dem reading this - and there's a fair chance you are - then you would have to have been hiding under a rock for some time not to know that our we want "a stronger economy and a fairer society, allowing everyone to get on in life".

But then, who doesn't want that? It's fairly meaningless unless we relate these aims to policy - things achieved through the coalition, party policy and local policies. Not only that, but we need to relate those policies to people's everyday lives where we can (although the messaging medium may restrict the scope of what can be said!)

Not only that but when spreading the word - we need to be "on message, in volume, over time" - there are no quick fixes and no magic bullet. It's going to be down, in large part, to activists to do it: whether it's by sticking leaflets through doors, through local campaigns, through the media or online.

For online messaging of course, one tool that can be used is Twitter. It's not the be all and end all but it is good for the dissemination of information and shouting about our achievements, repeatedly.

Over the past few days, I've been trying to do this using a couple of hashtags that link back to our slogan: #AStrongerEconomyMeans and #AFairerSocietyMeans. Here's some I made earlier - why not have a go at sharing some of your own?:


Andrew

Book Review - Blankets

Blankets is a book I would never have come across if I hadn't heard it discussed and recommended on Radio 4's A Good Read (you can hear the episode in question here, UK only, I think...) 

Aside from loving the work of Raymond Briggs as a child, particularly Fungus the Bogeyman and When the Wind Blows, I had never read a Graphic Novel nor had they ever appealed.

The radio discussion intrigued me though and so I found myself looking for the book in the library. Having come across a copy of the aforementioned When the Wind Blows, my vision alighted on the 582 tome that is Blankets.

Blankets isn't so much a novel as an Autobiography. The narrator is the teenage Craig Thompson, a Christian teenager struggling with juggling his faith and burgeoning sexuality.

The first chapter sets the background of his childhood in a Christian family, living in fear of his strict, disciplinarian father, sharing a room (and a bed) with his brother, making the most of his imagination to help make life bearable. In the second chapter, we meet his first love, Raina, at a Christian summer camp - and the rest of the book revolves around a two-week trip he makes to stay with her and her family. A series of flashbacks are then used to flesh out the earlier years.

The blankets of the title are a recurring theme - the blankets he shared with his brother, the blanket he receives as a gift from Raina, snowfall - and various represent protection from the outside world, a means of escape, a token of love and a blank canvas on which to make a mark... This last interpretation is the end point - the author's journey ending in the satisfaction of having related his story.

It's not, though, a conventional love story - and whilst we may be rooting for Craig and Raina, all too soon it becomes clear that their fling is just a fling. Nor is it an ideal - or idealised - story of childhood; Thompson more than hints at sexual abuse at the hands of a babysitter as a child as well as more general abuse from his father. Primarily, it is a tale of teenage angst but his faith adds an angle not often covered in such tales.

Perhaps I was particularly drawn to this due to the familiarity of the scenarios painted. Abuse aside, Blankets has a number of similarities to my own upbringing. I felt huge empathy for Thompson and the dilemmas he faced as he tried to reconcile his feelings, emotions and urges with his faith and the teachings of his church.

The book is beautifully drawn, with great use made of the flexibility of the graphic medium to explode the conventional frame-by-frame approach and allow the pictures to reflect the emotions and scope of the story. Although nearly 600 pages in length, Blankets is a quick read, but it's no less of a good read for that. I highly recommend it - and I will be reading more of Thompson's work, and more in the genre too.

Andrew

Sunday Sounds 74 - Firework

Baby, You're a Firework...

OK, maybe not a dead firework...

Andrew

Pride

Here's a sentence I wasn't expecting to write today:

I should have been going to Bristol's Pride, but other plans got in the way.

Pride. It's never been my thing, as I've discussed on these pages before. My sexuality is incidental, not fundamental, to my identity. My politics have primarily been about other issues. 

Pride. It's something that I find a difficult concept in relation to being gay, as I do of *just being* Scottish or British. But just as I'm proud of things many Scots and Brits have done and contributed to the world, I cannot ignore the achievements of those who have blazed a trail for equality.

So I find myself reappraising my view of Pride. I may not have been converted to a Rainbow-flag waving activist*, and I still don't fit into any of the stereotypical gay "tribes" but I do owe a debt of gratitude to those who marched in less open times, and blazed a trail for equality.

I still harbour reservations as to whether Pride as we know it now serves a purpose in advancing equalities; and whether it, or the main LGBT campaigning groups, have a wide enough view of the issues. Whatever; at the very least, it's an opportunity for a party and a festival for those who like that sort of thing.

But it's also an opportunity for something else - something I do take Pride in. It's a chance for Liberal Democrats to celebrate the role they have played in advancing Equal Marriage in the UK. With the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act advancing through Parliament, we have a good story to tell about how Lib Dems in government have pushed it onto the agenda and through the legislative process despite deep divisions on the benches of our coalition partners.

The bill is far from perfect but it is a step forward towards equality within the country; and is a firm example of how we are seeking to build a Fairer Society by participating in government.

And so, today, for the first time, I find myself wishing I had been at Pride. Still, there's always next year...

Andrew

*I don't think I'll ever get the thing about the rainbow flag.

The End

Dear Reader,

 

I've neglected you, and I'm truly, truly sorry.

 

I could lay out the reasons for my absence - how life has got in the way, my habits have changed, how things have been busy, how I've been away... but really, they would all be excuses.

 

You have, however, never been far from my thoughts. The list of posts I want to make has grown long even if the moment for some of them has come - and then gone a begging.

 

 

Well, that's the way these apologies are supposed to go... but this isn't about you, though, it's about me. A blog, after all, is a selfish exercise; for all one wants to talk about sharing thoughts, ideas, likes and dislikes with the world, it's a solitary pursuit which is more about the writer than his/her readers.

 

I'm afraid, dear reader, that you are not the be all and end all. You do matter - but you only matter when there's more of you. As I said, it's a selfish exercise.

 

And so, with each passing day of none-posting, the reader numbers dwindle away and the harder (and less worthwhile) it seems to get back on the saddle. An inertia kicks in, a tendency to adapt to the new norm and go about doing what I have been doing, rather than going back to what I did do. It's the proverbially slippery slope which has seen a month already go by without a post.

 

And it ends today.

 

 

Not the blog - although that has been considered - but the recent intermission.

 

Although I have a busy weekend ahead - and I am genuinely more busy at other times - I am climbing back into that saddle. I, hope, dear remaining reader, that you can forgive me my harsh words and will continue to read as I re-commence this venture. And, perhaps, we will be joined by others as we move on from this hiatus... 

 

Sincerely Yours,

 

Andrew