And I'm back. I've been planning to write for a while, but I've just been too busy, being a third-year student and full-time theatre producer. I will mention nothing about Brussels (apart from that time) as I'm saving that for my next blog, and in the meantime, I want to focus on the other major piece of recent news, even though this would really have worked better had I had time to write it earlier.
Iain Duncan Smith has resigned as Work and Pensions Secretary. Ho hum.
Now the more television-cult friendly readers amongst you will have noticed the Simpsons reference in the title here. In context, it refers to Iain Duncan Smith's claims that his resignation is intended to stand up for disabled people in the face of brutal Personal Independence Payment cuts by George Osborne. Much of the media, left- and right-wing, has implied that this shows some sort of nobility on the part of IDS. I'd be among them, were it not for the very obvious fact that days after his resignation, the man himself voted in favour of them. Indeed, were he to have any conscience at all, he would have resigned years ago - or even better, stayed and changed things from within, standing with more progressive politicians. Iain Duncan Smith's former department has been directly responsible not only for these cuts, but also for putting out mishandled statistics and downright lies - anyone remember Sarah's Story, which turned out to be faked?
It is quite clear to me that the real reason for Duncan Smith's exit is to stick the nail in the coffin for David Cameron and George Osborne over the EU referendum. I have so far avoided blogging about 'BrExit' and I intend to write about it soon, but that will be quite an important article and I want to make sure my facts are straight before I do. I am very much in favour of our remaining firmly within Europe though, much as it pains me to back David Cameron. My major concern is that David Cameron's popularity has gone down, and there are calls for him to resign if Britain votes to stay. My readers know full well my opinion on Cameron, so of course this is great in and of itself, but what worries me is that people will vote to leave purely for the purpose of getting rid of David Cameron. He is without a doubt the worst Prime Minister of my lifetime, but he is not worth making such a crazy decision over. There are more important things to put pressure on him for than a referendum which has, let's face it, been called for because of the increasing amounts of xenophobia in the media across the last few years.
That said, the tide does seem to be turning against the current regime. We now have Stephen Crabb, who from early days doesn't seem to be quite as draconian as Osborne, though there is controversy surrounding him as well - he was part of the expenses scandal, and there are allegations of homophobia. I hope that we're in an era resembling the poll tax riots of the late 80s and early 90s. Thatcher thought she was invincible and in the end her own party turned against her. I feel that there are elements of that unrest starting to happen again, I just think that there are much more important things to fuel it than the EU referendum.
There are two major events coming up, one of which I will not be able to attend, the other of which I very much intend to. The first one is in London on Saturday 7 May (one year since the general election) to demand a fairer voting system. (This is the one I cannot attend myself because it clashes with a performance date for the play that I am producing, but I will certainly be writing about.) The other one is on 4 July, a general strike and mass protest concerning pretty much every part of the austerity drive, and this is taking place pretty much everywhere in the UK. I haven't quite decided how I'm going to take part yet, but I will do so in some capacity, and will be writing more about both events in the coming weeks.
So take care, and keep your eyes peeled for further blogs!
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