BORING OR ENTHRALLING?

First thoughts.

Is it just me showing my age but when did elections get as boring as this one? As I recall When Wilson won in 1964 it was an exciting shock.

And his cabinet was full of intellectual superstars - Healey, Jenkins (above) and Crosland. People like Ian McLeod were in opposition. One sensed these were very clever people. One didn’t necessarily agree with them but they were heavyweights. I watched Roy Jenkins and Ian McLeod debating the finance bill in the commons in the early 70s - riveting, rigorous and courteous.

I just don’t think the calibre of people, thinking or debate currently matches that of these Titans.

Politicians now are not, as some would have it, inept. They are however a bit timorous, cautious and lacking in flair. I have been constantly surprised that so many seem to think being nasty (even if they feel it justified) is a good tactic. Voters mostly hate “rude”.

Try this tactic instead:-
“Ed (or David)  is a nice and I believe well-meaning man. Most politicians are but I believe he just has this policy wrong and it would harm the country if he were to win this election”

If our grandchildren behaved like many politicians do they’d be made to sit out. I love the idea of hearing someone say: “Teresa May I’m appalled. See me afterwards”

Second thoughts.

2015 has been different because the two of the most popular voices have been on the side lines but thrust centre stage by the media. Nicola Sturgeon and Russell Brand.

Nicola has grown in stature and 4% of the UK (that’s Scotland) seems to adore her and Russell is rather like an extreme left version of Boris. Both Boris and Russell are fluent, addicted to long sentences and are ever so slightly crackers (slightly?) That he and Nicola are the ones turning on so many is significant.

Don’t you think they really ought to get together and have babies - what fun that would be.

What both do is reflect our times, reach and inspire a few people - in Russell’s case a generation of non-voters, the millions of youth who can’t be bovvered. They are both of them articulate and fearless. They aren’t looking over their shoulders; they’re punching away and looking like they’re enjoying themselves.

In Nicola’s case the prospect of wiping out lazy Labour in Scotland may mean she’ll have every right to be a bit smug. But the Scottish brand is thriving.  Brand? Think Irn bru, Innocent and Pepperami all mixed together. Inspiration has conquered economic caution and it’s exciting. As is Russell’s brand of rebellion.

The old political brands look like Tesco or Sainsbury’s or Asda in a world of Waitrose, Pound Land. Zara and Aldi.

So I was wrong. This election isn’t boring at all; it’s enthralling and we’re lucky to have ringside seats. It’s the other fight of the century.

THE REALITY OF POLITICS

The enclosed intrigued me. The sheer economic pressures of what Martin Luther King called “the fierce intensity of now” takes smiles off faces and puts steel into behaviour. Today I got a request (well nearly, very nearly a demand) for £215 from Barnado’s to identify and rescue a child vulnerable to sexual exploitation.

The latter days of Obama campaign plus Sandy plus a lot of money concluded the affair.

Moral: get the money in….then get them out….get them voting (however reluctantly)…

Before the election – “we need your money ….now!”

"Friend --

In a few hours, I'm walking into a budget meeting with the rest of the campaign management team.

By the time we walk out of that room, we'll have decided exactly what kinds of resources we can get to organizers on the ground and which attacks we can beat back in the last three days of this election.

This is seriously your last chance to help decide what that looks like. Your donation will determine which attacks get a response -- and which don't.
According to our records associated with this email address, you haven't chipped in to this campaign yet. So this is it, the very last call. If you care about the outcome of this election, now is the time to show it.

Please give $5 or more, and help while you still can:
https://donate.barackobama.com/Budget-Decisions

Please hear me when I say this is serious, and the decisions we're making are very concrete -- and final.

Give what you can, and let's make sure we win.

Thank you.

Ann Marie

Ann Marie Habershaw
Chief Operating Officer
Obama for America

After the election – phew!!!

Friend –

I'm about to go speak to the crowd here in Chicago, but I wanted to thank you first.

I want you to know that this wasn't fate, and it wasn't an accident. You made this happen.

You organized yourselves block by block. You took ownership of this campaign five and ten dollars at a time. And when it wasn't easy, you pressed forward.

I will spend the rest of my presidency honoring your support, and doing what I can to finish what we started.

But I want you to take real pride, as I do, in how we got the chance in the first place.

Today is the clearest proof yet that, against the odds, ordinary Americans can overcome powerful interests.

There's a lot more work to do.

But for right now: Thank you.

Barack

www.colourfulthinkers.com

WHAT WE NEED NOW IS HOPE NOT PUNISHMENT

I was reading Tom Peters the other day. Tom, the management guru and author, wrote a book called “Thriving on Chaos” in 1989. He thinks chaos is good. Most people think it’s pretty punishing.

In 1989 we thought the world was pretty hairy with events like these:

The fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Exxon Valdez oil disaster in Alaska.

The student protest on Tiananmen Square, Beijing with up to 7000 killed.

Earthquakes in America and Australia.

Pan Am filing for chapter 11.

The Soviet Union withdrawing from Afghanistan after 10 years of fighting.

Yet compared to what the world has seen since 2007 these were extremely nasty storms not the destructive hurricanes we’ve been recently experienced.

The uncertainty of recent times is epic. We have twice looked over the brink of global economic meltdown.

And this one is really nasty. Euro Flu is worse than Banker Flu.  And, as I write this, we have no one in charge in the UK.

So whoever is PM later this week pay heed to these two lessons from America.
One, what Reagan said on becoming President, inheriting an economic mess and being given a briefing on it.
“They gave it me. I read it. I don’t like it. You aren’t going to like it either.”

And, two, John Gardner a US Government official (sounds like a good one) at the end of the 1990s:

“The first task of a leader is to keep hope alive.”

Lessons: speak English, tell it how it is and tell us how we are going to get out of it.