Day two of extreme linen bodies sewing draws to a close. Got more done today than yesterday, as I finished the cutting for the outer layers of linen, and then did the sneaky sewing machine version of pad stitching for the lining layers after dinner.
I did all this while musing on things like politicians and the price of bread.
Ed Milliband embarrassed himself by not knowing how much his family spends on groceries weekly. Is it £70? Or more? Later on he tried to say that that was the basics, fruit and veg, which opens up a whole batch of other questions. And one set of reactions that I heard to this was that it’s ridiculous to expect the leaders of a country, doing important political type stuff, to have time to shop and know how much things cost.
No, it isn’t.
We ought to be capable of sharing the work around so that everyone has time to actually live. There is no reason that any one person is so important that they haven’t got time to take time off. And the people at the top should know that more than anyone, as people who are overworked make bad decisions.
Also, the politicians at the top absolutely should know how much they are spending on their own day to day living. If they can’t understand how that works for the vast majority of the population, they are again going to be making decisions that hurt so very many people. I think this detachment is what causes the current government to be able to make decisions that just wipe out people’s support system, because they do not understand, really understand, feel inside them, what that means.
They don’t understand not having a family to run to to bail you out. They don’t understand not being able to walk into another job if the one you’ve got falls through. They’ve no clue what it means to send in 40 applications and get no response, to walk home five miles to save the bus fare, as the one thing you’ve got on your hands is time.
I don’t want this kind of situation to continue. I’ve read through all the political leaflets that I’ve been sent, scoured political websites, read analysis, followed people on twitter, thought about it all and discussed it. In the Euro elections, I’m voting Green as being the only party who actually have a coherent, positive vision that they are fighting for. I don’t agree with everything they stand for – the home education section of their education policy has disturbing overtones of Badman – but they are anti fracking, anti TTIP, for basic income, and it seems to me, for individual responsibility and against corporate excuses.
That will have to do for now.
Basic income. What will it take for that to become a mainstream, properly discussed idea? How do we get people to value people, instead of constantly looking over their shoulders for someone coming to take away what they have?
I don’t know. I really don’t know. And I’m out of words and ideas to sway anyone further on it tonight. Open to suggestions, in the usual place.
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