the bnp

so we're waking up today in a country that has representatives voted in from the bnp. doubtless there's a an argument, certainly the bnp maintain it, that this is somehow good for a representative democracy, that it gives voice to racists and jew haters and at last a position for that traditionally under-represented group, the white man.

the only comparable experience i can remember is when the news that thatcher was gone came. i can't remember who phoned, only that they did phone. i needed an hour away i told my co-workers, then went off to find someone else british. thatcher's gone i said and a few of us took ourselves away, much to the bemusement of our colleagues, and we sat looking out at the park, not speaking as if at last, something was over.

which of course it wasn't. regardless of anyone's views on thatcher her views changed a generation. labour mutated into tony blair and while in scotland socialism remained a word in the form of the ssp they did what socialists do best and concentrated on fighting each other, their 'radicalism' staring and finishing with tommy sheridan's ability to keep his trousers on. meanwhile the leaden bipartisan nature of british politics was entrenched and 'single issue' politics was somehow presented as 'a good thing'.

and so it somes to this. and almost no-one in the hospital seemed to care. i told them stories about the old days, of fighting with the nf, anti fascist action and the like but, even to me, it sounded like another world, another person. finally one of my colleagues, who's ages with me, noticing i was a bit absent, asked me what was the matter. i told her and she agreed. i can't believe it she said, people should be rioting in the fucking streets.

i'm profoundly depressed. what was i doing all those years. my dad talks about 'darkies' as a freedom of speech issue, my mum thinks the bnp 'have a point', many of the twenty somethings at work can say, without a trace of doubt, that we have 'too many rights'. how did it come to this? i have an odd feeling as i sit looking out at my garden, all those history books at the back of me, all that story telling, that it was all superfluous.