Emotional Fallout and Highland Dress

Tomorrow I am going to a christening. Not the sort of christening one sometimes finds oneself attending that one could characterise as a "duty" christening by which I mean an event one is only attending out of a perceived duty to be there. Not at all, in fact this is the christening of the little boy of some very good friends and I am very much looking forward to it. I will not however be doing what I normally do on such occasions - wearing Highland Dress. Usually I will jump at any excuse to get out of my trousers and into a kilt and strut about in all that metalwork and weaponry, but not tomorrow.

I had intended to wear it, my Highland kit is at this moment all looked out and ready, hanging up in a doorway ready for action; brogues shining, sporran neatly brushed, belt buckle and sporran chain all shiny and jingly, dirk and sgian dhu bright and deadly, balmoral all ready to be cocked at a suitably jaunty angle. I won't be putting it on though and its taken me a day or two to work out why. Its not, as some might think, embarrassment at something many see as so over the top or any of the other straightforward reasons that might put off potential kilt wearers. I've been wearing this stuff or around others wearing it since primary school, it feels very normal for me and I bemoan the lack of opportunity to don it now that I live in the Deep South of England.  The fact is that to  wear the kilt, and to be the only one doing so,  I have to be feeling good about myself - and right now I don't. Certain native american tribes have a phrase for great grief: "my heart is on the ground", it is a truly expressive phrase for the physical pain in the chest and solar plexus that grief brings. Anyone who has felt it will recognise the description. Well my heart is on the ground and its been there a long time. So I wont be wearing my gaudy finery this weekend. I'll be paying very sincere respect to young Luca and his family but I'll be doing it in a quiet, anonymous dark suit.

This deal is getting worse all the time! (George Lucas and British Realpolitik)

Every time I see Nick Clegg at the moment I'm reminded of Lando Calrissian in the Empire Strikes Back. First there was his joy at forming a coalition that appeared superficially to bring power back to his party after years in minority opposition:

"We're too small an operation for the Empire to notice.....and I've just made a deal that'll keep the Empire out of here forever"

A deal which, like Lando's, sold out his supporters by making an alliance with a party that shared none of his party's ideals and goals rather than with the Labour Party whose priorities in society overlap substancially. Gordon Brown is duly encased in carbonite and shipped back to Cowdenbeath where several inhabitants closely resemble Jabba the Hutt ( I single out Cowdenbeath as I have relatives in Kirkaldy and have too few family members left to wish to alienate any more). But don't worry! Its all going to be ok...the deal makes the liberals partners in government where they can push their agendas of social justice despite the Tories desire to bring in a time of darkness for all those horrid, lazy poor people. Except of course these are partners without any jobs that carry real power - Clegg himself is Deputy Prime Minister, a job with no authority whatsoever, think back to John Prescott's position under Blair and you get the picture.


It hasn't taken long for the deal to look a lot less sweet. First there was all the prebudget justification from incredibally embarrassed looking Liberal bigwigs as they explained how it was really ok to put their manifesto in the shredder and it didn't undermine their legitamacy that they would now be doing things their supporters had expressly voted against in voting for them. One by one they came on our screens and tried to make eating their own words look like a tasty repast. As Lando said:

"This deal is getting worse all the time..."

 And then came The Budget and Grand Moff Osbourne revealed the devastating power of the Tories now fully operational Death Star.Steeled for it as we were it still came as a shockingly transparent declaration of the shape of things to come, of the focus of the Sith..sorry I mean Tory attack. VAT up to 20% and 25% cuts to all Departments except NHS. VAT - Thatchers little sleight of hand to shift the burden of taxation down the pay scale. The poorer you are the more of your income is spent each pay check, the less you are able to save or invest, the higher the proportion of your income that you pay in indirect VAT taxes. The unacceptable alternative we are told is to use Income Tax to pay back the deficit...unacceptable to whom? Their have been massive tax cuts for higher income earners over the last 30 years, we are no where near the higher rate taxes raised during far less serious national crises in the past. Income Tax is the only tax with any degree of equity - the greater your ability to pay the more you pay. Under Thatcher the gap between rich and poor widened to an obscene degree, to their shame "New Labour" failed to put it right, well now their back! It is going to get a lot worse.Blanket 25% cuts to departments - that means cuts to services, services provided to the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society. Just to drive the point home we have Osbourne's clarification - he wants to reform the system until work is always preferrable to benefit. A restatement of the Thatcherite position - remember Norman (Goebbels) Tebbit's response to 3 million unemployed "Get on your bike and look for work". It is also what Thatcher meant when she talked of Victorian Values - this is the ideology of the Workhouse, make it deliberately so harsh, so awful to ask for help that you'd rather starve in the street.Like every Tory before them they see benefit claimers as lazy spongers who are living lives of luxury and criminally defrauding the state. In my experience the overwhelming majority of benefit claimers are so through no fault of their own and are legitamate claimants, the fiddlers and dodgers are a tiny minority. In the massive global recession we face that will be truer than ever but it is these people who will be attacked, stigmatised and let down.

Remember the election manifestoes? Liberal voters didn't vote for any of this. Tory voters didn't vote for any of this. What happened to all those promises that cuts would be made simply by cutting waste in government spending? The deal has been changed.

I watched Clegg on TV backing up Cameron over the budget. He said all the things he was expected to but he looked pretty uncomfortable to me and I can't help thinking that a conversation similar to this one may have occurred behind the scenes:

Lando: [outraged] That was never a condition of our agreement, nor was giving Han to this bounty hunter!
Darth Vader: Perhaps you think you're being treated unfairly?
Lando: [after a pause; nervous tone] No.
Darth Vader: Good. You know it would be unfortunate if I had to leave a garrison here.
Lando: [to himself] This deal is getting worse all the time!

Darth Vader: I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.

Who and What am I?

I imagine a word or two of background would be a good idea.

I am a largely horizontal person these days. I have in fact remained as horizontal as possible for the last 14 years - ever since I lost an argument with my horse about who should be on top of who while wildly galloping in a romantic, windswept sort of way across the Downs. Several spinal surgeries later the neurosurgeons bad me farewell with a sort of embarassed, apologetic shrug and introduced me to a rather furtive looking gentleman whose medical speciality appears to consist of the discrete supply of ever increasing quantities of interesting opiates.

Thus ended my illustrious career and my role as bread winner and began my new existance as a general drain on resources.

The years have passed surprisingly quickly and not without incident. My daughter was nearly 2 when I patted her on the head that fateful Sunday morning and went off for a ride and she is now in the closing days of her High School career. Her last GCSE is on Friday and then she is off at the end of summer to do her A levels at 6th form college. As for any parent watching their child becoming a young adult it is a bitter sweet moment, there is no shortage of pride and pleasure but there is also a sense of loss for the little girl that used to need and depend on you. This changing relationship presents me with a great deal to consider. As with many people who have had to cope with life changing injuries or loss I quickly found that my concept of what mattered in life underwent a profound change. After the accident with the loss of so much that defined who I was (my job, money, mobility, social life) my relationship with my wife and daughter became the touchstone of who I am. In particular it has been my role as a father that has given me purpose and a sense of value. So what now? Catie no longer needs me to anything like the same extent (which is of course exactly as it should be) and unfortunately my marriage has crumbled in the last three years or so and is I fear nearly over. So where to find purpose and meaning now? Big changes are coming and its time to adapt.