The End

And so I finally make the decision to cease posting to this place. I said I was going to a few posts ago, but now I feel it is now time to bite the bullet and do it. But I won't do it without a final swipe.

British politics is a mess. The whole business of ID cards over the past few days is seriously depressing. We're sleepwalking into the database state, where everyone is viewed by a seriously bloated Executive - who technically no one elected to that role; we elected the legislature, which simply becomes the pawn of the executive - as a criminal waiting to happen and so must be monitored at all costs. It scares me that it is a Labour government that is doing this. I do not care about the "New" prefix Tony likes to use. He has destroyed my party. He has destroyed our party. It will never be the same.

I'm the first to admit that Labour needed to modernise. But to modernise, it didn't have to sell its soul. New Labour has driven British politics into a ditch and is determined to bring everyone else down with it. I refuse to be held to ransom any more with "but what about the minimum wage?" or "what about tax credits?" by devoted Labour supporters who refuse to see what is actually going on in their party, refuse to witness just what the New Labour project is doing to Britain. Every government does something good, no matter what colour it is. John Major's work on resolving the problems of Northern Ireland should be something appreciated by all people. Heck, even his law to allow workers to refuse work on Sunday can be pretty handy at times. But that didn't make me want to vote for him. I can apply this logic to almost any Prime Minister post-war.

I shudder to think what more draconian measures are going to emanate from Labour this term. The Queen's Speech was full of seriously bad bills, but there'll be plenty more beyond those that appear in coming years. I pray, for the sanity of this nation, that enough Labour backbenchers can come to their senses and realise just what is going on. I don't even care about Gordon Brown becoming leader any more. I don't seriously think he'll make any difference. All I want is to see this appalling government, filled with stooges and yes-men so much that you can just picture Cabinet discussions to be a procession of nodding donkeys (John Reid, Tessa Jowell, Patricia Hewitt, Geoff Hoon, Alastair Darling, John Prescott, Charles Clarke, David Blunkett, Charles Falconer, Margaret Beckett, Jack Straw, Peter Hain... the list makes me sick. They've never had an independent good idea in their lives) all lining up to support the latest back-of-a-fag-packet idea, successfully checked: suppressed in the defence of our liberal democracy.

British democracy is in crisis. When I reflect now, I believe it only could have been solved if the result of the election was a hung Parliament. It is very difficult to aim for such a result without the fear of missing it by just enough to cause a really bad result, so it's understandable that it wasn't forefront in many people's minds. What we got was not bad, but I believe it needed to be under 50 for New Labour to be forced to really listen. New Labour wouldn't know consensus government if it came up and gave it a good happy slapping. No. They only understand one thing - how to jump off a cliff and scream for its MPs to save it. Every vote is a vote of confidence in Tony Blair. Daring to think that there just might be life beyond Blair, or even New Labour, is enough to cast you into the eternal darkness of the backbenches forever.

And this is why I must stop. I know that if I continue I will only comment in exactly the same way on everything that happens. I don't want to sound like a broken record. I want to contribute something new, and I feel I have now done all I can. I'm hoping for a miracle to happen, but when I see the Tory Party also hoping for that same miracle, I can only grimace with dread. There really is nowhere left to go.

There is an outside chance I will post more to The Sharpener, which is shaping up to be a very useful and interesting blog. But not even my last post which obtained an impressive 27 responses is enough to encourage me that I have more to say and that people may be interested in it. It is satisfying that at least I have an outlet through which more people will read my writings, and I am grateful to The Sharpener for supplying me with that. That has perhaps been the greatest disappointment of blogging here... the lack of responses.

It just remains for me to say thank you to everyone who has read this blog, thank you to everyone who saw fit to comment on my posts, and I am honoured by the fact that many other bloggers chose to link to my site. Without their help I would never have even reached the levels of traffic. I appreciate that a lot.

This site will remain in place should I suddenly have a change of heart. But I would like it to stay simply as an archive of my writings. There are now a number of people who arrive here via search engines, and I wouldn't want to stop them reading. There are also more considerable pieces by me (such as the election analysis and my thoughts on the youth and student vote) that I would like to keep published.

Best wishes to all. Here's to 2009/2010!

Eddie