Thoughts with Orlando.

I’m realy upset today, because today has seen a massively unwated record set; the attack targeted at an LGBT club in Orlando is the biggest mass shooting in US history. I’ll say it again, the biggest mass shooting in US history; think of the past few years, all those school shootings we cried over, this was bigger, and this was targeted exclusively at the LGBT community.

Now, i’m not American, I can’t comprehend how this feels to those who were there, how this feels to that community. But, I can see the impact this will have on the Queer community, venues like Pulse, the bar that was attacked, are the places where I have found myself at my most comfortable. In truth, it’s in Queer venues where I feel the most able to be me, I know thats the same for many other people too, in line with this ability to feel comfort is a feeling of safety; when we are with our community we get to forget, just for a second, that we are a minority, that there are people in the world who hate us just for being who we are. On that basis I can relate to the community today in Orlando because, today that safety and comfort has been shattered and this will have reprecussions far beyound the tragedy of today. I worry for how this will impact those struggling with thier identity, because once again the irrational hatred some feel toward the Queer community has been demonstrated, with disasterous consequences.

It’s clear that to some people being Queer, or Queerness itself, represents the limits of humanity, what I mean by this is that to some people LGBT lives simply do not count as lives. It’s truly saddening that even now, we still have to recognize this, but this makes it abundantly clear. No matter what the shooters reasons, and i’m sure many people will try to blame his religion in the coming days, to take the action of ending a life requires a certain type of framing, it requires the ability to remove the target from the framing of humanity itself. For this reason, and many others, we must shout from the rooftops who the victims of this attck were. Quite contrary to the ignorant views i’ve seen expressed on social media, mostly by middle aged, straight, white men, the fact that this is a gay club makes every difference. We must shout from the rooftops that this was a gay club, that this was a venue where LGBT people gathered to be themselves and to be part of a community where they felt accepted. We must shout from the rooftops that Florida now sees a situation where LGBT people desperately need blood in a state which lacks proper supplies, partly because Gay and BI men and Trans people are all prohibited from donating. We must shout from the rooftops that while one man pulled that trigger, the rhetoric of a nation and a world that still refuses to accept that LGBT people are humans, who should be under the protection of human rights, just like everyone else, loaded that gun.

In the coming days, i’m sure religion will come to the fore of this debate, insipid homonationalism will take hold and the US right wing will attempt to use protection of the rights of LGBT people, rights which they have violently opposed, as a reason to marginalise Muslims. Let’s be clear here, this shooter was not born with Queerphobia, it was given to him by society; perhaps a degree of that did come from his particular interpretation of his religion, but the same views can be found within some interpretations of Christianity, radical judaism and any other religion you care to name. The point is that to pin this on one particular religion would be to use the murder of innocent people to fuel a political agenda, a political agenda by the way which does not care for LGBT rights. When we look at why this attack took place, we have to look at the entire discourse on LGBT rights, we have to look at presidential candidates like Ben Carson, who have called for a genocide to be enacted against LGBT people, we have to look to states like Carolina and Mississippi which have recently passed laws with the sole intention of discriminating against LGBT people. Each act of this kind allows a picture to be built, a picture in which Queerness can be separated from humanity; this picture can kill, and today it has. The likes of Simone De Beauvoir and Judith Butler gave us a wonderful analytic tool in this regard; the idea of otherness, we must look to how each one of the actions undertaken by governments and by communities allows a distinction to be drawn between the human and the other, today this interaction had fatal consequences.

On the note of Islam we must not allow todays tragedy to facilitate the marginalisation of muslims, it is an insult to the memory of the victims for their death to be used to create a moral panic aimed at muslims. As I have already stated, homophobia can be found in any religion, but everone interprets their religion differently, and you cannot blame an entire community for an attack which cannot even be definitvely linked to the shooters religious views. Furthermore, the use of this to legitimise the marginalisation of muslims would hit one group the hardes, LGBT muslims, these are already people who have had to suffer a tragedy today, how dare anyone seek to compound that tragedy by trying to mark them responsible for this.

I’m not going to talk about gun control, beyond saying that the 2nd amendment was never intended to cover assault weapons and the founding fathers would feel nothing but shame at modern gun culture in the US. In truth, if we really must find one group to blame, they are residing in the offices of the NRA.

Of course, all of this falls at the beginning of pride season, in the coming weeks cities across the world will come together to march for their rights. Once again, we will be forced to listen to straight people, and assimilationist gay men lecturing us about how pride is no longer relevant and about how it we are in fact ‘asking for trouble’. Today shows you why we still need pride, why its still so important that we take that walk together as a community. Assimilation will not stop events like today, but by standing together as a vocal and visible community we can continue to fight against opression and we can strive to support the rights of our community all over the world.

 

Elective Dictatorship

So I’ve decided that I am going to give this blogging thing another go. I’ll make no promises on regularity because I will have broken them before the new year is upon us.  Anyway onwards …

It was the conservative Lord Chancellor (the office itself a gross affront to democracy and the separation of powers)  Lord Hailsham,  speaking at a 1976 Richard Dimbleby lecture for the BBC, who coined the phrase “Elective Dictatorship”. It is a rather concise explanation of the way in which the UK government work. Our electoral system, to rather simplify things,  mandates that the government be formed from whoever can command a majority in the house of commons. This immediately puts a squeeze on the checks and balances idea that the separation of powers is supposed to represent, this is because the executive (the government)  branch will always (ignoring the potential for minority governments) have a majority in the legislative branch (House of commons). As a result, of this, the government have a great deal of freedom in terms of  how they can legislate. In essence, the government can pass anything that is not so intolerable that their own Mp’s will defy the whip and vote against it. This marks the government of the UK as one of the most powerful executive branches in the world.

Considering the power of the UK government, the need for a strong constitution to protect the people and democracy itself from an overreaching executive should be clear to all. The UK has always been somewhat unique in that our constitution unlike most is not written down in any cohesive or complete document, instead, it is largely cobbled together from spurious sources. In the past, I viewed the uncodified nature of our constitution through somewhat romantic eyes, and there can be no doubt it has some positives such as being more flexible and adaptable to changing times. However recent developments have shaken me out of this romanticism, but this is a point for later.

In a bizarre twist,  and a nod to our very class based past, the unelected house of lords can be considered to have historically been the biggest check on the powers of government. However, this has gradually been eroded. This originally was certainly a sign of the UK turning increasingly to democracy, in saying this it is worth remembering there was a time when the house of lords was the more powerful of the two houses. The Parliament Act 1911 (we are talking about parliament in its current conception, which I argue does not exist prior to the representation of the people act 1832 and the blow this dealt the Lords politically, so I don’t need to go any further back than this)  can be seen as key to this change, the act dramatically reshapes the powers of the Lord’s and in effect ends the power of the house of Lord’s to block bills substituting this with a mere power to delay, the period by which they could delay was further reduced in the Parliament act 1949. This creates the situation whereby today the house of Lords can only delay Bills by one year, and cannot make any amendments which the commons do not accept. I would argue that this is, with the current undemocratic makeup of the lords, the best-compromised solution. Bills demand a through debate in the commons and although it could be argued tribalism and party whips greatly lower the scrutiny that bills receive, this system, at least, ensures that elected members and not (mostly) appointed Lords have the final say.

The issue of the House of Lords debate has once again been forced into the open by the tax credits debacle. The government have attempted to represent the House of Lords decision to block their proposed changes to tax credits as a “constitutional crisis”, it is not. The issue here rests upon the government’s own misrepresentation of the purposes of parliamentary instruments, the changes to tax credits were attempted using a statutory instrument. Statutory instruments are intended for tidying up legislation and making minor changes not making fundamental changes to the system of in-work benefits in this country which will affect thousands of people. Accordingly the debate time available to statutory instruments scarcely exceeds 90 minute’s, which can hardly be considered proper scrutiny. Therefore, I find the Lord Strachclyne recommendation that the House of Lords have their rights to veto statutory instruments revoked and have a new power, which in effect mirrors that in place for bills under the parliament act 1949, installed in its place wholly intolerable. The use of statutory instruments to sneak  sweeping legislation through the back door, something which over the last few governments (of both the conservative and the labour variety) has increased exponentially, can be seen as nothing other than an attempt to avoid scrutiny and debate. Therefore, it is right that when such legislation is ill-thought through or even inappropriate to be passed by statutory instrument the House of Lords retain the right to reject it (I would even support retaining the fatal motion). Such powers do not threaten democracy or the supremacy of the commons they merely force the government to use parliamentary instruments as they were intended.

Aside from the “Constitutional crisis” narrative, we have also been treated to that wonderful Cameronism (read as a meaningless and misleading phrase) that the conservatives are “cutting the cost of politics”. They argue that they are doing this firstly via boundary reform, they are reducing the number of seats in the house of commons from 650 to 600 in more equal constituencies. On paper I absolutely agree with this policy, both houses are far too big, and not only does this cost a lot of money, it also restricts the ability of any individual member to make effective contributions from the backbenches. However, this change is to be  introduced utilising a ridiculous system that no other country uses. The reforms will be based not on how many people voted in an area at the last election, or based on the population as a whole instead they will instead be based on how many people are registered to vote on a random day months after an election. Combine this with the new individual electoral registration policy and you can see a massive problem here, namely that moving voters (who are made up primarily of non tory voting demographics, such as students, BAME and those in social housing) will not be counted therefore many areas will be poorly represented, conservative (not the party) estimates suggest that this will benefit the conservatives to the tone of 15 seats at the next election. Combine this with the individual voter registration previously mentioned, which will see plenty of individuals from the previously mentioned traditionally non tory demographics being disenfranchised, and it is easy to see that the conservatives “cost saving measures” will conveniently benefit them considerably at the next election.

Another clever “cost saving” measure to be introduced is cuts to short money, which during the spending review speech George Osbourne convieniently failed to mention (because it doesn’t sound at all bad or partisan or anything). short money is money paid to opposition parties in order to help them operate as an effective opposition and hold the government to account. This money is to be cut by 19% in line with the 2015 spending review, it is worth noting that this represents not only a blatant attempt to hobble the opposition (particularly when taken in conjunction with the trade union bill 2015 which will massively decrease the degree to which Labour can depend upon the trade union’s for funding by forcibly changing them to an opt-in system) but also blinding hypocrisy from a party that happily accepted £45.7 million during their own time in opposition without so much as a word. One of the key checks and balances within our constitution is the presence of strong opposition, our electoral system essentially mandates that the government will be from one of the two main parties (2010 aside coalitions are still very very rare under FPTP) therefore it is exceptionally obscure that the powers of the government should include the ability to alter the amount of money paid to opposition parties. It’s difficult not to interpret this as an affront to democracy and a massive abuse of governmental budgetary power.

Of course what really makes a mockery of all this “cost saving” is the other actions of the government for starters alongside his attempts to revoke a great deal of the lords powers Cameron has also increased the size of the house of Lords more rapidly that any prime minister in history, his reasoning for this is somewhere between trying to defeat the massive combined force of Labour and Lib Dem Lords, who have already defeated him over 80 times since the beginning of this parliament, and rewarding ex-conservative ministers and party donors. It is worth noting this is something all government are guilty of  (Cameron’s own speed can be explained by just how big an opposition majourity existed in the house) and this is the reason that we now see the House of Lords as the second biggest legislative chamber in the world  and the only upper house in the world to have more members than the lower house. As a matter of personal opinion, it is this and not curtailing the legitimate powers of the house that the government should be concerning itself with as if current trends continue the house will have surpassed 1000 members by the end of this parliament. Considering each peer cost approximately £118,000 and in practice likely much more, quite how a government can claim to be cutting the cost of politics while simultaneously overseeing the biggest expansion of this chamber in history is beyond me. Compound this with Camerons breach of his opposition time promise that ministers in his government wouldn’t have more than one special adviser (every minister has at least 2 and Gideon  (George Osbourne ) has 10) which has seen the cost of special advisers increase by 35% since 2011 and it is fairly obvious that Cameron is committed to “cutting the cost” of politics so long as that is off the backs of others and not to his own cost.

Perhaps the single biggest constitutional issue which this government have evoked is the idea of English votes for English laws. The West Lothian question is one of the longest standing issues within the constitutional makeup of the UK. The key question which presents itself is “what about England”? While  each of the regions has their own devolved parliament  England does not, virtually every proposed solution to this problem has its own issues, this is why finding a solution has been on the agenda of constitutional theorists for years. I won’t waste your time commenting on the positives or negatives of the other possible solutions to the problem other than to say that of all the possible solutions the one which this government have chosen is the worst and least effective option. Firstly it undermines the key parliamentary principle that all members of the house of commons have equal standing as it can be argued that this creates a two tier system which privileges English Mp’s over other MP’s, secondly it fails to give England the ability to legislate independently of regional MP’s instead only giving English Mp’s a veto, for example, the SNP’s blocking of the conservatives attempts to revoke the ban on fox hunting (which I am very grateful for) would not be in any way obstructed by this. However a prospective Labour government would be dependent upon support from Scotland and Wales, whether that be in coalition with the SNP or through recovering from the catastrophe that was May 2015, this means that in the event that Labour ever emerge from the suicidal civil war that currently has hold of the party and somehow find themselves in government they would find it very difficult to legislate on issues which affect only England as the conservatives would in effect hold a vetoing power over them and as repealing English votes for English laws  would count as English-only legislation it is very unlikely a future labour government would be able to remedy it. What this government has done in altering the standing orders of parliament in this way is to bind all future parliaments to an aspect of their legislative regime this, much like the very misguided Fiscal charter, runs contrary to one of the fundamental tenants of parliamentary sovereignty namely that no parliament can bind a future parliament. My point in this is twofold firstly that current legislation is undeniably partisan and secondly that without a written constitution we are left very unsure as the legality of government actions and as to where government power starts and ends. A written constitution would have specified whether or not EVEL was legal and how it would need to be passed e.g. a super majority requirement for constitutional changes.

To conclude an unwritten constitution has in the past sufficed as government have respected constitutional principles and conventions, we can see that even in 1997 while making potentially the most sweeping constitutional changes in the history of this country Tony Blair(trust me I am no fan (I originally wrote Tory Blair how freudian)) resisted the urge to make partisan changes or to go beyond that for which he had a mandate. In fact, in devolving power to the regions and creating the convention of needing a parliamentary vote before going to war (Iraq) he actually reduced the powers of the executive. To return to the starting point of this little treatise our government is very much an elected dictatorship and while we are under the control of a government which shows no respect for the unwritten nature of our constitution, one which seems apparently bent on destroying the opposition’s ability to hold them to account we are in desperate need of a written document laying down the constitutional settlement in  this country.

 

Election Day

So here we are, election day, and to be quite frank it is still impossible to say with any clarity what the result will be. Never has a UK election been so up in the air and we have the very real possibility that no party will be able to find a majority even if they are propped up by one of the smaller parties. So we must ask ourselves two real questions firstly how have we come to this point ? Secondly what does this mean for us.

I firstly come to the question of exactly how we got to this point, I think the first thing which requires is analysis of this governments record as this is essential to any true understanding of why anti Tory and anti Lib Dem sentiment is running so high within this country. The first area which i as a student must look is at the Lib Dems implosion, looking back to 2010, the Lib Dems were heralded as a new hope for British Politics, some saw them as a breath of fresh air others as a genuine threat to the established two party system however this election they will be lucky to return 25 seats compared to the 57 they took in 2010, so we must ask what happened ? Well the first place we must look is to the key betrayal, in 2010 the Lib Dems promised us that they would oppose any rise in tuition fees, upon  this promise they were successful in gaining a great deal of student support however upon entering  government they almost immediately broke this, backing a plan to triple tuition fees, now leader Nick Clegg did apologize however this has done nothing to stop the Lib Dems hemorrhaging support as many now see them as the untrustworthy mercenaries of British Politics. This is quite possibly a large part of the issue for Lib Dems, people no longer believe a word they say, their own weak performance in terms of opposing the Tories and their refusal to rule out a coalition with either of the two main parties has irreparably dented them, people now see them mercenaries who will go with whatever returns them to government. The best evidence of this can be taken from Cleggs own position whereby he is unlikely to retain his own seat and even if he does it is entirely conceivable that he will be forced out of the leadership, with Labour in particular indicating that any coalition agreement will mandate Clegg is not a part of it. Another of the Lib Dems crimes although admittedly one not so well know by the majority of the electorate is the Electoral system referendum, I agree that the electoral system in this country is in need of reform, however what is needed to provide a truly Democratic system is proportional representation not the alternative vote system the referendum offered us. Now the reason I believe the Lib Dems have damaged us so much is that the referendum they offered on a system no one who genuinely wants reform supports the model offered in that referendum and yet by offering such a change what they have in effect done is in fact shut down a legitimate debate about the need for electoral reform. A need which will once again rear its head tomorrow when no strong government is elected.

Now over to the Tory’s, I don’t really know where to start on this, if i’m honest the Tory’s have surprised me in one scope and that is in their resilience, what i mean by this is that no matter what hideously barbarous policy they unleash their support appears to stay at a relatively stable level. Of course this is only superficially surprising as the Tories tap into one of the great anachronisms of British politics, this being nationalism. The conservatives use  this nationalism to perpetuate the idea that everyone else is to blame, their propaganda machine turns out the logic of “don’t blame the government, blame the immigrant down the street”, don’t blame the bankers, blame the scroungers claiming benefits and not keeping up the British work ethic”. They have tapped into a vomit inducing stream of national pride to obscure the facts and make it look like those who stand against them stand against the country, to make it look like Welfare detracts from British culture and to make it look like immigration is a real issue which of course it is not. Furthermore they have reopened one of those traditional areas of Tory operation this being class warfare, this is a tactic the Tories have used since day 1, they play one class off against the others and give the squeezed middle their traditional voter group a fall guy to blame, in this case it has been benefits claimants, we can see this ideological class warfare in policy such as the Bedroom tax . This policy has had 3 overall effects 2 of which the Tory’s desired one of which they must have foreseen and lacked the humanity to care about. The first effect has been that they have been able to lower benefits claims substantially (I am not saying this is a good thing, I find it vile, vindictive and downright evil, but it is a fact) , second they have successfully perpetuated a myth among the British public that most benefits claimants were undeserving and that they did not need the benefits that they claimed, a trade Union congress poll of 2013 showed that those polled believed that 27% of benefits were claimed fraudulently, while the true figure stood at 0.7%. This mistaken belief is the direct result of conservative rhetoric, conservative policy and the right wing media which time and again display an obvious Tory bias. The result of this mistaken belief is that the conservatives have made their spending cuts in welfare areas and these changes have been accepted by the public however the reality is that these changes have killed people. Returning to the bedroom tax the final of the three points I previously mentioned is a dramatic rise in homelessness and poverty in this country, the Daily mirror in February 2015 stated that homelessness had increased by more than 50% under this government , though they sadly don’t attribute this this figure it has also appeared in the guardian and the independent over the same period, furthermore an official shelter report of 2014 states that in the period this government have been in power food bank usage has increased by some 300%. It’s a sad fact that a lot of people don’t realize just how much damage the Tories have done to this country however a great deal of people also do realize this and for this reason it is very likely that the conservatives share of the seats will fall when results come in, in fact it is entirely possible that even the combined seat shared of the Tories and the Lib Dems may not be sufficient to make up a majority.

Now to look onto the Labour party. To be quite frank the main problem with Labour is that they aren’t Labour anymore, Labour have shifted seismically to the right to the extent that they are now almost totally indistinguishable from the Tory’s. They have bought into the right wing rhetoric about immigration and benefits claimants and do not plan to end austerity. In short they offer a Tory light solution where the pain of cuts is still inflicted just at a slower pace, furthermore their continued support of Trident and their refusal to promise a genuine living wage (yes they have a living wage policy but they don’t set the rate high enough to live comfortably) have seen them losing the support of their traditional voter bases, the sad fact is the Labour party once such a key supporter of ordinary working people has abandoned its roots, swallowed up in the throws of thatcher-ism the party which once stood up for the people has gone to be replaced by a party which barely resembles what it once was. I must admit on this basis that I was as recently as 7 months ago a member of the Labour party however in recent times they have shifted even further to the right than they did during the disastrous Blair years, to the point that I could no longer vindicate my membership in the hope that a return to the left was coming and therefore was forced to leave the party in favor of a genuinely left wing party that works for the people of this country.

After hanging up my Labour membership I have joined the Greens and I have to say it is one of the best thing I have ever done. Its interesting how being a green i have come up against such staunch opposition talking of how our economic policy is fantasy despite the fact that it is fully costed or that we want to leave the Uk defenseless by removing trident despite the fact that any rational human being can see how unnecessary it is and yet the one thing shining through all green policy is compassion. The greens have offered up a fully costed manifesto which works for working people, they want to provide a fair living wage which helps the people of this country to live comfortably, and they plan to fund this through levying a 60% tax on high earners and by scrapping the wasteful and hateful trident. To me the Greens economic policy makes total sense and whats more they are offering something genuinely different, they offer a genuinely left wing voice in parliament, Caroline Lucas has already shown how effective the greens can be in parliament, she is even the current MP of the year and  is a truly inspirational figure. My hope for this election is that they can take at least 3 seats, with retaining Brighton Pavilion while gaining Bristol west and Norwich south, i am also hopeful of positive results elsewhere not least in Reading east which is my local constituency, where Rob White is standing and where i and many others have been campaigning for a green gain and more importantly to displace Tory minister Rob Wilson. While they aren’t likely win a massive number of seats, in recent months the greens have truly surged, and now have over 60,000 members making them  by membership the 3rd biggest party in the UK and should a hung parliament occur as we expect their is certainly a prospect of them having a genuine say in the running of this country.

The final party i will be looking into is UKIP, now where to start, well i guess the key question here is are they racist ? Well no technically they are as they insist “not racist” however they are extremely xenophobic.Their manifesto quite frankly is detached from reality, firstly they want a flat rate of tax, such a regressive policy will greatly harm the common people of this country and will only benefit the rich and privileged. Furthermore as anyone with an A level understanding of economics will tell it would cause consumption to plummet and thus would greatly damage economic growth. Furthermore the fact that they would even suggest the possibility of repealing anti- discrimination legislation,is quite frankly a disgrace and one which they should be ashamed of. Now onto their marquee policy namely leaving the EU, well firstly may i say on this issue they are DELUSIONAL, they seem to think we can leave the EU with absolutely no consequences in the negative, this is total rubbish we would suffer substantial losses should we leave the EU not least from the fact that over 2 million British people living in the EU would become illegal immigrants over night they would of course then be returned here to add to the massive levels of unemployment we already have, furthermore we would also lose the free trade routes which so many of our biggest industries rely upon. Ukip seem to forget that our biggest export is financial services, the majority of consumption of this is by EU nations, should we leave taxes would be levied upon our financial services damaging one of the few growth industries left in this country, of course Ukip don’t talk about this, and in fact most of what i hear from Ukip points to one thing. They don’t know what they are talking about. Most Ukip voters and candidates appear to have literally no idea about how the EU functions and what it does which is to be quite frank ridiculous. I feel like I can end this short analysis of Ukip’s short, hate-filled and downright stupid stance here. All that remains to be said if it wasn’t made clear above is please don’t vote for Ukip, in-spite of all that iI have said it still seems that UKIP are likely to take around 4 seats however as a rather funny side note it looks very unlikely that Nigel Farage will win the south Thanet seat which he is contesting which means if he keeps to his word that we will be lucky enough to never have to hear his hatred again.

I am not going to make a detailed analysis of the regional parties, however it must be said that the large scale surge in SNP support leaves us in the potential situation where the deciding choice in who governs this country will lie with the SNP, it is highly conceivable that they may take the clean sweep of Scotland and take all 59 seats where they are standing. Now what does all this mean. what it means is that for all the polls and all the talk we really can’t say with any certainty what is going to happen in this election other than that we will not see a majority government, what this says about the need for a change of electoral system is a conversation for another day, however all i will say is please vote i don’t care how but please have your vote heard and don’t vote tactically vote for what you believe in because your’re vote could be the very thing which makes or breaks this country.

Actions speak louder

So procrastination, procrastination, procrastination. Seems as if i haven’t written anything in forever so what better way to procrastinate. Now what to write about ? …. A group of Arsenal fans making homophobic chants in the FA cup semi final on Saturday, well that sounds interesting.

Right so as a gay Arsenal fan i feel pretty strongly on this, and i would like to start by offering the most vehement condemnation of the events and the fans involved, i truly hope they feel the most deep seated shame imaginable. I would also like to speak in defense of most Arsenal fans and say that having been in crowds with them and this is not at all representative of the majority of them. Now down the years i have seen so many amazing things in football, and i say this not only in a footballing sense but also in a human sense. It is to this human i would like to speak firstly as i feel like at times football does come in for some unfair criticism. Because there is nothing quite like being in the crowd on a cold Tuesday night, because you can feel it all of it, the hope, the passion, the angst, the collective mood of the whole crowd moving all eyes glued to that little ball waiting for that magic moment. It is this i would firstly like to look into because being part of that crowd for many people is something amazing, it is their small part of piece from the world, for 90 minuets they forget their individual problems they fade into the crowd and move with it and the world is well, provided they win that is.

I myself have certainly felt this, one of the best moments of my life to this day is being present to see Yeovil (my other team) win the league 1 playoff semi final, we also went onto win the final but it is the semi final that always gets a lump in my throat. I still remember every detail , i had held a season ticket for the entire year, along with 2 of my best friends and we had gone through the whole season as the hideously un-fancied underdog, every week the pundits told how we would soon drop of and every week we surprised them. We trailed 1-0 from the first leg, but you could feel it, the whole stadium had a buzz (cliched as that sounds) and you could tell that something amazing was going to happen. the match was a sell out and 10,000 (small stadium i know) excited faces packed the terraces, people of all ages it was a truly amazing atmosphere.i would also like to take this opportunity to speak up  for maintaining standing area’s in the football league because truly nothing compares to the buzz of a terrace, trust me its just better. Within 3 minuets of the kick off we had the first goal and the stadium was on its feet, singing as one and you felt part of something, felt like you could do anything. i think most of us expected to rush into a lead after that however it didn’t come, time passed and we were going through the motions, nerves started building and then, it was their the perfect cross came in and Ed Upson (probably the shortest man on the pitch, and whatever anyone says a massively underrated player) made the late run and caught it perfect with a majestic header into the top corner. It was literally as if time stood still, then eruption. as the final minuets ticked down you could feel the energy building. finally the final whistle went and we were on the pitch, and yes i’m sure this is exactly what some people perceive as the ugly side of football but that wasn’t it at all. This was our moment, and by our i mean the club, the players, the staff and the fans as one and it was glorious. This is just one example of football being a force for good there are many others out their but i chose this one because it is personal to me and well i felt like writing about it.

However football also has an undoubtedly ugly side as exemplified by the chant’s at this weekends match. I wish i could say that this was an isolated incident, that it no longer happened on a regular basis however i know that this is not the case. I myself have been present to hear numerous incidents of homophobic abuse, as i wrote above one of my overwhelming feelings at a football match is of being able to blend into the crowd to forget my issues however this has been disrupted many times by casual and even crowd led homophobia. As a gay fan it feels like a profoundly personal attack when the insult and make no mistake it is meant as an insult, which is levied at the player on the ball is a venomously aimed “faggot”. i have seen entire crowds turn on a player perceived as effeminate, the showers of homophobic abuse did not go unnoticed. One particular incident which sticks in my head is from a Yeovil match around 3 years ago. Then Swindon player Matt Ritchie was perceived as having dived to win Swindon a penalty and in my view he did however instead of going for an obvious chant in protest like i don’t know “cheat”, the crowd instead went with the same vile chant levied at Ashley Cole this weekend, i shall not repeat the chant if you really must know google it. As an insecure 15 year old this haunted me for a long time. It is that to which i wish to speak. Because as i have said Children are attending football matches it is a family event. The issue here is two fold firstly hearing such slants chanted by a large group, perhaps even by their own family or friends can profoundly effect a young LGBT + individual reinforcing the socially instilled shame which to some degree all LGBT + people suffer, on top this all the other young people hearing this are subtly being taught to be bigots as they grow up believing that such things are acceptable. Which obviously they are not. A football match should be a place where people can go without feeling threatened or judged it should be there for all to enjoy.

Furthermore, Chants such as these make life unimaginably hard for LGBT + footballers, there are currently individual who have played professional men’s football and come out as gay. This despite the fact that statically there must be hundreds of players dotted throughout the leagues. Perhaps it is a measure of the sheer level of intolerance that is within the game that the first footballer ever to come out Justin Fashanu, tragically took his own life within just a couple of years of coming out after his sporting ambitions were essentially ended by bigotry. Fashanu bore a double burden as on top of being the first openly gay footballer, he was also Black, in the days before football addressed its large scale problem with Racism. But the reason i bring this up is because Football has to a large extent, addressed its problem with Racism, and that is not to say that i deny that racism still exists within English football, because it most certainly does but action has been taken and it has to a large extent led to change. For example had the fans making the chants directed at Ashley Cole made them based upon his Race and not based upon sexual orientation, perceived, real or otherwise they would be facing life time stadium bans and probable police action however nothing has been done thus far, i greatly hope that this will change (in fact the police are currently looking into the incident) however i don’t foresee it. This is the problem, campaigns like Rainbow laces are all well and good but unless something is done to tackle incidents of Homophobia on site in the stadiums no change will come. similarly the comments of players like Frank Lampard are great, urge players to come out let them know that they will be accepted in the changing room but what player would come out knowing that they would be slaughtered from the stands every week ?

I would like to take this opportunity to commend the RFU on leading this way with this, they issued 2 fans with 2 year bans for homophobic abuse directed at openly Gay referee Nigel Owens, i really hope that the FA follow this example and begin to take action against fans found to have been involved in incidents of Homophobia, currently no fan has been punished for actions such as this and this continued failure to act sends out the wrong message, it sends out the message that such slurs are acceptable which of course they are not. Well thanks for reading, i guess i should get back to doing my actual degree not … sigh.

Priorities ?

so i know i haven’t written for quite a while and for that i am sorry however as always something has grabbed my attention and i felt that i had to throw my 2 cents into the ring.

So what is this pressing issue you ask ? Well to be frank it’s a mildly amusing middle aged man with a passion for offending people. a certain Mr Jeremy Clarkson, who was just 2 days ago suspended from his role at the BBC for punching a producer. Now what i really want to talk about is the reaction to his suspension, an e-petition started by a right wing blogger demanding his return has already received 300,000 signatures. Well to be quite frank this disgusts me, the fact that so many people will turn out and vote on a petition for something as irrelevant as a television presenter, even worse a television presenter to whom we can attribute so many racist, homophobic and sexist comments is truly disgraceful, and the reasons why it is so disgraceful lie in the context surrounding the situation, a context which i shall explore below.

The E-petitions site was originally set up with the aim of lobbying parliaments around the world, the site has been used by lobbyists in attempts to deal with human rights abuses, miscarriages of justice  and misuses of power’s among other issues. Now this is where my first issue with the Clarkson petition arises, it is simply not appropriate this is not what the site was intended for and it is distracting from real issues which affect real people, today if you Google the change.org the first result you will see is about the Clarkson petition now i’m sorry but this is so irrelevant, its not a real issue and yet it is now taking up the advertising space previously devoted to petitions to tackle homelessness, to tackle youth unemployment. Because these are all petitions running alongside the Clarkson one and i guess this is where i engage my second issue. Which is how can a petition like this bring so many to action i mean to get over 300,000 petitions over a TV presenter being suspended while the most worthwhile of causes like Child Hunger, or a removal of the sexist tax on female sanitary products can only get a handful is lucky to see 30,000. Now i love Top Gear as much as the next person but surely you can see these issues are far more pressing than a TV show. My final issue is perhaps the one which people will find most contentious but it is simply this, Clarkson deserves to be suspended, he has run the line for an exceptionally long time gaining innumerable warnings for his inflammatory comments  and this time he has gone to far to physically assault another member of staff. He has now been treated in an appropriate manner and has been suspended pending an investigation if the allegations are proven to be true then he should be sacked and should face criminal charges for his actions. I truly question your intelligence if you think someone should get away with an assault simply because they are Jeremy Clarkson. I thank you very much for reading and i ask that if you are one of the people who have signed this petition then please reconsider your priorities because there are so many more important things going on in the world.

Calming and restorative

So once again despite my best intentions i have thoroughly neglected to write on here for god knows how long, but as always my mind has once again filled with torrents of useless of confuzzled thought and i am in need of my outlet. I really wouldn’t expect this to be anything of any interest to most of you but i want to talk for a while about music …. partly because this is about as far as i can get from anything study or society related  , which right now is fantastic because these things currently have me boring a hole in my head, but also partly because at those times when my depressive tendencies get the better of me and i am feeling rather bleak about it all music is always the first thing to which i turn.

To be frank right now i am stressed, possibly the most stressed i have ever been, i mean i have work coming out of my ears and that combined with other commitments and an attempt at maintaining some degree of a healthy social life and my determination and commitment to getting a first leave me exhausted. At times all this leaves me feeling rather desolate and dispirited and i feel that slight creep back into a person i try so hard to run from, at these times when i can feel bad thoughts begging to cluster music is the place where i turn, for all the who people listen to music in the modern day i think very few actually understand what a powerful tool it can be, for me music is pure and simple the most calming and restorative force in my life. To simply shut your eyes and allow the subtle tones to wash over you transporting you to a different place and just subtly letting you know that everything will be okay. Now i have an extremely eclectic taste when it comes to music however i thought as what is an undeniable method of procrastination from this land law essay i’m currently supposed to be writing i would name just 3 songs which have in some way helped me through a patch. so without further ado :

1- Fast car- Tracy Chapman –   i find it very difficult to sum up what this song means to me, it’s not something i would listen to on the daily, not something which features on any playlist for work or exercise or down time and yet when everything gets too much, when the world is spinning just that little bit too fast this is the place where i turn because nothing grounds me faster than simply turning off the lights placing my phone on airplane mode and embracing the meandering melody, i still cant pin down exactly what calms me such about this song i guess it has a lot to do with the ideas of freedom of simply getting in a car and going, escaping who we are and what we owe, i guess really it speaks to my inner hedonist, passing them glimmers of freedom.

2- Kiss the Rain- Yiruma- what i really love about this is how it manages to somehow be incredibly simple in its construction while also somehow holding down a certain sort of epic scale, and here i don’t mean epic in any colloquial it’s amazing sense i mean it seems larger than life, in just a few notes this makes everything make sense, this piece has both pushed me deeper into and pulled me out of dark places , yet even when it has made me actively feel worse i still find it an absolutely exquisite work of art, i must add the effect is even more stupefying when combined with a rainy background. Also i will say that this is true of any Yiruma piece, they all carry this wonderful simplicity and they all have a very profound emotional effect upon me, i have in fact during times when i have been pent up or restless used  Yiruma’s work as a tool to send me off to sleep and it works every time.

Autumn leaves – Eva Cassidy – i guess the first thing i have to address here is why have i listed a cover, well the answer is simple really Eva’s version is infinitely more beautiful than the original, not only because of her vastly superior voice but also because of her story. I’m sure a psychologist would have much to say about the fact that i am instinctively drawn towards tragic characters like Eva or Jeff Buckley however make of it what you will i am. For me this song is a reminder, because whatever has happened to make me feel down this song and more over the entire tragedy of Eva’s life, remind me that things aren’t so bad and that no matter what is wrong things will be okay again.

Well if you have read this through, then thank you very much. I am not exactly sure why i decided to write it, as i said before it is probably much more about procrastination than anything else, but hey if you liked it why not comment with the three songs that have an impact on you ?

Hold my hand ?

So recently an article has been doing the rounds. It has been shared by countless people online including myself and has stoked up some discussion. The article involved an experiment carried out by two radio presenters. The presenters were intrigued following a call by a gay man who commented upon the responses he received when walking down the street holding hands with his boyfriend. I here enclose a link the independents reporting of the story for your consideration http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/holding-hands-with-another-man-in-public-has-made-me-realise-how-naive-ive-been-about-homophobia-in-the-uk-9972463.html. Now I know that I am a little late in commenting on this but I have been busy trying to be a proper student (and drinking) . But anyway Ignoring my feelings about heterosexual men who don’t have to live with this kind of treatment everyday carrying out an “experiment” such as this, I feel like the story and video do a good job of shining a light about a continuing problem.

I think the more shocking part of this video is not the reactions of the people passing by, but rather that both the presenters and most heterosexual people I have spoken to or who have responded to the story were surprised. It seems as if, now marriage equality has granted almost full legal equality for gay men and Lesbians (we shall ignore my continued gripes about minor differences between same sex marriages and heterosexual marriages here) many heterosexual people think that homophobia has been left in the past. Well I’m sorry to say that is far from the case, while tolerance has undeniably moved forward in recent times prejudice and hatred continue to be practised within our society and so many gay people suffer from them every day. The experiences we have of homophobia do to a great degree depend upon where we are in the country, as I can hardly claim to speak for all gay men and have certainly not travelled the length and breadth of the country I am going to focus purely upon my own experiences of homophobia in both Dorset and reading and the impact this has had upon me, I am writing this holding onto a grain of hope, that hope is that just one person will read this and that it will lead them to simply think before they speak or to speak up when they hear hatred around them.

My first experience of homophobia pre-dates, my having any ideas of even what a sexuality was let alone having a semblance of what my own was. It came in the form of words that every child of primary school age or above has hear … “that’s so gay”, now their has been debate about whether or not this is actually homophobia because “they don’t mean it like that” among those championing this view point has been one of my favourite journalists Owen Jones, who is himself a gay man, he claimed that we must accept that this use of the word gay is not meant to mean homosexual and that it was not an issue however for me it is a major issue and is something which can so greatly damage the self esteem of any young gay person , when you are young hearing these words they lead you to one simply conclusion, gay equals bad. It is the seeds of a sense of inferiority that follows many gay people for their entire life, the sad thing is that it is not just children that say this. I am studying at one of the Uk’s top universities and yet I still hardly go a day without hearing this kind of thing said. The simple truth is that to end a sentence with any other minority title serious sanctions would follow can you imagine for example people began saying “that’s so Black” absolute outrage and yet somehow that’s so gay is a okay … I really think If people realised the true implication of what they were saying they would be appalled, so I am making a genuine request here if your son, brother sister, daughter, mother, father I don’t care you get the picture, speaks in these terms then ask them to stop, explain to them that using gay as an insult is not okay and If you yourself say it then please just think about what you are saying because you simply do not realise the damage you are doing to someone’s confidence. Aside from this generalised misuse of the word gay my primary school days were reactively free from homophobia however as I entered secondary school this changed. I can be quite camp at times and to cruel kids that is weakness, and so from around the time I was in year 8 until the time I actually came out and by one or two long after that I was subjected to the whole oh “alex is so gay” routine, once again I am sure people didn’t really see the soft spot they were hitting, I mean some of these people were and remain to this day to be among my best friends and yet it left marks, made me shy, made me feel ashamed to be me, made me treat and try to hide in traditionally masculine retreats. As I have become more comfortable with myself I have begun to allow more of my feminine assets to show and I guess I have gone a slight way closer to being the traditional stereotype of a gay man and this has lead to strangers getting in on the whole bullying affair but that will come later.

My first experience of a full blown homophobic episode came when I was around 14 and is not something which I have ever spoken about, but the basic gist of it is that little 14 year old me was walking through town going merrily about my day, just walking home from school. When a group of fully grown middle aged men felt it was clearly imperative to their day to inform me that I was a “fucking little queer”, well thank you very much guys I never would have known that had you not said, this episode was very very scary for me at the time and the thought still panics me now, it made me feel like their was no world out their for me in which I could be happy, obviously not true but it felt so to me then. I would like to say that, this was the only time in which this kind of thing happened in Dorset but it wasn’t I have had these kinds of experiences on at least 4 other occasions, and I was once when I was 18 threatened with violence by a group of drunken 20 some-thing’s for simply walking down the street and looking like a “faggot”. If I am going to be 100% honest here, incidents like this are a part of the reason I dislike being in Dorset, I don’t feel safe their and I don’t feel like I am able to be myself without having to endure some kind of mistreatment. Reading is on the whole better, I have not really received any outright homophobia beyond one or two drunken comments when I dared to kiss another boy in a club … oh the horror of it, I have however received enough patronisation to last a life time … for example if on a night out I happen to be holding hands with a boy, the “oh that’s so cute” responses drive me mental … I am a person not a accessory or a toy there is no need to comment on it at all. On the whole while reading is better than Dorset I still doubt I would feel comfortable to walk down the street holding hands with a guy, during the day when I was sober, fear would still stop me, I hope unjustly however I fear I may be right to question how this would be received. The only places I have genuinely felt that I could safely walk hand in hand with someone bold as brass and broad as day is in Brighton or London, beyond that reservations would still haunt me.

I guess what I am trying to show in stating all this is that homophobia is still a problem especially in rural areas and it does still hurt, so I guess I will end this with a request. If you hear someone saying something homophobic , If you see someone being abused, step up, don’t be a bystander stand up and challenge them, make them justify their views make them stop their hate . Your action really can make the world of difference and you will never know how thankful those you help will be to you and how much respect you will gain, at least in my eyes.

Conversations with my 13 year old self

So i know i had already said i was writing about gay male identity but i changed my mind. That post is somewhere in the pipe line although i’m so busy i can’t be sure when it will come out but  right now i got an idea stuck in my mind and when that happens i just have to write it so without further ado ….

Hey Alex, you don’t know me I guess you could sort of say we are related, but anyway I have some sort of idea what you’re going through right now. Because you see I remember being 13 and terrified of the world, I still feel it at my weakest moments and I guess it really wasn’t so long ago in the grand scheme of things. So I thought since I had somewhat of an insight I should write to you maybe give you some words of comfort and good advice. I will say straight off the bat that it isn’t just a phase sweetie, I know that you think constantly how you will be able to fake it and just convince the world and yourself that you are “normal” and just marry some very unlucky girl but I know that before long you will see sense thank god because you an I both know that doing something like that wouldn’t be fair on you or them. I really wish their was a softer way I could convey this but I guess my entire purpose In writing to you was to offer you my experience so I’ll tell you kid in the next 2 years you are going to put yourself through hell, but you should know you are not alone and never will be you have some amazing friends who will stick with you through the whole ordeal no matter how badly you treat them, I Know that right now you don’t understand yourself you feel scared, alone, like a freak because you have never met anyone like you yet, you think you are sick or that there is something wrong with you, oh If only I could show you what life has in store for you. Once you get to around 15 you will finally accept the undeniable truth of your life , you are gay and it is never going to change, and at least now that the denial is done you will begin to come to terms with yourself, I know that at this point your life is so busy with so many other troubles going on and you really can’t see how you will make it through but once you do get through it you will see with hindsight why you felt the way you did and did the things which you did and you will come to fully appreciate what your family have done for you, although you and I both know you won’t be any good at showing it you moody little shit. I’m sorry to say that from 15 until 17 you will suffer increasingly from what you now know to be depression, you will being to obsess about your identity and how you are seen and you will assume that anyone who sees your true nature will not want anything to do with you. I should add though one positive experience will come out of this part of your life, you will meet another like you, of course you wont know that for a long time, well not beyond an inkling and a wish. I wish I could tell you that this would be the happy culmination to a fairy tale, alas I will not lie to you it will end in pain but from knowing him you will learn much about who you are and you will for a while know what it is to feel love for another. No matter the ending he will help you to accept yourself more than he will ever know and he will be the first that you trust with your ultimate truth. However I am getting ahead of myself here, I hate to say it but your mid teens will be hell, you will feel like you don’t fit in with anyone, you will struggle with contradictions in your identity and you will be overcome with a crippling loneliness, All this will weigh you down until eventually you hit breaking point. One morning, you will walk down the stairs not having slept a wink, I can still feel the fear that will posses you on that day, the secret that became you will have consumed you until you had no choice but to let it go. It will be the single scariest moment of your life and you will never forget the way you felt as you stepped into the kitchen and found your mother, she will simply be sat on the sofa, not knowing what is going on in your mind. I know how much you will struggle to finally let go of the secret that you have buried so far deep inside, but through all your stuttering and stumbling you will eventually get it through. I cant tell you the relief you will feel at that moment, freedom will finally wash over you and although I can’t say the hard times are over you will begin to again feel human. For your family’s part they will accept you, even if they are initially rather shocked and you will begin to feel some sort of a semblance of self worth returning to yourself. I wish I could tell you that from here on out it would be plain sailing but it wont, In the days following this you will experience some crippling lows, during one of these low spells, while sitting alone in your room feeling like the world is against you and that it has nothing to offer you. While you are feeling this way, someone will pop on facebook, it will be him of course the one you can’t keep your eyes off, and when he asks you how you are it will all come poor out, he will comfort you and be strong where you weren’t, over the coming days the news will spread as you tell more and more people and they tell others. You will notice the sideways glances and whispered conversations but they won’t matter to you because you will be free and for the first time you will know yourself and accept yourself for all that you are. For a time life will settle down and things will be okay before relationships and huge life moves send you back in a sea-saw of emotion but that’s a different story. In case you haven’t already guessed this, I am you, or the person you will become and right now I am feeling pretty dumb writing this but you know what that’s okay because I am happy and I know that you will be too. Anyway I guess this is good bye young one … stay strong.

Oh yea, i still exist by the way .

Well it’s been absolutely eons since i last posted on here, mostly because iv’e been really busy doing real student things like studying (and drinking) but also because i have been in a pretty good place these last few weeks and as anyone who regularly reads my hum drum ramblings will tell you my posts usually coincide with a low period. However tonight as i sit here back in my family home after weeks away at university  and with the marathon of running its final mile, i have fallen once again into one of those reflective moods.

So i guess ill just recap some of the goings on that i have omitted to write about in my hectic life. Well firstly i feel like i should give a special mention to the many many many amazing people i have met over the past term, during this term i have met a group of people who have helped me to come more to terms with myself and perhaps for the first time helped me to feel like i truly fit in within a group, i shall say no more on this topic as i have an entire post around it planned when i eventually get the time and energy, so watch this space. On top of this i guess i could say iv’e found my niece in university life, during my first year i allowed a combination of fear and foolhardy commitment to unworthy party’s to prevent me from truly embracing university life, from involving myself with society’s and other extra curricular provisions however this year that all changed, i have found myself far more involved and through doing this have met some amazing people whom i now consider to be among my best friends and i have also embraced some amazing opportunities, i feel now is the time to do something i rarely do (at least on this blog) and give myself some credit, because i won something, no i’m not joking i actually won something. So what did i win you ask ? i won a mooting competition run by the elsa society and as a result now get to go to luxembourg in February. But more than the prize i am still in shock at the fact that i could win such a thing, a moot is essentially a mock trial and for someone who used to get nervous at the thought of having to talk to anyone other than a very small circle of friends i feel that winning a debate based competition in front of an audience is a pretty fucking big deal.

So i know post has been very short and in a way rather pointless, but hey ho i guess all i really wanted to convey to you is that i am still here and i do have something of a socio-political post planned on gay male identity, which is something the course of my studies have led me to read a lot about recently and this reading combined with my own situation have given me a very interesting idea that i rather feel like sharing

The addiction

All life’s pains drag me in
who could live a life free from sin
a symposium of pleasure and strain
fucking or love its only a name
from time to time i guess i see
how madness does simply call to me