A Pre-Election Thought

Some of you might have noticed that, despite having a strong political inclination and the very purpose of my podcast/blog/whatever-that-is-now, I haven’t actually talked about any of the recent events that have been taking place in the UK, or indeed the world, in recent times. Part of that is rooted in a loss of connection of wanting to share those views – I’ve never been a big fan of talking into the wind or spending time on something for it to go unheard. Another part of it though is that I’ve found it difficult to articulate my thoughts on so many of the events that have happened. I will now seek to correct this.

We find ourselves in the eve of an election that no-one expected, one that was taken not of our necessity but of out political gain – much as the referendum on the United Kingdom was made to save the Conservative Party, so to was this snap general election called to save the Conservative government of Theresa May. It is worth remembering that the day after May called the election, it was revealed that numerous Conservative MPs were being investigated over campaign expenses from the 2015 general election – if this had led to multiple charges, then the government would have lost its majority. Under such a situation either a new election would need to be called, May would need to cobble together a working government (Either a minority government supported by other parties or an outright coalition), or the Leader of the Opposition would be invited to form a minority government instead – yes, Jeremy Corbyn would become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland.

Of course, the vast lead that the Conservatives had in public opinion polls over Labour had nothing to do with May’s decision, or that she appeared to be facing internal party division over her leadership and approach to Brexit – the hot topic of the day that has come to be the only issue now taking place in Britain (Something that particularly irritates some members of my family who wish they’d just get on with it – their words, not mine). This is the main issue that has framed most of this election – it is the issue that the Conservative Party have largely campaigned on in their argument that only Theresa May can lead the country towards a Brexit that 52% of people voted for without any kind of details about what it was they voted for. Not a soft Brexit, nor a hard Brexit, but a Red, White, and Blue Brexit. The strong and stable leadership of Theresa May’s government and premiership as opposed to the ‘Coalition of Chaos’ of Jeremy Corbyn, Tim Farron, and Nicola Sturgeon that is the only alternative apparently.

You may have noticed thought that the Conservative Party hasn’t really mentioned itself during much of its campaign. 2017 marks one of the most presidential-style campaigns for the Tories because they know that their leader is more popular than the party itself. Let us not forget that the Conservative Party has enacted huge cuts to public spending, undermining not only education, the NHS, infrastructure, police numbers, social care, and welfare benefits.

I will add some personal comments here though, before I am attacking or praised depending on your political inclinations and affiliations. I do not think that Conservative Party members or supporters are bad people. I am proud to say that amongst my array of friends, you will find those who are either party members or long-time voters & supporters of the Conservatives. I don’t like the partisan nature that had been growing in modern politics: that people are attacked for sharing their beliefs when they don’t align with yours or you disagree with them, that you should launch into personal abuse at them. Disagreement is not a bad thing by any measure and a healthy debate on any subject is a good thing, but it must be done in a respectful manner that does not fall into derogatory smear or character assassination. These are still people who care for people just as you do – you may disagree with how best to get there and what measures are to be taken, but it is wrong to think that everyone who will vote for the Conservative Party, or any party different than yours, is wrong, evil, stupid, or anything like that.

Those of you who do know me that how I will be voting. I will defend the right of people to disagree and to civil debate & discussion, I am a firm believer in equality and fairness. I believe that all people, regardless of their background, faith, lifestyle, race, should have their options in life limited. A fairer society, that helps people from all walks of life, is the best way to move forward in a world that seems so intent on directing its attention inwards and either ignoring or vilifying anything different or new.

We all love and care for one another. No one should wish harm on another living person or desire their failure in life so that we might prosper by them faltering. The world has become obsessed with finding faults in those who would do us no harm and idolising those who do not deserve our adulation. There are people worthier than the cult de celebre that exists but because they do not seek it, the teaching they could offer us are not heard to generations now growing and shaping the future of our society. All people want is more – to put themselves first and the needs of the individual ahead of the needs of society. Who cares what other people need, I want it more. Greed should never be a motive in life.

My vote tomorrow will be for Labour. But I implore you to make sure that, however you intend to vote tomorrow, make sure that your voice is heard through the ballot box. Every vote counts, especially when there are those who would prefer it remained quiet and unheard. Let the silent majority be heard so that change can be made to make a fairer Britain, a better Britain.

Thank you.

A Tale of Two Marches

Yesterday I participated in the second political march of my adult life. (I never attended any during my child life, just to be clear, though I’ve often seen the phrase ‘adult life’ and felt it more suitable than simply ‘my life’) In comparison to the first that I joined, there was a stark difference in both the public mood, attendance, and general direction.

In the wake of the Brexit vote last June, there was a generally feeling of disappointment, confusion, and anger – most of which was felt by those who had voted Remain which made up a large proportion of Scotland. Scotland voted to remain in the European Union by a margin of 62%-to-38%, whilst the entire United Kingdom voted to leave the EU by a far thinner margin of 51.89%-to-48.11%. You can imagine the anger of those who voted Remain in Scotland only to see their decision taken out of their hands by voters in England. Within a matter of hours, the hashtag #IndyRef2 was trending across social media.

I was certainly surprised to see the result was for Leave that following morning. Like many people who had watched the referendum unfold and polls suggest it would be a close victory, I anticipated a narrow win for the status quo – the economic uncertainty of leaving the European Union seemed like the winning factor over immigration control. Those who expected such a result though underestimated the anger and resentment of those who felt abandoned by the government, seeking to punish them for this apparent betrayal in favour of Brussels by voting to leave the political & economic union that generations had grown up with.

The referendum was fraught with jingoistic and nationalist fervour, seeming to demonise immigrants in posters (Those were decrying across the political spectrum fortunately) but it seemed as those the nationalist genie was out of the bottle. Eurosceptics across the spectrum welcomed the result with celebration whilst Remainers were left wondering what to do now. In the face of this backlash, rallies and marches were soon organised to support the European Union.

The rally that I attended outside of the Scottish Parliament only a few days after the referendum must have been attended by several hundred people. An array of EU flags were being held aloft, with homemade banners and placards alongside them, calling for unity with Europe in the face of hate & xenophobia. Rather conversely though, unity was primarily with the European Union rather than with the United Kingdom – the nature of the vote that England and Wales had voted to leave, whilst Scotland and Northern Ireland wished to remain seemed to create a new kind of doublethink. Speeches were being given by MEPs, student activists, political organisations that were in favour of the EU and against the rhetoric of the Leave campaign with its hate-filled bile – not many of us could hear these speeches though, as there was no sound system available meaning it was an enormous crowd of people stood in the gardens outside Parliament trying to hear a single person shout.

It did gain attention though, as you could imagine such a large gathering of people with flags and placards would. I saw a few Scottish Labour MSPs in the crowd, including the party’s leader Kezia Dugdale – I would soon be photographed next to her, despite my shyness to ask for a selfie after a friend of mine enquired adding “He’s politically in love with you.” My face was soon as red as my Labour Party membership card. The mood of the rally then was optimistic – it called for hope, love, and unity in the face of fear, xenophobia, and separatism (Again, conversely given the large number of #IndyRef2 placards I saw).

A day or so before I saw an event had been organised for the following week – a pro-EU march leaving from the Mound to walk down the Royal Mile, before concluding with a rally outside the Scottish Parliament once again. With little else to do with my time, and my blood raised by the previous rally, I decided I would attend. With crowds of at least five-hundred strong at the rally in the immediate wake of Brexit, one could only imagine that a better planned march would have far greater attendance. I was very much mistaken.

The march was a delayed start to begin with. After waiting twenty minutes more than had been planned, the two-hundred or so of us there made our way down the Royal Mile in what seemed like a far more meagre and weaker version of what had been hoped for. The weather was not the dry, light grey sky of the week before either – it was cold & damp, no doubt one of the reasons that attendance was comparatively poor. The only improvement from the rally was that a microphone and speaker system had been brought along, together with megaphones, though they seemed less necessary now as the crowd’s numbers dwindled in comparison to the first rally.

I believe there were two key issues with the comparative failure of the march & second rally. Firstly, time had passed. The anger and resentment at the Brexit vote was intense in its initial days; social media was a flurry of bitterness between both sides as Remainers and Leavers argued with one another, the political maelstrom had been opened as David Cameron would shortly resign, Labour was soon consumed into another bout of civil war, and the whole British political establishment looked lost and feeble, except for Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP. But as someone once said, “A day is a very long time in politics”.

A week later, there was still confusion over what Brexit meant (And there still is that confusion despite Prime Minister Theresa May repeatedly informing the world “Brexit means Brexit”) but the result had been tacitly accepted by many people. Whether they liked it was another matter entirely, however it was clear that a second referendum was not a popular notion amongst the public despite a public petition calling for one growing in signatures by the minute. With less anger over the result, they were less inclined to attend.

The other matter is something that is a key point of British politics; general apathy towards Europe. If, in 2015, you asked someone in the street for their thoughts on Europe they would probably have a nonplussed response of general dislike but nothing deeply passionate. Nor would you find many committed Europhiles either, with those in favour of remaining not being able to tell you much about its organisation or specific benefits. The evidence for that is to look at voter turnout for the European Parliament elections. Whilst in France and Germany, turnout is quite high, in Britain it rarely goes above 40%. It was summed up equally well on social media; “They send heart surgeons to Brussels, we send Nick Griffin.”

However, Brexit had been the turning point for a major political shift on a worldwide scale. The right-wing populist genie had been released but Brexit was not to be its coup de grace – that would happen in November with the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States of America. If Brexit was a shock to the world, Trump was a full-blown cardiac arrest coupled with 10,000 volts of direct current.

With a campaign on protectionism, isolationism, and nationalism, it seemed like Trump was going to be Brexit dialled up to 11. Optimists thought we might see a different Trump upon entering the White House – he was now President-elect and the rallying cry to his supporters was no longer necessary as he had won the election. This was short-lived though. His victory tour across the US saw his rhetoric from the campaign continue as he decrying his political opponents as ‘enemies’, inciting anger towards the political establishment of which he was now leader, placing the blame on the elite and foreigners.

In my first podcast, I talked about my thoughts on Trump’s executive order to ban Muslims from seven Muslim-majority nations. To say I was angry during the recording might be a slight understatement. The next day, I attended an anti-Trump march that had been hastily organised in the wake of his ban on Muslims entering the United States and his state visit to the United Kingdom later this year. With only a day’s notice, attendance could go either very well or very poorly. It was being held in late January in the evening – it would be dark & cold, with the weather forecast predicting rain. I was amazed by the final thing.

Thousands turned up with a greater array of anti-Trump placards, posters, and banners that I had ever seen – from official ‘Stand Up Against Racism’ to homemade ones with statements such as ‘In Scotland, Trump is a word for a fart’. The speakers were passionate, from across organisations that were deeply moved & affected by the ban; Muslim student organisations, black political student officers, and Maggie Chapman, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, as just a few examples.

The march down to the Mile seemed to show the wave of love for refuges as chants of ‘Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here’ echoed and rippled through the crowd. Onlookers waved and held banners in support of the marchers. This march had tapped into the anger from the Brexit voted that could be more tangibly directed at a single person – President Donald Trump. It was also vastly different from the march in support of the EU as it part of hundreds more taking place across the UK and the world that same night.

The mood did shift though, or so I began to think. The chants in parts of the crowd changed from ‘Refugees are welcome here’ to ‘Donald Trump’s not welcome here’. What had begun in protest to Donald Trump and in support of those being victimised & persecuted, was slowly shifting into a general protest against the man himself. Whilst I am no supporter of Trump or any of his politics, the mood from one of love & compassion to anger was slightly unsettling if only for fear of what passionate people can do when deeply angered. My worries were proven wrong though – there was to be no drama during the march.

By the time I arrived outside the Scottish Parliament, half of the march had already arrived with the remaining half still making its way down the Mile. More speakers, armed with microphones and speaker systems, rallied the crowd though the numbers made it difficult to make out what exactly they were saying despite the audio system provided. There was no mistaking their passion though; the crowd would frequently breaking into applause and cries of support for their words, even if many of us could not actually hear those words.

When the rally ended and the crowd began to disperse, my friend whom I’d attended the march with alongside his fiancée, jokingly asked me “So, Trump’s not president anymore?” The joke aside, the march was a stark contrast to my previous experience in June. The first seemed like a false start, though last night’s seemed to be real starting gun.

#WorldMentalHealthDay

As I’m sure most of you have seen by now with social media talking about it a lot, today is World Mental Health Day. Something else that many of you will already know about me is that I’m someone who is affected by mental health as a sufferer of bipolar depression disorder. The combination of these two facts would generally prompt me into writing one of my (in)famously long essay status thingys, so I’ll try not to disappoint anyone.

I am glad that we live in a society that is capable of having open and accepting conversations about how anyone is feeling and the need to hide away what you’re feeling is no longer as commonplace as it was years ago. This does not mean that we live in a perfect society; this is far from the case. Many young adults, especially young men like myself, find themselves unable to talk about their own negative feelings about themselves as a result of societal pressures – the idea that men don’t talk about their feelings and the generally idea that we must all strive for perfection regardless of what it takes. To that I have one phrase (Forgive me, Mum): what a load of rubbish.

This is not a derision of the motives for why we don’t talk about our feelings to people, so don’t go lambasting me in the comments before you’ve finished this. My enflamed comment there is we feel we need to live our lives according to an outdated system that has existed in British culture for decades – the stiff upper lip. Only a conversation I was having early today says a lot about this; the British people think rather than feel. We find it uncomfortable to talk about how we feel, whether it be about ourselves or how we feel for one another for whatever reason that may be. This will lead to a backlog of feelings and that pressure can often cause great harm to many people.

I get that. I get that as I understand that it is terrifying to tell someone that you’re scared by your own thoughts, the fear of rejection and humiliation at not being strong enough to deal with your own problems. But there is nothing weak in asking for help from someone. There is nothing weak in needing someone to listen to you talk about your fears, to be there for you even if they don’t do anything. And there are always people who are happy & willing to listen to you; whether they are friends, family, or strangers on the end of the phone at the Samaritans.

Never think that you’re not worth anything because I have news for you – you are worth so much more than you think. We might not all be the most popular person, the funniest, the smartest, the best at everything, but that doesn’t make you worth any less than anyone else in the entire world. Every single person on this planet is important. We make the world what it is, for all of its faults & flaws, a myriad of wonder and spectacle. You’re never alone and never not worth anything – remember that.

I might sound like I’m rambling off a lot of nice pieces from graduation speeches here, but it’s all true. (What I’m saying is true, not that I took any of this from a graduation speech. It’s more Doctor Who really but anyway…) I’ve heard all of this before too and I’m sure that a lot of you have heard it too. But that’s how I know that it works and it’s true because I’ve been to those same dark places that others have been to; the place where the world is cold, dark, and full of shadows, where you feel completely alone and would be better off not even existing, where no-one will miss you if you’re not around anymore. But that’s not true. Because the world is full of wonders, of people who love & care about you, and even if that might not always be there to see or speak to you, that doesn’t mean you’ve been forgotten about.

I always look at the night-time sky every night before bed now. I look at the stars shining in the sky; even if it’s cloudy and I might not be able to see them, I’ll still look extra hard. In that vast inky, blackness that seems to cover everything and surround all of us forever, there are pockets of light shining through brightly that the rest of the universe can see. And that gives me hope. Hope is something that we need more of in this world – we see disaster, hate, misery, death, greed, and a host of things that can drive a person to the brink. But hope, compassion, friendship, happiness, and most importantly love are the things that we all have in our lives that are often overlooked.

Hold onto them. Because they are your way from the darkness of the cold pit and back into the warm starshine of love.

I’d quickly like to say thank you to everyone who has been there for me in my dark times, whether they have known it or not, and helped me through those trips back into the light.

There has never been anyone who wasn’t important and you are not the first. I love you all and know you are not alone.

 - Alex

Opening the door on Europe

Well, despite spending a long time away from here, I have not forgotten all about it. So I’m returning to it again to tackle the big issue in the UK at the moment: the EU Referendum. And what an issue it is.

So far, most of the information that had been peddled by both the Remain and Leave campaigns have been mutually accused as ‘Project Fear’, a term that was also used by the Yes campaign during the Scottish Independence Referendum in 2014 (More on that later). The Remain campaign has mostly been focussing on the economic impact of Brexit (British exit from the EU for anyone reading this whose been outside of the UK news bubble) arguing that Britain’s departure would have a huge negative impact on our economy; we receive not only huge amounts as being a member of the EU thanks to the lack of trade barriers that we receive being a member state, but also this would affect other trade as international companies would be willing to move elsewhere to have access to the European market.

The Leave campaign, by contrast, has focussed on immigration as its main issue for leaving the EU; only by leaving the European Union and the ‘uncontrolled’ migration that it allows between its member states and those refugees and immigrants wishing to pour into Britain can we restore our national sovereignty whilst being able to reclaim the money we would otherwise spend on the untold millions entering the country seeking to steal our jobs and robbing our unemployment benefits at the same time and use it to save our welfare state and the NHS. (Yes, the sarcasm is coming off a bit strong there – I know)

So, they’re the key areas really – either you’re a friend of big business who doesn’t want to see the economy go down the tubes or you’re a closet racist with particular position on Schrodinger’s migrant who is simultaneously taking your job and your unemployment benefits. One obviously is coming across as worse than the other really, but accusations continue to fly. The Leave campaign, or Brexiteers for a catchier, youthful name, have argued that the Remain campaign is only looking to help big business and the large multinationals that benefits by the UK staying in, whilst the ordinary person in the street doesn’t see any of those benefits. The Remain campaign have accused the Brexiteers of being…well, how I described them earlier.

All in all, it is not a pleasant or hopeful message for either to pitch really. Both sides are pandering to make you vote for their option out of fear for the other side – would you rather have a national economy come crashing down and be abandoned on the world stage or find yourself surrounded by immigrants & no say on any laws in your own country?

So, what do I think?

I am, like many of my generation, pro-Europe. The EU has been around for my entire life so I could not begin to imagine a world without us being a part of it – those who do remember it will harken back to the glory days of the 1970s when it was still the EEC (European Economic Community) that saw Ted Heath take us into the Common Market the referendum two years later in 1975 that saw us overwhelmingly supporting being a member. Back then, I would have voted for us to leave.

My reluctance when it comes to the EU are the same arguments that were made by the late great Tony Benn – there is a fundamental democratic deficit within the EU. It’s leadership and composition is only partially democratically elected by the populations of its member states, whilst the remainder is appointed internally. Quite famously, or infamously depending on outlook, if the EU were to apply to join itself, it would not meet the criteria required as a democratic state to join. Equally, the nature of the European Union today is a free market national community – one of the reasons that Margaret Thatcher was an early supporter of the EEC prior to her change of heart as Labour become pro-EEC/EU when workers’ & trade unions rights were made possible through its membership.

Despite this, I am a reluctant European. The benefits that we gain through membership to the EU; workers’ right, paid holiday leave, gender equality in the workplace, etc. are all secured through our membership to this exclusive club that helps bring together and unite the continent of Europe. A continent that has, for most of its history, been engulfed in bloodshed & warfare. We now live in a Europe of peace, where war between European nations is no longer a possibility thanks to the EU. (I would now encourage anyone wishing to looking into this particular fact towards Robert Schuman, the father of the EEC, and how he came up with the idea in the first place)

Fearmongering in politics has become commonplace – it was seen in the Scottish Independence Referendum and is also now being seen in the US presidential elections. What we need in politics is not fear and a place to direct anger, but hope and way to make things better for ourselves and all other people. Making people passionate about a cause you believe in is always a good thing if it can provoke like-minded people to band together, but only if it means the building of a better society that doesn’t cause the mindless destruction of the society that we live in already. Love and compassion are easier to understand than hate and prejudice.

I’ll probably get more into the EU Referendum as time passes by on it with specific references to some of the more notable events and individuals so far (Boris, I’m coming for you!) but this should serve as an opener for you in the meantime.

Looking across the Atlantic

So, I’m going to be starting off my first post with a brief comment on one of the biggest world politics event taking place: The United States 2016 presidential nominations. A little odd for me to be starting with this as I expect most of what I write on here will be about my own national politics (British, in case you were wondering), but it’s one of the hot topics at the moment so I’d tag my own thoughts to it.

Now I have some friends who live in the US, one of whom sent me a link to an interesting article at Politico Magazine which talks about how Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have shifted the American political environment towards one away from the traditional American viewpoint and more in-line with that of Europe. My friend actually wanted me for my views on the matter as a European, but I thought I would share them here as an interesting starting point for the blog. (Shelby, I hope you don’t mind)

In some parts of the article, I think that it is correct that both Trump and Sanders have pushed the debates and issues into different directions and different areas than are usually focussed on during the presidential nomination period and, subsequently, the election period itself. Trump has pushed immigration to the fore with a strongly populist message about opposing not only immigration from neighbouring Mexico with the construction of a wall, but also with his strong stance against allowing Muslims in the United States as a security measure, whilst Sanders has made the wealth inequality within the country a key issue for his own campaign and railing against Wall Street and the private banking system. In many ways, they serve as counterpoints to the differing issues that are dividing much of the world – immigration and financial equality.

However, I would not agree that these are issues that are inherently European. In the article, Trump is compared to Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian Prime Minister who was infamous for his ‘Bunga Bunga’ parties and seen as corrupt by many. The comparison comes from Berlusconi’s background as a businessman before venturing into politics and the comparable nature of their own political ideologies, though I don’t think that Berlusconi was quite as extreme in some views as Trump is in his (Never thought I’d be defending Berlusconi, believe me). A major difference between these two though is that Trump has never held any elected office in his life, whilst in a parliamentary system, Berlusconi did hold a seat in the Italian Parliament before eventually reaching the position that he would serve as the Prime Minister. He didn’t simply go from one to the other. Not that might be a quibble over the minutia in that comparison, but the difference is that Trump himself is not a politician and doesn’t claim to be.

Moving to the other side, Sanders is compared to the current British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who was elected as the party leader last year on a wave of anti-austerity protests and apathy towards perceived ‘career politicians’. In some ways, these actually do serve as better comparisons as both men serve their own personal beliefs whilst the Democratic Party and the Labour Party have respectively transformed over the decades into something to be considered more ‘electable’. Both Corbyn and Sanders are against the sheer amount of influence that private business, the media, and private banking have in current politics and believe there must be a radical change in both systems. At the same time, I would not agree that Sanders is someone with a more European idea of politics than an American one – he still holds true to many American values & ideals, as can be seen to his approach on gun laws, which many Europeans would not agree with.

Trump and Sanders are also both anti-establishment candidates – neither have the support of their respective parties (I won’t get into the matter of Sanders technically being an Independent Senator rather than being a party member, but go with me on this still) and are not the preferred choice by the leadership. Rather than seeing this a complete transformation of the American system into one more akin to Europe, I think there are issues that Americans focus on more than are affected in Europe.

My biggest issue with the article though is Trump himself. I don’t know of anyone, amongst my friends, relatives, strangers I overhear on the bus, or internet commentators, who would willingly vote for Donald Trump – I say that as a Brit and as a European. Much of what he says is appealing to a broad right-wing populism that is anti-Obama, in addition to being strongly anti-Islamic and xenophobic. Europe has our own version of this, with UKIP here in Britain, Front Nationale in France, etc. However, none of these seem to be the same vein or style of Donald Trump and his campaigns.

I would say that the United States presidential election of 2016 isn’t so much the beginning of a shift towards a more-European style politics for America as it is a shifting in the focus of the debate and issues. Sanders, in many ways, is a reminder of the New Deal Democrats prior to Carter and Clinton years which has been lost to generations of Americans, whilst Trump is a mix of the negative aspects of Barry Goldwater, or at least how he was portrayed during 1964, and George Wallace’s American Independent Party in 1968. America isn’t just looking across the Atlantic for 2016, it’s also looking to the past.

Pulling on my Anorak

Well I’ve been meaning to set-up a blog for some time now. And by ‘some time’, I mean at least over a year since one of my oldest friends did so and gave me the idea to try it myself. As you can clearly see, I was swift in my response. Nevertheless, here we are – ‘Anorak on a Soapbox’. I’ve had that name for a longer time for something I would use either as a blog or the name for an autobiography, if I ever reached a stage in my life where I could/should/would write one.

It’s a fairly obvious breakdown in terms of a title; I am generally a bit of a social oddball and so would fit the definition of being an anorak quite nicely, even if I do actually lack to the item of clothing in question (Not for want of trying, but they’re not terribly easy to find & seem to be a small fortune for one too). This is also a way that I can broadcast or share my thoughts on the state of things in the world i.e. current politics, world events, social events, etc.

Most people I’ve met & know me have said that I should go in politics as a career path, which always rankled with me slightly as I was studying to become an actor and have since graduated with that degree in hand. But I’ve also always been someone who doesn’t openly broadcast or share his thoughts on current political events as a sign of not wishing to fill my own Facebook with a stream of politicised essays on a constant daily basis whilst wishing to respect that my various ‘friends’ on Facebook (A loose terminology as I would expect that if asked I would imagine that most of those comprising the three-digit total of my Facebook friends might be consider me to be amongst their friends as we’ve not exchanged any kind of communication in years however that’s a point for another time) probably have different political opinions to my own. I already know this is the case with my friends that I see in the real world (Yes, I do have some of those too).

 

So we’re brought back to ‘Anorak on a Soapbox’ where I can occasionally talk about my thoughts on the burning issues without too fear of creating walls of text on what should otherwise be a social media site used for friendly conversation, light-hearted pictures, and the occasional rant. I know there’s much more to Facebook and all other social media than that, but I’m trying to be relatively simple with it.

I’ll probably be putting up the first ‘proper’ post later today so feel free to check it out.