I decided a long time ago not to hate people. There's no benefits in hating: it makes your wrinkles worse, sends your blood pressure soaring and changes nothing. But o man o man, I hate the Tories. Rampant self-interest seems to be their favourite posture.
The trouble is, now I'm starting to hate the other party politicians too. And this has nothing to do with the forthcoming referendum.
When I saw Danny Alexander on TV last night (new haircut, contacts instead of glasses and evidence of media training) denouncing the bedroom tax, I shouted at the telly: What's wrong with you? We told it wouldn't work, that it would only penalise the poor and disabled living in public housing who can't move because there's nowhere to move to. They'll get into arrears with their rent - and they'll get evicted. Why didn't you denounce it before you voted on it? Or were you just so glad to be in government, you would have gone along with anything the Tories suggested?
But the Lib Dems are no worse than the Labour Party. I was a member for 40 years on and off and I can't believe what I'm seeing. No policies that I can make out. No principles. Just a determination to copy the other lot and, if anything, be even tougher on the poor and disabled. Effectively removing all hope from the voters and giving them even more reason to stay at home on polling day.
I'm only glad my parents and grandparents aren't around to see this fiasco unfold, as the political parties collude in dismantling the Welfare State their generations worked so hard to create.
It isn't too late to change the right-wing direction government is taking, but it will take someone at the head of a party with imagination, charisma and intellectual force to turn things around. And I can't see the leaders of any of the parties above as anything other than nonentities.
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