You're a beautiful woman probably...

As it now looks as if the Tory party is in the lead in election polls, I'm alarmed by the way spending cuts are being discussed. David Cameron has said quite openly that he's going to target areas like mine (the north east of England) in his cuts. It seems he wants to start making these as soon as possible and give tax cuts to his rich friends, instead of putting the burden of extra taxes on the better off, as it should be. While I agree that the deficit needs to be tackled, this was largely a product of the banking system. Shouldn't even heftier taxes be levied on the banks, then, and the rest on areas like VAT, rather than creating unemployment deliberately and increasing the benefits bill by sacking public service workers? As you'll have gathered, I'm not a Conservative supporter. The LibDems have, in the past, seemed to me to have some sensible policies. However, Nick Clegg has shown himself completely out of touch with a large segment of the public on the iss...

We went to the theatre (National Theatre, Olivier auditorium) during last weekend's trip to London. England People Very Nice by Richard Bean, an episodic play about waves of immigration into the Whitechapel district and their effects on the locals, was entertaining and very well staged. I particularly liked the lighting effects, the projection of different settings and animations onto the basic box set. The performances were also uniformly good. The play itself was a bit more questionable, throwing out mixed messages. In the early stages - about the Irish and the Jews - it was "the poor, abused immigrants" but then the issue was thoroughly confused by the story of the Islamic militants and the Somalis who are given accommodation (according to the play, the tabloids etc.) ahead of the indigenous population. Of course, this is a controversial area. If the tabloid newspapers are to be believed, there is a widespread perception that Britain is a "soft touch" whe...