Dear David Crausby MP

A while ago I signed the change.org petition to block the MPs pay rise (it's dead easy, and there are currently 323,703 signatories).

Just before Christmas I received an email suggesting that I email my MP directly to find out whether he intends to accept the pay rise. The response will be sent to Change.org and they will publish to findings.

Here is what I wrote...

"Dear David Crausby,

I have a question for which I require a response.

Will you be accepting the 11% pay rise?

I have recently signed a petition to block the pay rise as I feel deeply concerned that there was very little public consultation, in spite of the continued rhetoric from IPSA insisting that this is what the public want. In addition, the idea that MPs will get this pay rise at a time of national austerity disgusts me. Most of your ordinary constituents have not had a pay rise, (and in many cases have had a pay
cut in realistic terms) for several years.

I feel that you were fully aware of the renumeration package you would receive prior to your appointment in May 1997, and in your 16 years as an MP, you have not left office to find a better paying job.

My concerns run deeper than that. Every day, I drive 35 miles to work from your constituency in Bolton to Tytherington in Macclesfield. I don't get to claim expenses, or even tax relief, for my travel, and I can't afford to rent or buy a home nearer to work.

I am strongly opposed to any suggestion that this pay rise will sort out the expenses problem. There should be no expenses problem, and frankly, I feel that I could do a great job as an MP with a salary of £66,396, which is more than three times my annual salary.

I await your response.
Yours sincerely,

Mrs. Lydia Bernsmeier-Rullow BA PGCE"

Now, even if you don't sign the petition, write to your MP and ask them this simple question. It's as easy as clicking here https://www.writetothem.com/ and putting in your postcode. Remember, they work for you!

Section 28 and why it must NEVER return

I thought that growing up in the shadow of Section 28 didn't affect me until I was all grown up. When I was at school, I didn't hear the word lesbian until I was well into my high school years, and when I did, it was almost always being thrown around as an insult.

I didn't know whether being gay was "ok" and this casual banter even infected my own lexicon. I became homophobic, without really even realising what that word meant. It seemed easier to turn a blind ear or worse still, join in, than it was to admit that I might be gay.

We didn't have any gay teachers, just suspected ones and we didn't have a single pupil in the whole school who was brave enough to come out (although between 6 and 10 from my year alone did once they left!)

Section 28 was something I had never heard of. I wasn't interested in politics or education policy and I didn't know any gay people anyway, so it just wasn't a thing that I ever needed to encounter.

Watching Ellen Degeneres come out in 1997 changed all that. I didn't come to terms with my sexuality until 2001 when I was 17 years old. But '97 was a crucial year for me. I suddenly understood what gay actually meant. I had an actual lesbian upon whom to anchor my thoughts.

I was still in the closet, even to myself, for the next four years and my sexuality expressed itself, unfortunately, as internalised homophobia. I watched Queer as Folk and thought it was incredible and exciting, but at school I said it was disgusting, because that was what all my friends said. I speculated about the sexuality of various teachers with my friends as I wrestled with my own sexual orientation.

What I feared most was somebody asking me directly, I don't think I could have lied. Four years later when I left high school, I came out and never looked back... Yeah right! I didn't have anybody telling my "It gets better" or "It's good to be gay". The backlash against Ellen had been brutal and in the UK, it was really no easier to come out as gay at 17 than it had been ten years earlier.

Once I was out, however, I never went back in. I came out to my Mum, she told my Dad, somehow my Nana found out and once I went off to university, I was a fledgling dyke waiting to spread my little gay wings.

University was a revelation. I suddenly had gay friends, got to experience gay clubs and the "gay lifestyle" (which is very much like the "straight lifestyle" but with more rainbows). It was then, at my first Pride in Manchester, that I heard about Section 28 for the first time. It was August 2003 and I was 19 and my feeling was one of abject horror. Shortly after that, Section 28 was finally repealed. But for me, that wasn't the end of the story.

Section 28 caused me harm. There I said it. Not insignificant harm - real harm. Because my teachers didn't step in when people used the word "Gay" as in insult, I never realised it was bad. Because my teachers were too afraid to come out, I never had a role model. Because there were no role models, I didn't come out.

So it was with sadness that I read Shaun Dellenty's TES article which said that gay teachers are still being told to "keep quiet" about their sexuality. This Section 28 by the back door MUST stop. Perhaps if I'd had one teacher who was out and proud, I would have had an easier ride in my teens.

Some kids and teachers are gay - get over it.

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6373296 - Shaun Dellenty's beautifully written article for TES.

Notes on why Lily Allen is amazing

For context... 

I'm mixed, black Afro Caribbean and White British. I'm almost 30 and I live in the UK near Manchester. 

So I'd heard about Lily's new single and finally got to see it on Buzzfeed. It was awesome, amazing, hilarious. It spoke to the feminist in me, the woman in me and the 29-yr-old who is sick of this nonsense in me!

Checking the comments, several double takes were required about notes along the lines of "Hey, why you bein so racist Lily?" I had to check myself before I wrecked myself! I rewatched the video and could find nothing but satire.

It was as though they had been watching another video entirely.

For at least the past 15 years, I have seen women of all races being objectified in music videos by rap artists, directors, producers, media moguls and executives, pop stars, country stars, punks, metal bands... The list goes on. They have been props, pets, sex objects. 

Worse still, women in the music business who are stars in their own right who feel that they won't sell any records without objectifying themselves. Luckily, I had Girl Power and the forces of Spice to remind me that I was nobody's object. But what about today's young girls?

And then came Blurred Lines - surely the most mainstream song about raping a girl since... Nope, can't think of another. And this earworm got into my brain and I found myself singing it in the car. When I finally looked up the lyrics, I felt like THE WORST FEMINIST IN THE WORLD!

What is really scary is that Blurred Lines is number 2 on the Now 85 album... Disk 1, Now 85 will be on every little girls' Christmas list and with all the editing in the world, there is no escaping its message.  

Lily, your video is genius, you are entirely right. If this is where we are now, a world where an electronics manufacturer feels that it's right on to sell their products with a rape song, where will we be in 10 years? What is to come?

And as for the "Lily is a racist" commentary. Buy a dictionary, look up satire, then look up racist, then look up idiot and I'm sure you'll find your face there!

Stand Up

It's time to stand up...

A few weeks ago I posted an entry about not marching, not loudly protesting.

Well something just changed that.

This story about a woman who left a suicide note stating "I don't [blame] anyone for me death expect [sic] the government."

It can be argued that she may have been severely depressed before she received the letter confirming she would lose £80.00 per month as an "Under Occupancy Penalty". She may have had other struggles and mental health is not black and white. But on the other hand, even if the difficulties she was facing under the new Welfare Reform Act were merely a catalyst, isn't it possible to see the correlation between her finding out she was going to lose £80.00 per month of her benefits, that she would need to find or lose her home and her ultimately stepping out onto the M6?

It's time to act.

I have no idea how, although I suspect there will be a slew of protest marches across the country. I think it's time for me to start a slightly louder protest.

Now, the facts of the case are that she was offered an alternative home - but it was unsuitable, isolating her from her family and without good transport links. The Council were unable to offer her a property in the same area she had lived for over a decade, close to her family. How is this moral? And let's be clear, the way the legislation is written, this is a moral rather than a legal issue.

Will you join me? Will you stand up? 

Will you get angry with me? Will you shout?

Because I'm furious, and I KNOW I'm not the only one.

No Middle Class Anarchy

I am no middle class anarchist. I don't have the energy. I don't have that wilful disposition. Frankly, I don't have the time. I can't afford to get arrested at a peaceful protest gone wrong. I'm 28, I have a lot of life to live in front of me. When the anarchists start their revolution, I'll support their cause, but I won't risk my liberty or my future employment prospects by becoming embroiled in a loud demo. I'm not often meek, but I'll be the one silently protesting in my living room, spreading the word. Writing, talking and hoping for a better future.

Because all I can do is write and talk about the anger and deep seated despair at the status quo. It is an anger which causes my hiatus hernia to throb daily at the moment, an anger which stops me falling asleep. I just can't stop thinking.

I should probably just quit reading the paper. It's making me bitter. But I cannot be without news, whether good or bad. I can't live without knowing what is going on in the world.

I have never felt so impotent, so weak. Sometimes I get so mad that I pull out my dusty old soapbox and rant at my wife for an hour. She is very patient. How can I move forward?

I sense that this recession and this austerity will last well into my middle age. We will be hard pressed to afford the two kids, two cars and three bedrooms of our parents generation, hell we'll be lucky if we can afford to have any children at all.

I could weep.

I would love to become an MP. I feel like I could do a better job. I feel like I would use my expenses fairly and that I could live on £60,000/year without needing to charge the taxpayer for my lunch. I feel like I could create laws which force companies to pay their way. I feel like I would be able to make work pay without hurting our oldest, youngest, poorest... our most vulnerable.

Sometimes I feel so frustrated that my brain starts to leak out of my ears.

It's easy to look back with rose tinted glasses, but I remember my childhood in intimate detail. I remember walking down high streets with independent shops taking up every window, not boarded up buildings. I remember the sense of community following the Manchester Bomb, not discord, scowls and divide and rule splitting society. I remember spending Saturday nights watching family friendly television shows, not lowest common denominator titillation.

We're now a country which feeds its children chocolate for breakfast and then wonders why they weigh as many stones as their age. A first world country which throws away tonnes of food every year and yet needs a growing network of food banks to feed its children. A country where the only shops thriving on the high street are pawn brokers, payday lenders and bookies.

Can anybody give me any ideas about how we can fix things? Is it even possible? We can't go backwards. I can't go backwards. How would I cope without my dozens of channels with nothing on, without my unrestricted internet access and my 24 hour mobile connectivity? I never leave the flat without my mobile. I even watch television on my Kindle in the bath. Is it any wonder I spend my evenings with my shiny distractions? I am newly Civil Partnered and incredibly happy with my life and my wife, but I can't help looking around me at the shattered remains of a once beautiful, active, healthy, community driven country.

How can we stand up for ourselves when our leaders are happily watching the country fall to pieces?

Answers on a postcard...

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way Home From New Years

I feel the need to preface this with a disclaimer and statement...
1) I am rather tipsy at this point, so there is every chance that the story will be funnier to me than to you...
2) I am the most tolerant, open minded and liberal individual you are likely to meet (I'm a black lesbian with mental health issues currently wearing a beard for goodness sake)

So, there we were on the night bus (£5.00 no passes - thanks First, really glad that I pay £800.00/ year!) I had just finished half a bottle of wine and a Jeremiah Weed... I was a little tipsy. A seemingly nice gentleman got in the bus, followed by two gays and two lesbians. The most important part of this story is that there was a mixed race guy on the back seat... this is VERY relevant!

We got into a conversation with the gay guys about our wedding and CP/Marriage Laws (they've been CP'd since 2001) when suddenly I hear the guy behind me going what I'd call apeshit because one of the other girls on the bus had asked if he was Jewish. Now I do have a problem with this. If somebody assumed I was Jewish, or assumed I wasn't, I would just let them know you are wrong, actually this is the case. But this guy went utterly "sick" as my young cousin might say.
"You can't go around asking people questions like that..." my interest was peaked... Why not?

I'll skip forward slightly as the story is muddled in my head, but somewhere along the line, one of the gay guys points to the back of the bus and says "There's a black guy on the back of the bus, well, black or asian". I giggled and responded, "There is definitely an afro coming in there, he's black." Nickie blushed, the guy laughed and was not in any way offended.

The first man who had been asked if he was Jewish somehow totally misconstrued the situation (possibly drink related). The next ten minutes of the journey consisted of him saying - verbatim "YOU JUST TOLD ME I SHOULD SIT AT THE BACK OF THE BUS BECAUSE I'M JEWISH? YOU ARE SICK". I interjected (Nickie told me to shut up because I think she sensed trouble afoot) "No, I think you've misunderstood that..." "I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT YOU WOULD SAY THAT, YOU CAN'T SAY THAT". Meanwhile the gay guy is trying to explain "No, there's a black guy, at the back of the bus". I'm not sure if the issue was with the phrase "The Back of The Bus", perhaps if he'd said "On The Back Seat" it would have been different... but all I could think was, in another parallel universe, that black guy is sitting on the front seat, and none of this exchange has taken place... I couldn't help but laugh at that though, how utterly muddled things can get because of words and connotations and assumptions.

The guy then started going on about how you can't ask someone what their ethnicity is, you can't call somebody black. I turned to the man and said, "Since when is the word black a racial slur?" He was kinda stunned into silence. I then said "If somebody assumed I was black or asian, or a christian or not a christian, it wouldn't bother me. None of those things are offensive. In fact, I've been called gay, lesbian, dyke since I was 17, I am proud to be black, gay and a christian so I don't see those words as offensive."

"I don't practice the Jewish religion." He whispered.
"Sorry?" I said.
"I don't practice the Jewish religion." A little louder this time.

The bus stopped, I wished them all a Happy New Year and thanked them for a fun ride and apologised to the bus driver.

"I'm not a practicing heterosexual" I thought, "but it wouldn't offend me to be asked if I was one..."