Housewifery

[cosmolinguist]

Other people might plan their illicit affairs for when their husbands are away; I get excited because it means I can vacuum.

(It aggravates his asthma.)

Comments

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

So was it just me read that as being that your illicit affairs excite you for the opportunities to involve a hoover? #yourkinkisnotmykink!

[cosmolinguist]

I would guess that it is just you, yes :)

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Um, nope. Not just you LOL

[cosmolinguist]

Okay, so just her and you.

That doesn't surprise me either ;)

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

VINDICATED!!

[nodressrehersal.livejournal.com]

It's the little things.

[cosmolinguist]

I even briefly dared to burn a scented candle! (which is also like kryptonite to his breathing)

[spinningtoofast.livejournal.com]

So, completely off-topic, but how plausible is the following scenario:
1) I join the liberal democrats
2) I manage to get a vote on Nick Clegg's leadership
3) Nick Clegg loses the leadership vote
4) A more left-wing/better negotiator is elected leader of the Lib Dems and immediately announces that the party will be leaving the coalition unless major concessions on benefit cuts and less Darth Vader-ish evil are immediately granted
5)When concessions are not forthcoming, the Lib Dems do indeed leave the coalition, triggering a general election

Because, today I read in The Guardian that Tesco is 'hiring' JSA recipients to work for them, in exchange JSA (which is well below minimum wage) INDEFINITELY. And then I read that 1 in 5 mothers in the UK is skipping meals in order to ensure her children are getting enough to eat.

I am completely serious - if you tell me this is a plausible scenario, I will join the Lib Dems in order to do this. Because we are clearly at the By Any Means Necessary point.

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

This is all a lovely scenario except when we get to 6. Result of General Election.

(Also I've a strong feeling that we don't get a general election, we just get a much more pure Tory government propped up by the DUP.)

[spinningtoofast.livejournal.com]

I cannot believe that the population of the UK is so generally lacking in compassion that they would elect a Tory government. Labour's not a great deal better, obviously, but they do draw the line at widespread malnourishment and slave labour.

Or, I could move back to Canada and spend the rest of my life thanking God and Tommy Douglas for the NDP - a left-wing party that's actually vaguely left-wing.

[softfruit.livejournal.com]

Though it's all a big hypothetical, I fear you're wrong on the first part. Our instincts make us want to think otherwise, but then it's natural to spend time and conversation with people with whom we broadly agree, which tends not to be that representative of the nation.

Hence trying to look at it outside of what we wish for, and I think the Tories would ace it because of how skint everyone bar the Tories is: in 2010 the Libs spent about £3m on the election, Labour £9m and the Tories the maximum they legally could (£16m). If the Tories could have spent more, they would; Labour and the Liberals couldn't have done so, they spent all they could get their hands on.

Labour and the Libs are still in debt following that level of spending while the Tories are still nicely afloat with cash, so another election now you'd see a big bold Tory campaign and a scrimp-and-save one from the Lib and Lab alike. While there isn't a direct link from spending to votes, it'd probably make the difference in enough seats for the tiny step forward the Tories need for a majority.

There's also this depressing thought: as whoever is in power now the cuts are going to be much the same and the pain much the same (yes with nuances of difference at the individual level but still much the same in the grand sweep) - if five more years of it *does* prove unpopular with those oh so crucial swing voters, the shift away from the government that makes all those cuts if it *is* instead Labour or Lib-Lab... well, that swing puts the Tories in on their own for the following decade. After the horror of correcting the economy for the fat-of-the-land years, to *then* go on to a Conservative agenda... Mmmm, let's hold that thought while we have a nice little shudder.

So to me, this is the sadness of UKanian politics just now: we are in a bad place, but all the places we can get to from here are worse.



Canadians have lovely accents in my limited experience...

[spinningtoofast.livejournal.com]

I understand your concerns, and obviously my 'plan' isn't really serious.

However, I think we're often far too quick to accept the supposed limitations the government insists that it is working under. If nothing else, a no-confidence vote followed by a change of leadership would encourage left-leaning Lib Dems while sending a clear message to the Tories and the Lib Dem leadership that such callousness will not be meekly tolerated.

I have this argument quite a lot with people I know in Canada, who insist that we should vote Liberal to stop the Tories, even if we prefer the NDP's policies. And I always say - as long as all the Liberals have to do to get elected is be slightly less right-wing than the Tories, nothing is EVER going to change.

The same argument applies here. As long as we accept that we can't hope for better in a government, that we have to put up with the Tories for now, because Labour wouldn't be much better, than nothing will ever get better.

So, yeah, there are big holes in my 'plan'. But accepting a country where 20% of mothers are skipping meals to feed their children - that is not an option.

[spinningtoofast.livejournal.com]

I did not say that the work programme was slavery, I said they were forcing people to work for less than minimum wage (and to benefit a large corporation!). That's not 'wrongheaded', that's immoral and exploitative. And I organised against this when Labour were doing it too.

The fact that Labour are possibly just as bad does not exonerate the Tories or the Lib Dems - 2 or 3 wrongs do not make a right.

I refuse to accept a country where 1 in 5 mothers skips meals so their kids can eat. I refuse to accept that I have to vote for one of three appalling parties, choosing the 'least evil'.

When we decide that we can't do any better for now - we are essentially abdicating responsibility. You have convinced me that it is not possible to accomplish the change required through the Lib Dems - precisely because I think you ARE a good person, but you seem to have accepted that this is the best we can do for now. So I'll canvass for The Greens, and continue to work with migrant, and feminist, and anti-poverty groups. But I will not accept the current situation.

[spinningtoofast.livejournal.com]

I thought that was clearly hyperbole - 1 in 5 people skipping meals is also not widespread malnourishment.

I don't vote Labour. I'm not in the Labour party. Whatever issues you have with Labour lying, I am in no way shape or form even remotely responsible.

A lot of what you interpret as lying is also genuine honest disagreement; I am very, very sceptical, for example, about any British bill of rights.

Like I sad - I think you ARE a good person, I just disagree with you. I don't think you're dishonest or callous. I wish you could extend me the same courtesy.

And I still say that this is an unacceptable situation, and to accept it on the grounds that we can't do better is to abdicate responsibility for change.

[cosmolinguist]

I don't think we can do better than the coalition, but I think we can do good within the coalition. We are curbing the worst excesses of the Tories: you think a 27,000 debt is a lot? They'd have wanted it to be 45,000 on their own. They wouldn't have increased the income tax threshold or taken away tax breaks from wealthy people. They wouldn't have offered any opposition to the worst bits of the NHS bill or the Welfare Reform Bill. They certainly wouldn't bring in equal marriage. Yes I know these things aren't perfect and they're taking a long time. No Lib Dem is thrilled about that. But we're punching way above our weight considering we've got only a sixth of the MPs.

[spinningtoofast.livejournal.com]

We'll have to agree to disagree - I have no doubt about your good intentions, but I think that accepting the situation as it stands, even while trying to make improvements 'from within', contributes to limiting our ability to make significant and necessary changes.

[cosmolinguist]

Well infiltrating the Lib Dems to improve things from within was the idea with which you started the conversation. I am very interested in significant and necessary changes and wonder how you'd suggest we go about them.

I certainly never voted for Nick Clegg as leader, and never will.

[cosmolinguist]

Unless whatever other options I'm given are a lot worse!

[spinningtoofast.livejournal.com]

My suggestion, which was fairly tongue-in-cheek, was based on the assumption that the average Lib Dem was as furious and appalled as I was. However, as 95% think joining the coalition was the right thing to do, then I guess not. I also think that there is a general sense of helplessness among people as the political leadership class (of all the three main parties) seems completely removed and indifferent to the average person. If an ordinary group of people managed to take down the Deputy Prime Minister, that would be of enormous encouragement to all of us who are beginning to feel that nothing will stop the political class from implementing an incredibly harmful neo-liberal agenda that forces millions into economic precarity and deprivation.

So, joining the Lib Dems is out. Honestly, I don't know what to do, and I am not exaggerating when I say this actually makes me depressed (I had a fairly bad bout of depression this summer, and while a lot of factors contributed, the trigger was Ed Miliband denouncing the pensions strike and Vince Clegg saying the gov't might enact legislation to make striking harder). But 'we're doing the best we can and things could be worse' is not good enough for me, because I don't think it's ambitious enough - as long as we're content that things are not as bad as they could be, we'll never demand that things get better.

[cosmolinguist]

We're not content with the state things are in, though, at all. Not only are lots of us doing things from within the party structure -- writing motions, being delegates to Conference where we actually get to decide on our policies, doing all this work for equal marriage and so on that is invisible to most people -- but almost every Lib Dem I know is also involved in making the world better in other ways, be it No2ID, bi or trans activism, advocating for free software, electoral reform, contributing to the Spartacus Report... on and on.

You asked a very specific question, about forcing a general election, and you got very particular, not terribly optimistic answers about the likelihood and efficacy of that. If you'd asked Lib Dems if we're ambitious, I think you'd have gotten a pretty different answer.

[spinningtoofast.livejournal.com]

1) I don't think you're ambitious enough. Even before the debacle that is this government I didn't vote Lib-Dem because I felt that party's economic policies were not left-wing enough, and would not lead to an appropriate redistribution of wealth.

2) I don't think that the frame of mind 'well, things would be worse if it wasn't for us' is sufficiently ambitious, for all the reasons I've already stated

3) I don't think that the average Lib-Dem has the ear of the party leadership. I read about all these great resolutions being passed, and well done for you on doing those things, but it doesn't actually seem to have any real impact on coalition policies. I know you did a lot of organising around benefits at the last conference, and now the government is considering requiring disabled people to work for their benefits for an indefinite time frame, so...

4) I don't think Nick Clegg actually disagrees with a lot of what David Cameron is doing

5) I think where Nick Clegg does disagree, he's not good at making David Cameron listen to him. I'm sure Nick Clegg is genuinely against the detention of children. However, it's still going on, and the fact that it's being overseen by Barnardo's is not a victory for Clegg.

6) I don't think you get how angry people are. Everyone I know, other than you, who voted for the Lib-Dems has vowed never to do so again. That includes people who canvassed for the party during the last election. And whenever I try to bring this up, you insist I just don't understand how party politics works. I understand; my disillusioned friends understand; they're just not happy with the outcome and don't feel they can exonerate the Lib-Dems as easily as you do.

This whole conversation has inspired me to join the Green Party. They're small now, but if you had told me three years ago that the NDP would be Canada's official opposition now, I wouldn't have believed you - but we tripled the number of seats we held in the last election.

Oh, and when the Canadian Tories started making noises to suggest that they would try to enact some of the pension cuts that the coalition government is doing - the NDP said that there would be widespread public sector strikes, and that the NDP would throw its support behind the strikes. That's a left-wing party.

And why won't you let the anti-workfare petition appear on your livejournal? I thought you were against workfare too.

[cosmolinguist]

I don't think you get how angry people are. Everyone I know, other than you, who voted for the Lib-Dems has vowed never to do so again. That includes people who canvassed for the party during the last election. And whenever I try to bring this up, you insist I just don't understand how party politics works

Well first of all, I can't vote here so I've never voted Lib Dem, but apart from that...

When did I ever tell you you don't understand party politics? I've never even thought that. You're an intelligent and politically-aware person; I have no reason to think you wouldn't understand.

And why do you think I don't know how angry people are? I've phonebanked for the Lib Dems since the last election and I've had all kinds of vitriol spewed at me. Andrew and his dad nearly had a huge falling-out over political stuff in the last election that's still affecting their relationship. You are far from the only one to have had mental illness sparked off by political issues. And being a Lib Dem is no guarantee of not being angry!

Those people I know who have done a lot for the party have often also despaired of it lately, worried over the things it does in our name and of all the things you say here about how difficult its proving to get our party to adhere to the policies we decide at our conferences and how Nick Clegg is being either too conciliatory or not vocal enough about how he's different, and so on. Being party members doesn't mean we turn off our brains and stop caring about those things in order to toe a party line.

There is a lot you can criticize the Lib Dems on but please don't tell me I don't understand people being angry. I'm often one of them myself. I can do that and still be a Lib Dem -- I want to do that and still be a Lib Dem -- because it's a broad church, and if everybody who disagrees with the leadership left now, there'd be no hope of improving it.

And somehow I doubt that one unasked-for conversation with a couple of people who struggle mightily right now with stress and anxiety is all it takes to make you join the Green party. You said yourself that your first question was disingenuous in some way and if you didn't really want an answer to it, why did you start this unasked for conversation? It sounds to me like you'd already made up your mind about what you think about the Lib Dems -- which is fine, and as I say I am troubled about most of the things you are, I've just decided to stay a member of the party rather than join a different one -- so I don't see what the point of all this has been.

The workfare petition link was marked as spam, for some reason, and I didn't realize this for a while because there was nothing in the comment notification e-mail to say so; it looked like any other comment. You will see it is there now.

[spinningtoofast.livejournal.com]

I was being in tongue-in-cheek, but not disingenuous. If you'd said "yeah, there's a lot of anger in the party, both with the general situation in the country, and with the party leadership, and I think people are willing to take drastic measures", I would have joined and worked with you on bringing down Nick Clegg and installing better leadership. I was briefly a member of the Conservative Party of Canada in an effort to get a drag queen elected leader of the party, so I'm willing to be Machiavellian. But what you and everyone else who has commented has basically said is that you think the Lib Dems are doing as well as can be expected, and that preventing things from hypothetically being worse is good enough for now.

I'm not satisfied with that, and I wouldn't be happy in a party where the majority feel that way.

And the reason I think you don't understand that people are angry is that all I ever hear from you on the Lib Dems is how fantastic they are. There's never any hint that you are at all critical of the party yourself. Maybe you choose not to post about that, but based on your livejournal entries, I can be forgiven for assuming that you're pretty content with the status quo.

[cosmolinguist]

If you'd said "yeah, there's a lot of anger in the party, both with the general situation in the country, and with the party leadership..."

I have said that.

where the majority feel that way.

You've only talked to three Lib Dems here. The other two are friends of mine; one's married to me. They're more likely to be like little ol' disappointing me than not. I would be careful of extrapolating too much from this.... even if I agreed with your assessment of us as complacent and inactive, which I do not.

that all I ever hear from you on the Lib Dems is how fantastic they are. There's never any hint that you are at all critical of the party yourself. Maybe you choose not to post about that

I do indeed choose not to write about that here. I'm very much engaged in political circles on Twitter. I don't know anyone there who's as staid as you're accusing us all of being just because we don't think "drastic measures" are going to work solely because they are drastic. I am critical. Everybody I know is critical. I see there's a Lib Dems Against the NHS Bill that had over a thousand names yesterday, and more than a quarter of those are people who vote on our policies. A lot of us have been cheering the government's defeats over the Welfare Reform Bill, and despairing that they have to come from cross-benchers and Labour as much as Lib Dems. There is, as there has always been, dissent and argument galore amongst Lib Dems (indeed almost to a fault lately, with a couple of new factions arising recently).

I hardly say anything about the Lib Dems or UK party politics on here -- I can only find a few entries in the last year or so, all around the time of Autumn Conference, and one more about queer inclusion than anything explicitly political. I've only really talked about my efforts within LGBT+ Lib Dems, which is doing good work the Tories and Labour never would've, so I think there is good reason to be positive.

I also wrote, though, about Andrew's traumatic experience with his dad after the last election, about some of the vicious things I was told while working for the Lib Dems... I have documented my awareness of people's anger too.

[spinningtoofast.livejournal.com]

To be more precise: it's not that you don't recognise people are angry, it's that everything you ever write suggests that you think it's completely unreasonable for people to be angry at the Lib Dems. Thus, when you said that you were more disappointed (or something similar - this is not a verbatim quote) by people who use the term 'ConDem' than by the actions of the coalition government. But that suggests that it's worse to resort to facile name-calling in political debate than to force people to work for 8 weeks for well less than minimum wage for the benefit a wealthy corporation.

It's not unreasonable, or ill-informed, or mean, to disagree with that position. You look at the role of the Lib Dems in the government and see necessary compromise; other people look and see complicity with some truly appalling policies. There are good arguments to be made for both positions.

Like I said, I wasn't being disingenuous. I was assuming (or more accurately, engaging in wishful thinking) that even if you weren't writing about it, you probably were very angry, and that maybe a lot of other people were too, and ready to take drastic measures. What this conversation has convinced me of is that you're not ready to take drastic measures, and neither are the vast majority of Lib Dems.

[cosmolinguist]

when you said that you were more disappointed (or something similar - this is not a verbatim quote) by people who use the term 'ConDem' than by the actions of the coalition government

I wasn't comparing the people who say "ConDems" to the people in the government so called; I was asked an open-ended question on a silly meme about whose behavior I found depressing. And yes I do find a lot of things the government does depressing. I imagine everybody everywhere could say that. I don't consider it my duty to say at every opportunity that I am a member of a party that's in government and fucking things up. I'm also registered as a Democrat in the U.S. and if I had to list everything that disappointed me about them every time I mentioned any kind of disappointment, I wouldn't ever get to talk about anything else.

What I was actually criticizing in that comment about people who say "ConDems" is the tendency of people who say that to also be people who aren't interested in anything they don't already think, who make excuses to reject any information or ideas. There are a lot of them around, it seems, and it is depressing. I love a good debate and I hate seeing people close their minds, that's what depresses me.

As softfruit said in a comment, it's exactly like the people who used to say ZaNuLieBore about the last government, and I wholeheartedly agreed: it isn't a thing I only dislike when it's criticizing my glorious party. Far too much of political conversation seems to take place on this kind of antagonistic level, where there's no nuance, no rational thought, no careful reason, just the necessity to take sides and trade insults. That's depressing on a different level than anything any particular government does, because it negatively affects the usefulness of all political discourse.

work for 8 weeks

I'm glad to see you've amended this from the "INDEFINITELY" you started with. It's been my understanding all along that this was the extent of the program. It's quite possibly a stupid program, probably mismanaged, and it's certain some big companies are taking the piss, but exaggeration and emotve language such as calling it slavery puts a lot of people off who would otherwise really like to be on one's side.

you probably were very angry, and that maybe a lot of other people were too, and ready to take drastic measures. What this conversation has convinced me of is that you're not ready to take drastic measures, and neither are the vast majority of Lib Dems.

Again, think about how few Lib Dems you've interacted with in this conversation. Note that I didn't even engage in the part about the usefulness of trying to depose Clegg and force an election. So you've talked to two Lib Dems about that, and their reasons not to "take drastic measures" aren't exactly ideological so much as they are a practical consideration of how likely it is to improve things. Andrew campaigned for a year to change the voting system to one which would have made this "drastic action" more useful (assuming the good guys could scrounge up anything like the money the Tories have to run a proper campaign); it didn't work; we have to deal with what we got... or have a revolution, but that tends to not really do a lot for the lives of poor people in the short- or medium-term either.

It is true that 95% of the delegates at the special conference voted in favor of joining the coalition, but that's not even all the people there, much less people like me who wanted to go and couldn't, or members who didn't even want to go. I read yesterday a poll that said 13% of Lib Dems are not in favor of the coalition at this point. By talking to two Lib Dems here, you've hardly discerned the views of the vast majority.

[spinningtoofast.livejournal.com]

And, upon reflection, I do think you owe me an apology for calling me a liar. I've been nothing but gracious and polite, and repeatedly said that I think you are a good person even if I disagree with you.

[spinningtoofast.livejournal.com]

This is in no way a defense of the Labour party - Labour are appalling, which is why I vote Green. I have no doubt Labour would also be viciously targeting the poor and vulnerable.

I'm sure that Lib Dems are not intending to target the poor and vulnerable - but that is the actual impact of the government's policies. When Boris Johnson is describing the impact of the housing benefit cut as 'social cleansing', I think we can all agree that the poor and vulnerable are being disproportionately impacted.

I do think Labour would be slightly less vicious - Labour brought in Sure Start centres and the Health in Pregnancy grant (without which, I would have gone through my third trimester eating pot noodles). There are enough liberal feminists in the Labour party that someone would have noticed the disproportionate impact of the cuts on women and children and done some mild adjusting.

But you know what, even if Labour was just as bad - that does not for one minute excuse this government.

Children ARE still being detained, and Nick Clegg has admitted that the coalition will be continuing the policy (only now Barnardo's has been co-opted in order to give the appearance that the government gives a damn); any slow down in the deportation of LGB people is down to the court decision that sexual orientation was grounds for asylum, and not to any actual government compassion or policy. In fact, the government wants to seriously restrict family reunification (which is against the European Human Rights Act, but the government wants to get out of that) and also seriously restrict the rights of migrant workers. The gov't has announced its intention, for example, to change the regs governing migrant domestic workers so that the women cannot change employer - even where the employer is abusive, violent or exploitative. As domestic work is already rife with economic exploitation and sexual and physical violence, this is essentially siding with violent employers.

The new tuition policies, in themselves, as they are now, do decrease the amount students have to pay back. But, this ignores the psychological impact of a potential £27000 of debt (which is why David Davis voted against the policy). If I had been told that I might have to pay that much back when I got a job, I would have gone to uni, but a less prestigious one that offered me more scholarship money - and that's obviously not an option for those students who can't get in to the most prestigious unis, who are disproportionately from working-class backgrounds. Plus, these policies are part of the larger privatisation of English universities, and are already leading to unis being forced to close departments - and this will disproportionately impact post 1992 unis, which have a much higher enrolment of working-class and ethnic minority students. And, the gov't has admitted it can't actually afford the new policy, so look for the interest rates to go up, and the minimum income triggering repayment to go down before the next election.

Same-sex marriage coming in is, once again, because of the current court challenge. And I'll believe the elected house of lords when I see it.

I have no doubt that most Lib Dems are well-meaning, centre-left people. And that's precisely WHY 'we can't do any better right now' is so insidious. Because it leads well-meaning people to abdicate responsibility. We are in an unacceptable situation, and I, for one, won't accept it.

[spinningtoofast.livejournal.com]

The Lib-Dems were not forced to join the coalition at gun-point. They could have offered support on a bill-by-bill basis. We have had several minority govts operate this way in Canada without triggering the apocalypse.

As long as the Lib Dems are in the coalition, than they are complicit, and yes, it is their fault.

[spinningtoofast.livejournal.com]

One thing I'm going to do is sign this, and I encourage everyone to do likewise:


Petition to Abolish Work for your Benefit/Workfare Schemes in the UK

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/29356

[jem0000000.livejournal.com]

It aggravates my asthma, too, but not having a considerate housewife on hand, I am reduced to bribing my roommate to vacuum my bedroom while I am away.

On the other hand, $5 is considerably cheaper than the average cost of a wedding these days. ;)