I seem to be spending a lot of my time getting angry at politics at the moment. This is a good thing as it stems from a stirring from the torpor of defeat I've been in since the neo-liberal and neo-conservative revolution of the eighties, an old leftie dreaming of the "lost cause", the miners strike left me pretty traumatised, but increasingly now I feel as if there is a resurgence of people power against the arrogant depredations of our "masters", a rising tide from below that may topple the odious old boys club of the privileged and entitled that run the world for their gain and sod the majority of humanity. I credit my new found optimism to the Referendum, the campaign (even though it didn't end in the result I wanted) showed that at least North of the border the people were flexing their muscles, feeling their strength and getting off their arses. I've been down here in the Deep South a bit too long, feeling the will to fight draining away with every election cycle as so many of the English working class deferentially tug their forelocks and put a cross next to whatever chinless public school boy puts on a blue rosette while the Labour Party has turned into diet Tory. A while back I tore up my party card and sent the pieces to Ed Miliband but it's taken me till now to finally get past the last hurdle of an old allegiance and desert them as a voter, I'm never going to vote again for a party that doesn't represent my views just so the even nastier thatcherites don't get in, a futile act anyway in this safe Tory constituency, I might as well not have bothered. I really think there's every chance this next election may be a game changer, not in its immediate result - one or other of the Etonian/Oxbridge/austerity/free-marketers will form a coalition with somebody - no, I think there's an opportunity for the electorate to finally get the message across that there has to be a change of direction, change in our broken democracy and if there isn't then there will be a price to pay. Tariq Ali recently called for a new mass movement, a new Grand Remonstrance, I think the time is ripe for it if only we can weld together the disparate grass roots groups that are gathering momentum, unite them around shared core demands, a new Chartist movement for the 21st century. One things for sure, if we carry on as we are things are going to explode...fetch your pitch forks and flaming torches.