Have You Paid To Use That Swing?

This will be a blog in 2 parts.

Part 1

I'm waiting until i've watched some highlights before i write much about the Forest match yesterday, there's a few incidents i need to watch again with the advantage of other camera angles and slow mo etc, but i can say that i'm very dissapointed we didn't win, we only have ourselves to blame and i would be shocked if we make it to the Wembley final now.

Part 2

The majority of people who know me at all or have even just read a couple of the more politically orientated posts i've wrote will be aware that i am very much left of centre politically and have a fairly low view of the Conservative party and a lot of the policies they promote. I try quite hard to stay away from just angrily criticizing the Tories because i acknowledge my own bias in most matters.

However there are times when it almost seems that the Conservative Party is trying to tempt me into ranting with some of the policies they advocate.

There's the proposed plans to close child hear surgery units (ironically something the NO campaign blamed on a YES vote for AV), or the cuts to Disabled Living Allowance that i wrote about on Wednesday, the whole tuition fees debate or especially the £6b tax write off for Vodafone.

The one that provoked me to write something today is not as serious as some of the above but it made me laugh because it's the kind of story that i believed must have been made up by an anti-Tory satirist because it seems so farcical, money driven and joyless. Yes, that's right, a Conservative council in London wants to charge children to play in a public playground. Children should be allowed to play in parks without having to pay for the 'privilege'. £2.50 to play in a playground, to do something that is such a traditional and positive element of childhood. What's next? Different tiers of access? If you pay £2.50 you're allowed to go on the climbing frame and the roundabout, £3.00 if you want to go on the swings and slide as well, and for those parents who really want to spoil their child how about the £5.00 queue jump ticket which allows your child to push any other children off the piece of playground equipment they want with impunity.

It's like they want to be vilified and hated, it's reminiscent of Maggie Thatcher "the milk thief" and i just find it bizarre to realise that my parents weren't exaggerating how, from my point of view, bad the Tories are. They had always talked about the 70s and 80s under Thatcher as this incredibly dark time and despite undoubtedly being influenced by that i also assumed they were straying deliberately into hyperbole, poking fun at the caricature of the Conservative Party. But 1 year under a majority Conservative coalition and i'm forced to accept that if anything, they down played that particular period of history.

The video for today's song has had embedding disabled but if you click here you'll find "The Groundhogs - Split part 1" and i hope you'll agree that it's a damn good song.