After the poetry... passion and politics

I know those of you reading the last few postings have been thinking "Aye, Aye, Fekri's being all Fotherington-Thomas with his 'hullo clouds, hullo sky' offerings, but where's the politics?"

Well, gentle readers, I hesitate to jar your gentle nerves, but may I remind you that it is exactly twenty years ago since we had the great "Anti-Poll Tax" demo in London.

The tax was a fixed payment for all adults to the local council. It was unpopular, regressive, and ultimately punitive.

It had the beneficial effect of leading to the downfall of then PM, Mrs. Thatcher in the November, but because of the huge campaign of non-registration, it seriously affected the Census in 1991 (with some 1 million adults missing) and more importantly that same number becoming effectively disenfranchised in the 1992 General Election.

So despite the myth, it wasn't "The Sun what won it" in 1992. In fact, it was Kenneth Baker, William Waldegrave, Lord Rothschild, and the Dept. of the Environment with their 1986 Green Paper "Paying for Local Government" which set in train the chain of events that led to the ghastly Tories remaining in office a further five miserable years when they should have been kicked out.

So if you're thinking of voting for the Tories just for a change, "Woe, woe, and thrice woe!" as Senna the Soothsayer used to say in Up Pompeii!