Straight Outta Crouch End

In November of 2019 I got caught in a current that swept me out to sea, in the icy waters of the channel at Cayeux-sur-Mer in Picardy. To begin with I fought back, even taking a certain pleasure in pitting my body against the sea's relentless churn, but eventually realised I was no match for the great swell that surrounded me, and let my body drift along, looking back towards the beach's pearlescent grey shingle in the distance, and the cheerful row of beach huts beyond the boardwalk. I checked myself for signs of fear: no palpitations, no shiver; my mind was a peaceful void and I felt, as did the poet Giuseppe Ungaretti before me in his poem 'Rivers', at one with water and the world. In that instant, finally, I was able to forget the agonised screams of the customers I had air-rifled to death in my local post office the year before.   Perhaps I should skip back a little. How did I get here? Was I always destined to become an adept of wild swimming?  My chief memory of ...

 I wish to leave Labour, in protest at what I see as the lack of direction in the party, the lack of communication, of cut-through to the electorate, and more importantly the apparent lack of any leftwing political convictions with which to oppose Tory misrule. How can we be trailing so badly in the polls afters years of austerity, over 120,000 dead of Covid, Brexit, Grenfell, the Windrush scandal, stealth privatisation of the NHS, increased child poverty - and what now seems to be the next Tory scandal, the cronyism & corruption of government. Why is Labour out of step with public opinion on corporate tax? Why are we concentrating wholesale on a wretched campaign to renew patriotism, when this will increase already rampant nationalism? I also believe that the party's authoritarian streak, its big talk on cannabis and policing, errs towards dogwhistle racism which is wrong and which will do us no favours.  Finally, our leader, Keir Starmer, appears to lack the moral compas...