Yesterday was an interesting, and perhaps a little dispiriting, day, politically. We had the decision from a high court judge to ban BA strikers from exercising their democratic right to withdraw their labour (TRIGGER WARNING: about halfway down that site there's a picture of Willie Walsh's pug-ugly face); more worryingly still, there was the bitter irony that, on the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, when even police stations flew the rainbow banner, we had to put up with an administration that sees nothing wrong with employing someone as bigoted as Theresa May as Equalities Minister, no less, and appointing Philippa Stroud, sometime nemesis of this blog and, you will recall, a woman who, in the year 2010, still believes in demonic possession, as an advisor. To reiterate: we now live under a government happy to take advice from someone who believes that evil wee beasties crawl into people and make them do naughty things because the divil tells 'em to, (Mrs Stroud has yet to comment on how these beasties gain entrance to people, but this writer reckons it must be through the arse).
A lot has been written about how the Tories are repealing some of the more repressive measures introduced by Labour during the suck-up-to-Bush era (and let's be honest, a lot of the Cleggeron's repeals are made much easier by the fact that the US has a much more liberal Commander-in-Chief now, so illiberal measures can be scrapped safe in the knowledge that it won't damage the Special Relationship), but I have to admit it: I'm afraid. I think it's a trick, a ruse. I worry that in maybe a few years, tops, if this government is still in power, we'll see their true colours. We'll see them try to rein in all the great social changes of the last thirteen years as they shamelessly court the Daily Mail tendency. They'll try to reintroduce Section 28, make it harder for gay couples to have kids, eliminate protections for trans people and, oh yeah, all that stuff about 'efficiency savings' in the NHS? Three guesses where that axe is gonna fall...
But then I read something like what Penny Red wrote the other day, and I think: FUCKING YESSSS. Cameron hasn't won the election, and if he and his trolls pick a fight with everyone who's danced out of the closet since Thatcher and her ilk were given the boot - indeed, with all the people who fought to smash down the closet door during Thatcher's reign - he won't, and can't win. Because all the LGBT people who can live more openly since Tony Blair came into power won't be shoved back into the darkness, and the vast, progressive majority of people in this country who aren't gay, bi, lesbian or trans, but maybe have friends or relatives who are, or who just notice how much nicer the country seems now we aren't, Jan Moir aside, picking on minorities so openly and viciously anymore, won't stand for it either.
So, as worrying as it is to witness days like yesterday, and the fears they bring: let them bloody try. Because we'll try harder, and we'll stop them. And in that spirit, here's a poem I posted on Write Out Loud yesterday in an attempt to deal with these concerns. Remember, folks: we fight 'em 'til we can't.
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