The sun is shining and maybe Scotland will win

I decided to edit my blogsite- deleting the oldest stuff to make way for the new. A bit like a spring clean. It's a lovely spring morning - the first snowdrops are peeping through, the birds are in full voice and we were at a wedding last night. Things feel full of promise and it lifts the mood.
Council meeting on Thursday - these are the dog days of the Administration, the lull before the storm of elections. Only the Budget is of real importance then the long slog of an election campaign.
Usually I like elections. Win or lose, elections are what politics are about. Connecting to people with ideas, with words, with personality. Been fighting elections since 1979 now - that's a lot of campaigning. I've always tried to campaign positively but I sense 2007 could be a negative, dispiriting affair as all parties fight it out for the middle ground. I don't think the public like it but public optimism is thin on the ground and political campaigns usually reflect the mood of the moment; seen Labour both thrashed and triumphant and will see them thrashed and triumphant again. Politics is a cycle - like the seasons.

I do feel sorry for Mr Blair. Love him or loathe him, he has presided over the most fundamental changes and the most prolonged period of economic success the UK has ever known. Yet this must be the sorriest fin de siecle - a labour government caught up in a scandal it can't shake off about baubles for already very rich men for whom, frankly, the question of a knighthood or a peerage should be immaterial. Their validation comes from their own success. What kind of self made magnate would view an honour they know they've had to pay for as something worth having? It would just be a case of the emperor's clothes and I don't get it. And I do question whether a man as clever as Blair - lawyer as well as politican -would let himself be embroiled in something as mucky. The whole thing puzzles me. I think I would also like to know a little bit about the officer who's investigating the case - his/her personality and motives are important in this too. Like a referee at a football match, the investigating officer has a critical role in the outcome. Ah well...greater brains than mine will be pondering over this dilemma and it will all come out in the end. The worst part is, it all adds to public disillusionment.

However: the birds are still singing and the sun is still shining and maybe there will be a decent referee when Hearts meet Dunfermline in the fourth round and maybe Scotland will beat England in the Calcutta Cup - as someone famously said: things can only get better!