Politics. Because of my experiences as an adult over 70 years, it worries me when I see that those in Labour are proposing David Miliband as the next leader. He has been a member of Parliament for seven years, and held three successive posts as Minister of State, each for about a year. The worry, because a general election is on the horizon, is that if Miliband is appointed, our three main parties will have relatively young and inexperienced men as potential Prime Ministers. I believe that the mess we are in is due to the fact of Gordon Brown’s inexperience. It therefore follows that none of these young men should have over all, unquestioned responsibility, as has been the case since the landslide that took Blair into office. I remember the landslide that brought Labour to power in the 40s, and others since. An overall, unassailable majority is tantamount to dictatorship, and should be avoided at all costs. I think it unlikely that we would be fighting two wars and facing destitution if Labour had not had an overall majority. There are good people in all the parties, and their views at times of serious content should bear weight. I just hope that the electorate, in the next election, in apathy and frustration, will not take the easy way out of getting rid of Labour, but think long and hard of what they’re doing.
The Internet. I have been very unsuccessful in my dealings on the Internet. So it worries me when I am forced by commercial forces to have dealings on the Internet, or have to pay an excess for a bill in paper form. We are urged to have a care when making financial transactions on the Internet, that we don’t give away vital information. It seems that all in the government and business, are under the impression that everyone is computer literate and owns a computer. This of course is nonsense, but if those to whom it does not apply have to pay more to transact, the elderly and the underprivileged will yet again be disadvantaged further.
Verbal Talk-Talk contract. Anyone with any wit will not enter into a contract of any substance on the telephone, but the other day, Talk-Talk, forced me to do just that. I had a 20 minute monologue on the telephone with a gentleman who clearly was speaking from the subcontinent, and insisted that I listened to, and presumably tried to understand, all that he had to say, concerning the fact that my telephone lines and broadband were being switched to his company. I stated I was 85, was partially deaf and had no wish to continue with the discussion, all to no avail. He even had the outrageous cheek to say that as he was recording it, the discussion itself was a verbal contract, and that I would be receiving a written contract later. To me this was totally crazy. He insisted I sit while he read, and if I tried to stop him or question him, he would only go back and reiterate. If they were sending me the information what was the point in making me let my lunch go cold while he was feeding me information that represented pages, of which only some would be remembered, and call it a verbal contract. It seems big business has no respect for the individual, makes up its own rules, irrespective of whether they make sense or not. – the steamroller syndrome.