Re:shuffle

Dear son of mine, how nice it must be to be a baby. When you wake up singing every morning one or other parent (usually your mum, I'm not going to lie) comes into your room and is treated to a beaming smile. You are a happy little soul. Your only care in the world is the array of teeth jostling for position beneath your gums.

I envy you.

Soon enough you will wake up and watch the news. If you had done that this morning you'd have heard that a man in London, a man who shares your name but, with luck, nothing else, had made some changes to his team of Cabinet ministers which he'd be announcing later in the day.

You could have gone to work, wondering whether Mr Cameron had decided that the policies his government have pursued since their (sort of) election in 2010, the policies which caused his Chancellor to be booed by eighty thousand spectators at the London Paralympic Games last night, policies I believe are designed to alienate and demonise the disadvantaged people in our society in order to make the rest of the electorate think it's okay to remove the support the state gives them.

Deep down, you'd probably know that was unlikely. That Cameron wouldn't be changing his mind about the correctness of any of his party's policies. That the next two years will just feature more of the same.

More of DavCam's smug-faced, earnest assurances that everything they do is for the greater good. More of George Osborne's unbearable smirk in response to any questioning of his methods.

Actually, that's not strictly true. The changes to the Cabinet mean the next two years might be EVEN WORSE. Yay! The appointment of Jeremy Hunt to replace Andrew Lansley as Health Secretary could have implications for abortion rights (he doesn't like the idea of them being allowed more than twelve weeks into a pregnancy, okay ladies? I'm sure you'll understand). Not only that, Mr Hunt voted in favour of homeopathy hospitals. Maybe it's this vote that got him the job; infinitesimally small quantities of dubiously effective ingredients dissolved into lots of water are probably a cheaper treatment for cancer than the latest drugs, and we all know how important it is to reduce the deficit (it is, but is it really so hard to find some ways to do it that don't involve fucking over everyone on the way?)

There are other appointments, but, to be honest, I stopped paying too much attention. I already know I don't like the way the Tories vote on a wide range of issues. Putting a different, equally unqualified, Tory into a new role doesn't really mean anything more than a furtherance of the nastiness already happening. Same shits, different day.

The silver lining, I suppose, is that surely after another two years of this there won't be too many swing voters ticking the Tory box on their ballot? Labour may be (are) far from perfect, and I may never forgive the Liberal Democrats for looking like a real alternative and then capitulating to almost every Tory whim, but this current lot make my skin crawl. Make me want to divorce myself from the whole system, so low is my belief in it.

This isn't the first Tory government I've lived through, but it's the first I'll remember. I'm happy that you won't remember it Cam, because I want you to have whatever perfect happy thoughts are in your head now for as long as possible, and I'm pretty sure you're not dreaming about your namesake.

Health Visitor

My wife had her first appointment with the health visitor yesterday.  I wasn't there, I was sat in an office thinking about cheese and biscuits.

The health visitor asked my wife whether she knew much about the role of the health visitor.  My wife did not.  The health visitor told her all about her role.  My wife listened and later recounted it to me.  The key words used were: intrusive and surprising.

Neither of us had any idea that the health visitor would be keeping an eye on us/judging us until our little one is five years old.  Neither did we realise that if we take our baby/toddler/infant to A&E the health visitor will be notified and we may be paid an additional visit.  My wife especially liked answering the questions about her childhood, my childhood (because she's an expert on that, obviously) as well as our own relationship.

All these things and more are covered in your first conversation with this person who you don't know, have no relationship with or trust of.  I'm sure she's lovely and everything, and just doing her job, but I bet she's also on a pretty hefty power trip.

Anyway, we now have a nice book from the NHS, which says "explore", "grow" and "child" on it, the last of which is presumably just in case you'd forgotten what was going on.  I haven't read it yet, but I have had a quick look through.  It looks good.  Plus it didn't ask me any questions, which was a bonus.  All the children on the cover look really happy, and none of their parents look like they've been awake since 4am dealing with a tantrum, which is probably a bit dishonest.  

I think at least one of them ought to have their head cradled in their hands, a mug of steaming coffee next to them and a look of fraught horror on their faces.  I'd be more inclined to believe in it then.

Perhaps that's why the health visitor asks those questions.  To make us realise it's real.  I think we knew that anyway (especially my wife, with under three weeks to go now it'd be quite hard for her not to realise).