Hello and welcome to the wonderful Mr. Matthew Barker who has recently joined the blogsphere. He has some terrible political views but he’s also a ginger so he can’t be that bad. I’ve added a link to his blog over in the links section and I warmly recommend you go and check it out.
In other news, the election is over and I can’t say I’m delighted with the result, although this coalition lark seems like a jolly wheeze for all concerned. Not the best outcome for the conservatives though given the election result – opposition would have been the quickest way to a Tory landslide – probably within the year, but actually I’m not sure a Tory landslide would have been the best option for the country either, all told. From my last post you could be forgiven for thinking that I’m a raving Thatcherite but nothing could be further from the truth. It is true that when it comes to the economy I have a more right-wing outlook, but when it comes to social justice issues I’m as left wing as they come, and the only reason I’ve been able to support the Tories unreservedly and with a clear conscience throughout their recent campaign has been because of their astounding commitments to social justice issues coming through the likes of IDS.
And it seems to be paying off. So far, we’ve seen nothing but good announcements from the Con-Dem coalition on this front – raising the tax-free allowance to £10,000 – increase of CGT to 40% – 5% pay cut for ministers – to name but three – and I think the liberal democrat influence has really helped with that. It’s given Cameron the permission to embrace his centrist instincts whilst simultaneously legitimising distancing himself from the extreme Tory right, and similarly it’s allowed Clegg to ditch some of his party’s more extreme loony-left policies without a big scrap. Both parties stand to loose a few supporters and possibly a few MPs, but the end result is probably worth it. Time will tell.
Anyway, there are other reasons to celebrate. It’s been a while since I’ve properly updated this blog, but the last few months have seen me win two awards for film-making.
The first was for a screenplay that I wrote for an American competition called “Write of Passage”, closely linked to the 168 project that I entered last year, and again this year – Judith and I flew out to Hollywood last month to see our film screen at the 168, and I’ll be linking an online version here in due course (sadly I never managed to get last year’s offering online, but this years already is, I just need to post the link).
Then just a couple of weeks ago I entered, along with my disgustingly talented collaborator Anita Wadsworth, Croydon Film Festival’s 48 hour challenge, and to our combined great shock we won that as well. The finished film is called “Tying the Knot” and we will hopefully be posting that online too in due course. You can read a piece on it here:
http://www.performance-insurance.tv/blog.aspx
Spurred on by this, I’m currently simmering with two other projects which could be very interesting. More info as and when there is some.
