Reflections of a stormy petrel

Monbiot is rather extremistic for my taste - he has more than a smidgen of the conspiracy theorist (it may be that the articles of his I used to read in The Guardian don't show him at his best). And as for PFI, I do not actually like to discuss it, because it is something that I cannot change or do anything about. I feel very strongly that, in embracing a Tory agenda, Blair has betrayed his electors; but it also means that there is no real opportunity to change matters in any significant way. The effective and cloying coalition at the top means that we plebs will be fed PFI whether we want to or not. Just consider this: Ken Livingstone was elected with an overwhelming majority (I am speaking of his first election) on a platform opposing the partial or total privatization of the Tube; only to have it forced down his and every Londoner's throat by a brooding, vindictive Scot who has no more to do with London than George W.Bush with downtown Baghdad. This is an insult to democracy, and one of the many reasons why I am violently prejudiced against PFI. To have it defended in my own LJ in such a high-handed manner (and with a crying spelling mistake in the first few lines) was not designed to rub me the right way.