Green shoots

I had a choice of what to write to go with this picture. After all, to those of us of a certain age, 'green shoots' makes us think of former chancellor Norman Lamont (whom I once prevented from coming in the back entrance to our school fair).

Of course, back then it was a bit different. In the dark days of recession, Lamont was keen to convince voters that a recovery was on its way. These days, the Tory agenda is radically different; prolonging the perception of recession allows the ideologically driven - and otherwise pointless yet hugely damaging - changes to our society that this government seems maniacally determined to see through.

Fundamentally, the issue is with our press. Privately owned for the most part, in some cases by enormously wealthy men who don't even pay tax in this country, they deliver a steady diet of poison which sees the poor and undefended parts of this nation of people whose characteristics include, ironically, compassion and instinctive desire to favour the underdog. Why have we let them twist us like this.

Such is my current dislike of the press that I don't even feel inclined to listen to my old favourite, the Today programme on Radio 4. However, on the way over to the office, this morning, I couldn't resist turning it on and I ended up listening to a debate about Russia's behaviour. Frankly, the west's posturing has just made me despair of our democratic system, which seems to elect people who are entirely unrepresentative of the rest of us. However, one of the participants in the debate was Liam Halligan, who was bright, articulate, proportionate, non-partisan and, therefore, quite perplexing to the show's presenter. Why can't we have people like him in power?

Anyway, I could have written about all that but maybe I'll just say that winter feels like it's almost behind us and that summer might becoming. It's not a particularly ambitious dream but I'm looking forward to spending the evening in a pub garden.