Quirky things about Belgium, #832

Please humour me while I engage in the tiniest of moans.

Imagine you run a newsagent's at Bruxelles Midi, the busyish international train station. You store a more-than-reasonable number of foreign newspapers. But times are hard for everyone, so you need to cut back. When do you think it is best to cut back on British publications: two months before a potentially historic election, or two month afterwards, when the excitement has died down, the country (perhaps) has a government again, and expats have stopped feeling guilty for deserting their homeland in its hour of need?

And then, once you've made this critical decision, which newspaper will you keep? I am not asking for The Observer, which is not to everybody's taste, and which I have in any case vowed to boycott forever more. (Though they've printed a letter from me this week, so I would quite like to see it.) But perhaps the Sunday Times, which is moderate enough that some Labour voters have been known to buy it, admittedly mainly for its Style section?

No. You go for the Sunday Telegraph. Because most British expats living in the capital of Europe, many of them working for one of its institutions, would not, I'm sure, be in any way opposed to Mr Cameron's views on the EU or to any of his other policies.

But then, although Belgium has many strengths, I have long since discovered that good business sense is not one of them.

My name is Claire, and I'm a Liberal Democrat. I think.

The biggest surprise of this election for me will not be the result: I think its sheer unpredictability has robbed it of its ability to shock. (Though I hope I'm wrong - thank you Guardian for reminding me of that Portillo moment from 1997. Moments like that are worth staying up for!)

No, the biggest surprise is that I appear to be a Liberal Democrat.

Maybe it was the TV debates and how Nick Clegg was so inspiring. Or maybe it was the nausea that David Cameron's shiny face triggers in the pit of my stomach, and the thought that it's unlikely Gordon will be able to beat him.

Or maybe it's the following...

1) I'm a Liberal Democrat for all the reasons I used to be Labour. And I've been Labour since I was 16 and began to understand politics thanks to A Level Sociology (thank you Mrs Garrod and Mr Archer of Kirkley High School). I've been a paying member on and off (too disorganised for much more than that) and even at times an active one, if by active you mean going along to monthly consituency meetings. I wish I'd known then I'd be writing novels, because the characters I met there could populate them. But that's another, erm, story.

My main reason for having been Labour was this: I believe in a more equal distribution of wealth, and I believe the Government should facilitate this, including and perhaps primarily through a progressive tax system. So when Nick Clegg says he wants to raise the income tax threshold to £10,000, that pushes my buttons a little more than, say, Labour abolishing the 10p tax rate or David Cameron letting the rich off estate tax.

That's my main reason.

But, also.

2) I believe in proportional representation. I can't see what could possibly be fairer. I don't think there should be such a thing as a wasted vote; if there wasn't, perhaps turnout would be higher; perhaps people would be more engaged. Which, surely, in a democracy, are all good things.

3) Those who haven't yet unfollowed me on twitter in disgust will no doubt close this blog right now. But the thing is, I'm pro Europe. Well, someone has to be. I dislike our isolationist attitude, and I'm not sure about allying ourselves less with our closest neighbours than we do with the US with all their talk (albeit historial) of "freedom from the British".

So there you go. I'm posting this early on 7th May, and still no one knows what's going to happen. And there's one constituency I'd really rather the Lib Dems had not taken, so now I'm confused, all over again.

Perhaps I'm still Labour after all.

A leftie's take on Philippa Stroud

I’ve known Philippa Stroud all of my adult life, and it’s no secret to my friends that she has been something of a role model to me. Yes, you read that right, and yes, I am talking about the same Philippa Stroud who was vilified in yesterday’s Observer.

Highly intelligent, capable, and articulate, deeply compassionate, she longs to see people be all they can be. And she wants this country to be a better place. We may disagree politically on how to get there, or even what it looks like, but I’ve never once doubted her sincerity or her motives.

It’s tempting to go through the article line by line and rebut each inaccuracy.

But instead, I want to ask this:

The authors clearly did their homework, for example picking apart her book God’s Heart for the Poor. I wonder if at any point they noticed the time, energy and effort that she tirelessly poured into working to help others. The sacrifices she made. And the big heart with which she did it. Did they notice any of that, or were they too busy skim-reading for words like “gay” and “demons”?

Have they met Philippa, spoken to her, heard the stories of the hundreds of people she has inspired or helped or counselled or to whom she has helped restore confidence and dignity?

I am a leftie, and a proud one. I do not want a Conservative government. But I would be more than happy to live in a country run by people like Philippa Stroud.