It was probably always going to happen. Despite the desperate pleas of my partner - "Oh, please don't start blogging!" - it was pretty much inevitable that I would succumb. First Facebook, then Twitter - it was only really a matter of time.
I've never been short of opinions, or of voicing them, and have found that I need somewhere to vent my spleen (since May,increasingly so). In the end, it was at the suggestion of the lovely GuerrillaMum that I got started.
I won't promise great coherence, but I will do my best to let you know what's bugging me. In the main it will be the coalition.
Especially Education.
Having spent all my working life working for local authority education departments and with two kids in the system (one with special educational needs), I am fearful of what's being done by that archetypal school swot Michael Gove. Not just cross, fearful.
It's the same with the NHS, on which we rely very heavily and from which we have always (under Labour) had exceptional service provision.
And Housing. We're lucky to have bought our own house before prices got silly and as long as I can find a job and my partner (working for a local authority) doesn't lose his (I know, that's a lot of assumptions!), we at least know that we have a roof over our head. Which is more than can be said for anyone unfortunate enough not to be able to buy - either a temporary council/HA property or the private rented sector, none of which will in future give you any real security of tenure. Built-in transience and no foundation on which to build communities.
The country is in a mess but not because of the last administration. Because of the unprincipled avarice of a minority of people too wealthy to need the state and who therefore think it isn't needed. Who are now being propped up by others like them.
This blog will be political. It won't be as beautifully argued as some out there, but it will be heartfelt. I had better go away now and think about what I want to say. and how best to say it.