Back To The Future?

I've been watching 'Ashes to Ashes' and its left me in philosophical mood. Which might seem surprising as, according to my friends, its a rather poor imitation of 'Life on Mars' - which needless to say I missed. Anyway, it has transported me back to the halcyon days of 1980s left wing politics when, to paraphrase John Osborne, there was something worth fighting for. In fact there were almost too many things to fight for. I reclaimed the night, glued up the Barclay's cashpoint, pinned my baby's clothes to the Greenham Common fence (I did remove the baby first) and fell out with my boyfriend over the dialectic. We had proper chants "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie ... Out Out Out" and it was great.

Well actually not that great and obviously not for the people who really suffered during that time. At college I was part of a group called Left Caucus where we mainly sat around looking glum and forming ourselves into factions, not helped by a diet of Smiths records. And don't even get me started on shoulder pads and the permanent damage done by years of bubble perms.

The problem is I'm not convinced that the politics of the left has moved on that much since that era and in Wales in particular there are some who would like simply to step into the Tardis and transport us back to a point where we were battling Thatcher or indeed before she was a force to be battled with. The left needs new invigorated thinking - not 1970s and 1980s retreads. Wales' small closely, almost incestuously, interrelated political and policy community can too often lead to group think and a pressure to conform to the communal singing from the 'Team Wales' hymn sheet. Challenge is the life blood of radical political thinking not consensus and we shouldn't be afraid of this. So lets fire up the quattro and see where it takes us!